The piece is a tone-poem, that was eventually rewritten for orchestra, featuring a melody for the solo violin. This piece features my favourite interval (my head is doing a 360 turn right now): The tritone ☺. Interestingly enough, Saint-Saëns decided that this effect should be produced through scordatura, rather than just making the violinist play the piece as it was written, makes life easier for the violinist until he/she has to re-tune..
From this theme the piece creeps into a solo flute section that is staccato and very warm in sound. I particularly liked the way in which this melody was then transferred to the violin I section. The transfer into the violin section made the subsequent solo violin’s descending chromatic theme seem like a flawless and totally natural transition, as the use of the same instruments transferring into this solo, provided continuity. From here on in, the piece is an exchange of these two themes, and this is what I really love about this piece – the exchange and over-layering of these themes. I love the way these two motifs fight for dominance within this piece – they way they at times work together, yet at others, work very separately.
I also enjoyed the musical metaphor that was explored – with the inspiration of this piece being based on the French superstition that “Death” appears at midnight on Halloween with the power to call forth the dead from their graves to dance for him – and this was mirrored quite well I thought, with the entire orchestra constantly answering to the violin (the musical representation of the devil). This back and forth exchange and distortion of the three themes mentioned before, provided great interest in the piece for me, and I really enjoyed it.
Alex
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