Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre: A Study in Orchestral Excerpts

Instagram post number 666 was a special post. When I think of 666, I think of a really bad cold medicine, but that’s another story.

Most people think of the devil when they hear that number. Rather than playing an excerpt from Symphonie Fantastique, which would be the obvious choice, I picked a piece that started with a tri-tone.

A tri-tone is a musical interval that was for a long time synonymous with the devil. The dance of death, or “Danse Macabre” by Camille Saint-Saens is a tone poem which depicts Death summoning the dead to dance for him at midnight on Halloween while he plays the violin.

After the harp and strings begin the piece, the solo violin enters playing a tri-tone (A natural against Eb) to represent the devil.

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