Born:
October 9, 1835
, Paris, France
Died:
December 16, 1921
, Algiers
The Artist:
Charles Camille Saint-Saens was a French composer and performer. His most famous piece is The Carnival of the Animals, despite the fact that Saint-Saens forbade complete performances of it shortly after its premiere, only allowing one movement, The Swan, a piece for cello and piano, to be published in his lifetime.
Info:
Danse Macabre, Op. 40, is a tone poem for orchestra, written in 1874 by French composer Camille Saint-Saens. 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.