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Danse Macabre
for bass clarinet quartet
score & individual parts
Level of difficulty: medium
NDV 30032P
This piece is an anomaly in the still-developing Edmund Welles Library of original compositions and arrangements for bass clarinet quartet.
First, it is very well known, even among the general population. Second, it is the work of a 19th century concert composer, which places it firmly in the Baroque/Classical/Romantic continuum
from which no other pieces by Edmund Welles have yet emerged. However, Danse Macabre is also full of certain stylistic characteristics that have evolved over the past 17 years of Edmund Welles'
heavy chamber music compositions, rock, pop and metal arrangements, boogie-woogie piano and gospel transcriptions, and performances of Renaissance motets.
These qualities can be described as seriousness, intensity, virtuosity and adventure. Not only do the rhythmic intensity and catchy melodic figures bridge Beethoven to rock music, but the thematic inspiration of death and romantic fantasies of horror directly
the core themes of early 20th century horror cinema, and by extension, the core themes of early hard rock and metal bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden.
Danse Macabre is certainly a musical mini-adventure, and more of my compositions are born of or inspired by adventure and fantasy than, say, abstract sentiment or purposeful method application (although
there are some exceptions). Certainly Saint-Saëns' use of melody, rhythm, and orchestration is creative and adventurous, but it is primarily the form of this adventure that gives it such brilliance and effectiveness
when it is presented to the audience. Therefore, the tempo, dynamic and intonation changes should be approached with sincerity and a cinematic perspective as the momentum of the piece continues to build. According to the
original score, the piece (composed in 1874) was inspired by the following poem by Henri Cazalis.Cazalis and is divided into 3 sections: Midnight and Death Tunes His Violin--Dance of Death--Daylight and the Rooster Crows
