Camille Saint-Saëns: Danse Macabre

Camille Saint-Saëns (October 9, 1835 - December 16, 1921)

Wikipedia: Danse Macabre  in popular media

Halloween

• Americans will probably know the Halloween cartoons inspired by this work. Most notably the animations featuring Harold Dexter Hoopes watercolors and the PBS Halloween special, aired in 1980,which were often shown in elementary school.

Danse macabre has been used as background music in many movies and television series, including:

• The audiobook of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman uses Danse macabre played by Béla Fleck as introductions of its chapters, and the piece itself inspires one of the chapters of the book.
• The TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in the mostly dialogue-free "Hush").
• The theme tune to the British murder-mystery series Jonathan Creek starring Alan Davies.
• A key scene in Jean Renoir's 1939 film The Rules of the Game.
• Mickey Mouse Works for the Silly Symphony's version of Hansel and Gretel, starring Mickey and Minnie.
• The American film Tombstone accompanying a stage production of the story of Faust.
• The documentary The Road to Dracula, about the film Dracula with Béla Lugosi.
• The TV Series Grimm Season 1 Episode 5 is titled "Danse Macabre" and features the song played several times by a young troubled violin virtuoso and in a recital rehearsal.
• The movie Hugo uses the song in a flashback scene, being played at a screening of L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat.
• The BBC TV Series The Magicians uses the basic melody in its theme music, by Paul Farrer.
• The Virginia-based television series "Doctor Madblood's Movies," used the tune as its end-credit song when syndicated to out-of-state markets throughout the 1970-80's.

Other uses include:

• The Dutch amusement park Efteling uses it as the background theme for their haunted castle.
• A record containing this song is used to solve a puzzle in the original Alone in the Dark game.
• A Seattle, Washington, radio show, Imagination Theater, uses it as a theme song for its "Sherlock Holmes" installments.
• In theater, Henrik Ibsen uses this song in his play John Gabriel Borkman. The title character of the play Hedda Gabler plays it right before she kills herself.
• Jeffery Hatcher's theatrical production of The Turn of the Screw incorporates "Danse Macabre" in a scene as a way to increase tension and uneasiness. The actor playing Miles must hum or sing the piece over a monologue which is spoken by the Governess.
• The "rock orchestra", Esperanto, titled their third album Dance Macabre, and its final track included a version of Saint-Saëns' piece.
• It was also played at the 2011 BBC Proms by Horrible Histories. A group of dancers played the skeletons dancing the dance of death. It was used to illustrate the level of death during the Middle Ages in Britain.
• It is the background music of the Carnival level in the game One Hundred and One Dalmatians for PlayStation.
• It is included in the classical soundtrack of the Napoleonic Wars downloadable content for the video game Mount & Blade: Warband.
• 2010 Olympic figure skating champion Yuna Kim used Danse Macabre as the music for her short program for the 2008-2009 season. At the World Championships, Kim achieved a world record score for the program, and went on to place first at the event.
• A series of Jameson Irish Whiskey commercials in 2012 feature the piece.
• In the novel Beyond the Reflection's Edge by Bryan Davis, Nathan, the protagonist, plays the song on the violin to ease passengers on an airplane that is about to crash. He unintentionally frightens them instead when he tells them that the song is called "The Dance of Death".