Danse macabre (Saint-Saëns)

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. In 1874, the composer expanded and reworked the piece into a tone poem, replacing the vocal line with a solo violin.

Analysis

Danse Macabre

Dance of Death, also called Danse Macabre (from the French language), is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the Dance of Death unites all. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or personified Death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and labourer. They were produced to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest recorded visual scheme was a now-lost mural in the Saints Innocents Cemetery in Paris dating from 1424 to 1425.

Paintings

The earliest recorded visual example is from the cemetery of the Church of the Holy Innocents in Paris (1424–25). There were also painted schemes in Basel (the earliest dating from c.1440); a series of paintings on canvas by Bernt Notke, in Lübeck (1463); the initial fragment of the original Bernt Notke painting (accomplished at the end of the 15th century) in the St Nicholas' Church, Tallinn, Estonia; the painting at the back wall of the chapel of Sv. Marija na Škrilinama in the Istrian town of Beram (1471), painted by Vincent of Kastav; the painting in the Holy Trinity Church in Hrastovlje in Istria by John of Kastav (1490). There was also a Dance of Death painted in the 1540s on the walls of the cloister of St Paul's Cathedral, London with texts by John Lydgate, which was destroyed in 1549.

Danse Macabre (novel)

Danse Macabre is the fourteenth book in the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series of horror/mystery/erotica novels by Laurell K. Hamilton.

Explanation of the title

Danse Macabre is French for Dance of Death. The phrase historically refers to a late-medieval allegory of the universality of death, in which Death personified summons people to the world beyond the grave despite their objections. Originally a dramatic performance, in the centuries since it has been represented in art, poetry, and music.

The modern superstition is simply that "Death" appears at midnight every year on Halloween. He calls forth the dead from their graves to dance for him while he plays his fiddle. The skeletons dance until the rooster crows at dawn, when they must return to their graves until the next year.

Within the novel, "Danse Macabre" is the name of the vampire ballet company that performs during the course of the novel's events. It also refers to the general "vampire politics" that serve as the central conflict in the plot. Although "Danse Macabre" is also the name of a vampire-themed nightclub owned by Jean-Claude, the nightclub appears only briefly at the end of this novel.

List of Grimm episodes

Grimm is an American dark fantasy crime drama television series created by Stephen Carpenter, David Greenwalt and Jim Kouf. It debuted on NBC on October 28, 2011. The series follows homicide detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) who learns that he is a descendant of a group of hunters known as "Grimms", who fight to keep humanity safe from the supernatural creatures of the world. As of February 12, 2016, 97 episodes of Grimm have aired.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (2011–12)

Season 2 (2012–13)

Season 3 (2013–14)

Season 4 (2014–15)

Season 5 (2015–16)

Webisodes

Bad Hair Day

Meltdown

Love Is in the Air

Nielsen ratings

References

External links