Danse Macabre [Flute Quartet]

《Danse macabre》 is a composition by the French composer, pianist, and organist Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921). Saint-Saëns composed four symphonic poems during his lifetime, and this work is arguably the most famous among them. It was originally composed in 1872 as a song with piano accompaniment, and the orchestral version was created in 1874.
Based on the macabre poem by French poet Henri Cazalis, the work depicts the eerie scene of skeletons dancing in a graveyard at night. The piece is in G minor, 3/4 time, and marked "Mouvement modéré de valse" (moderate waltz tempo). It follows the narrative of the poem. A solo violin uses the dissonant interval of A and E♭ to create a death-like atmosphere. The melody of the Gregorian chant "Dies Irae" is hinted at as the skeletons dance their waltz.
The xylophone melody, which represents the sound of skeletons' bones clashing, was also used in "Fossils," the 12th movement of his later work, 《The Carnival of the Animals》.
This arrangement for flute quartet aims to reconstruct the piece to achieve the unique sound characteristic of a flute quartet. (Yuto Yamada)