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London - Robinson Arena // 1663
The meaning of life is that it stops.
The
danse macabre is a medieval allegory.
Before the 13th century, medieval artists in Europe depicted death as something peaceful, having complete confidence in Christian precepts and the guarantee of eternal life.
However, the troubled times of the Late Middle Ages led to a new attitude towards death: the people of Europe lived in constant fear of dying by disease, famine, or war, and the idea behind the danse macabre is that no matter what one’s station in life – rich or poor, strong or weak – all people are made equal in death.
A legend arose surrounding this allegory: Each year on at midnight on Halloween, Death comes to a cemetery to play his violin. All the skeletons rise from their graves and tombs when they hear Death’s music, and they begin to dance. They dance beneath the trees, and in the moonlight.
There are kings, and queens, and peasants, and children, all dancing together through the night.
When day breaks, and the rooster crows, Death stops playing, and the skeletons return to their rest until the same time the next year, when Death will return to play for them once more.
Just like a poem uses descriptive words to illustrate a story or an idea, a tone poem uses music.
Here are some of the ways you will hear the music illustrating the action from the poem:
- The harp plucks twelve notes - the stroke of midnight, the hour at which Death comes to start his dance.
- The zig-zag of the violin solo is Death, playing a jig on his violin!
- The flutes blow a haunting tune, like the wind blowing through the trees in the cemetery.
- As the skeletons dance, you can hear the rattling of their bones on the bells of the xylophone.
- The oboe calls out the piercing crow of the rooster, announcing the dawn, and the skeletons return to their rest.
Posted 12/26/2024, 2:00 PM