Tag Archives: symphony

“Danse Macabre” the Rock Version

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If you are not familiar with the musical work “Danse Macabre” by Camille Saint-Saens, Wikipedia describes it as:

Danse macabre, Op. 40, is a tone poem for orchestra, written in 1874 by the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. It is in the key of G minor. It started out in 1872 as an art song for voice and piano with a French text by the poet Henri Cazalis, which is based on an old French superstition.[1] In 1874, the composer expanded and reworked the piece into a tone poem, replacing the vocal line with a solo violin part.

Danse macabre (Saint-Saëns) – Wikipedia

However, before the “old French superstition”, Danse Macabre was a medieval allegory for the universality of death.

Several versions of the classical Saint-Saens work can be found on YouTube and around the web. This is the only rock version I have found to date. I like it, though it is considerably briefer than the original work.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

“Zombie” Dark Orchestral Version by Lucas King

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Scary Classical Music

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I was trying to think of a symphony I once heard that was positively frightening (in a good, exciting way), so I searched the Internet and found this page “The Twenty Scariest Pieces of Classical Music”.

This is an interesting list. It does have the piece I was searching for (“Danse Macabre”) and several others that I have heard previously and that I also found quite scary. It also includes some movie themes that I would classify as thrilling or exciting rather than scary, such as the theme from The Twilight Zone and Night on Bald Mountain (the list calls it Night on Bare Mountain, which could be a possible alternate translation).

Please check these out. They are beautiful, intense works by master composers. You will enjoy them.

You may be able to find these on Alexa, YouTube, or some other streaming service.