Funny Buffy scene from Hush.
Danse Macabre, by Camille Saint-Saëns
According to Legend,
Death appears at Midnight
every year on Halloween.
Death calls forth
The Dead from
their graves
to dance for him
while He plays his fiddle
(here represented by a solo violin).
His skeletons dance for him
until the rooster crows at dawn,
when they must return to their
graves until the next year.
The piece opens with a harp playing a single note, D, twelve times (the twelve strokes of midnight) which is accompanied by soft chords from the string section.
The solo violin enters playing the tritone, which was known as the diabolus in musica ("the Devil in Music") during the Medieval and Baroque eras, consisting of an A and an E♭—
in an example of scordatura tuning,
the violinist's E string has actually been tuned down to an E♭
to create the dissonant tritone.
The first theme is heard on a solo flute, followed by the second theme,
a descending scale on the solo violin which is accompanied by soft chords from the string section.
The first and second themes, or fragments of them, are then heard throughout the various sections of the orchestra.
The piece becomes more energetic and at its midpoint,
right after a contrapuntal section based on the second theme,
there is a direct quote
played by the woodwinds
of Dies Irae, a Gregorian chant
from the Requiem Mass that is
melodically related to the work's second theme.
The Dies Irae is presented unusually in a major key.
After this section the piece returns to
the first and second themes and
climaxes with the full orchestra playing very strong dynamics.
Then there is an abrupt break in the texture
and the coda represents The Dawn breaking (a cockerel's crow,
played by the oboe) and the skeletons returning to their graves.
The piece makes particular use of
the xylophone to imitate
the sounds of rattling bones.
Saint-Saëns uses a similar motif in
the Fossils movement of
The Carnival of the Animals.
The progression and melody of the
minor waltz are similar to the jibes (e.g. "their sweethearts all are dead") of the Sailors' Chorus in
"Helmsman/Steersman,
Leave Your Watch,"
which begins the third act of Wagner's earlier opera,
"The Flying Dutchman".
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) -
The Danse Macabre Scene
Lucy Westernra walks through
the main square of Wismar
among the plague-afflicted.
Some dance, while other dine outside,
resigned to Their Fate.
HH.
The Name of God
in Arabic is
“Allah”
‘Al’ means ‘The’, and
‘All’ means ‘The Very’,
so The Name of God ,
which is also a Prayer, is :
“The Very HH.”
The Magic Word Is “Ha.”,
and “Ha.” spelt backwards
is “Ah!”
