CANCELLED: Danse macabre

Information to ticket-buyers

As a result of the current situation regarding Covid-19, Danse Macabre has been cancelled.

Information regarding reimbursement 

We are happy to announce that Malmö Live Concert Hall will reimburse bought tickets for this show. You will recieve a giftcard with the same amount that you have payed for your tickets (including food & beverages) that is valid for two years. Your giftcard will be emailed to you. Make sure to check your inbox!

Pénélope in waiting

The prelude to Fauré’s opera Pénélope begins the concert. This is an understated, undulating piece that strikes a mysterious tone for Homer’s classical saga of Queen Penelope and her stoical wait for her wandering husband Odysseus. She waits for ten years while fending off the brash advances of suitors for her hand in marriage, all keen to gain the throne. Odysseus finally returns disguised as a beggar and thwarts their intentions.

The opera premiered in Monte Carlo on 4 March 1931.

Pavane pour une infante défunte

Maurice Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess was written for piano in 1899 and arranged for an orchestra 11 years later, with the horn bearing the melody. This proved to be a good decision. Certainly, the beautiful melody in all its simplicity is quite capable of being borne by the piano; however, an orchestral palette creates a wonderful emotional depth to the work.

The word pavane comes from the Italian city of Padua (Padova in Italian) and was originally a courtly dance that in Spain came to be associated with mourning. However, one should avoid ascribing any deeper meaning to the title; Ravel chose the words primarily because he enjoyed their alliterative quality.

Music about making music

Henri Dutilleux worked throughout the second half of the twentieth century and up until his death in 2013. With its odd tones, Mystère de l’instant (Mystery of the instant) provides a thrilling contrast to Ravel’s Pavane. Among other things, the score calls for a hammered dulcimer (cimbalom), an eastern European instrument somewhat reminiscent of a zither. The work is constructed from ten continuous movements, the titles of which all have something to do with the act of musical creation. The work premiered in 1989.

Long live Death!

The harp chimes midnight in Camille Saint-Saëns’ symphonic poem Danse Macabre and skeletons rise from their graves in a whirling, chaotic dance in three acts. Composed in 1874, the work is based on a poem by French physician and poet Henri Cazalis, which begins with Death playing the fiddle and tapping time with his heel on a tomb, ”Zig et zig et zig...”. The xylophone represents the rattling bones of the skeletons and the solo oboe the crowing cock, while the horn proclaims the arrival of dawn. “Ah! A beautiful night for the poor world! And long live Death and Equality!” concludes Cazalis.

In defence of neoclassicism

In the immediate post-war years, a debate arose on aesthetics in which the younger generation of composers dismissed Stravinsky’s neoclassicism in favour of atonality and serial composition. Poulenc’s Sinfonietta – with its allusions to the bittersweet melodies of Stravinsky, as well as to Mozart and Hayden – can be viewed as a polemic against this narrowmindedness. The work consists of four movements and was first performed in London in 1948.