Dmitri Hvorostovsky (Born on October 16, 1962) Singing with Death

 by Georg Predota  October 16th, 2026

The Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky was born in the industrial city of Krasnoyarsk, in Soviet-era Siberia, on 16 October 1962. He surprised the world by winning the Singer of the World Competition in Cardiff in 1989, and he stormed from success to success on the operatic stages of Europe and America.

His beautiful, cultivated voice was moderate in size but projected strongly, while his dramatic involvement grew steadily with experience. Always self-critical and highly empathic with the psychological dilemmas of his characters, Hvorostovsky announced in 2015 that he was suffering from a brain tumour. This illness took his life in 2017.

Hvorostovsky retained a strong musical and personal connection with Russia, performing as a celebrated recitalist in every corner of the globe. To celebrate his birthday, let’s turn to one of his most compelling Russian recordings, the Songs and Dances of Death by Modest Mussorgsky.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky (2011)

Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings Mussorgsky: Songs and Dances of Death, “Lullaby”  

In a 2014 interview about his Russian-song recording “From Russia with Love”, Hvorostovsky commented on a Borodin composition, calling it typically Russian and offering a wonderful variety of Russian lyricism.

He also spoke of his Siberian upbringing and Russian cultural environment in 2005, suggesting that he didn’t have to travel to Moscow or St. Petersburg to study music, as the cultural background in any part of the country is very rich and profound, including the town he grew up in.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Valery Gergiev

Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881) had no academic training as a composer and worked as a civil servant. His Songs and Dances of Death set poems by his friend and relative Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov. Originally written for voice and piano, they are often performed in orchestrations by Dmitri Shostakovich or Kalevi Aho.

Many of Mussorgsky’s songs have a strong satirical undertone; however, the Songs and Dances of Death are strikingly different. They are described as dramatic and realistic scenes from real life, revolving around dying and death.  

“Lullaby” provides a vivid portrayal of a child’s gradual death, and the mother’s desperate struggle for her child. Death becomes a bridegroom in “Serenade,” and “Trepak” describes a drunken peasant who is overtaken by death in a snowstorm. In the “Field-Marshal,” death appears in the flesh amidst the tumult of war, eventually declaring victory.

Hvorostovsky recorded the cycle twice, first in January 1993 with the Kirov Orchestra and Valery Gergiev. Hvorostovsky was only 30, yet he places this deeply Russian repertoire at the centre of one of his early recordings.

This cycle does not need a singer with a beautiful lyric baritone, but an artist capable of dramatic declamation and wide tonal variety. This recording wasn’t an isolated Mussorgsky project, as it was surrounded by art-song selections from his Russian cultural heritage.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Lieder recital

Hvorostovsky returned to the Mussorgsky cycle again eleven years later. In 2004, he performed it at the BBC Proms and subsequently recorded it again for Warner. A contemporary BBC Music Magazine declared that Hvorostovsky’s interpretation had changed surprisingly little over the decade.

Mussorgsky has always been part of Hvorostovsky’s Russian musical fabric. Explaining why he included Songs and Dances of Death in a recital programme, he said that “death is an unavoidable factor for human, life is its opposition, and love. Life, love, and death are fundamental elements of art.” 

And he makes his Russian connection even more explicit when asked what Russian music meant to him. He stated, “This is what belongs to me. How can I describe what is part of my nature?” 

Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Between Rooms, Between Worlds Marina Baranova on Music, Collaboration, and Curiosity

 by Fanny Po Sim Head  January 25th, 2026

Pianist and composer Marina Baranova grew up in Ukraine in a household where music was constant and diverse. Both of her parents were pianists and teachers. Her mother taught classical piano, while her father specialised in jazz and improvisation. Their small apartment contained several pianos, often played at the same time.

“As a child, I loved moving from room to room,” Baranova says. One space was dominated by classical repertoire, where she listened to her mother and her students work through pieces. “That music always turned into a kind of film in my head, full of depth and emotional intensity.” Classical music, she explains, shaped her early understanding of musical structure, storytelling, and emotional expression.

Marina Baranova

In another room, her father was immersed in jazz. “It expressed freedom, rebellion, and creativity without borders,” Baranova recalls. Jazz was forbidden in the Soviet Union, and her father’s involvement with it carried personal and political significance. “The fact that my father played it was, in itself, an act of resistance. You could feel that defiance directly in the sound.”

Growing up with these contrasting musical languages shaped Baranova’s view of genre. “Music has many faces, yet everything can exist under the same roof,” she says. “I like to think of musical genres as different rooms in one house. Each has its own atmosphere, but there is always a door connecting them.”

Maurice Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte, M. 19  

Baranova’s recent recording projects reflect her interest in connection and contrast. Last year, she released Salon de Ravel and The Star of Mendelssohn, two albums with distinctly different conceptual frameworks. “They may appear very different at first glance,” she notes, “yet both come from my musical curiosity.”

Marina Baranova’s Prélude a la manière de Ravel   

Salon de Ravel was inspired by an imagined artistic environment in Paris around 1900. “I pictured Ravel surrounded by musicians, painters, and poets, sharing ideas and new works,” Baranova explains. The album reflects her interest in artistic exchange and influence, particularly the composers Ravel admired, including Borodin, Chabrier, Debussy, and Fauré.

The Star of Mendelssohn, by contrast, has a more personal foundation. The album intertwines Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words with traditional Christmas carols. “It was conceived as a bridge between worlds,” Baranova says, drawing on her experience of growing up with a Jewish background and later embracing Christian holiday traditions. She also sees parallels in Mendelssohn’s own life. “It mirrors the dualities shaped by multiple traditions.”

That idea of openness and exchange also defines her collaboration with her husband, composer and visual artist Damian Marhulets. The two met when they were twenty and have shared an ongoing artistic dialogue ever since. “We’ve never stopped talking about what it means to be an artist,” Baranova says, describing conversations that range from aesthetics to creative process.

Felix Mendelssohn/Marina Baranova’s Drinking Song, Op. 75 No. 3  

She often plays new piano works for Marhulets, using their discussions as a way to test and refine ideas. “Those conversations are incredibly inspiring and often open doors I didn’t even know were there.” After a recording is completed, Marhulets frequently creates visual artwork in response to the music. “He approaches the music from a different angle, and his visual interpretation uncovers layers I hadn’t seen before,” she says.

Marina Baranova’s The Sense of Cohesion  

In recent years, Baranova has expanded her role beyond performing and recording by curating her own music salon at Villa Seligmann in Hannover, a center dedicated to Jewish music and culture. After renting a studio in the building, she began organising intimate concerts for small audiences. “From the very beginning, I dreamed of creating a music salon,” she says.

The project quickly grew into the ImproVision Festival, developed in collaboration with Villa Seligmann. The festival brings together international musicians to improvise, perform repertoire, and present original works. One highlight was an improvised twelve-hands performance on two pianos shaped by audience suggestions. “It was full of spontaneity and connection,” Baranova recalls.

When Baranova sits at the piano today, she describes the creative impulse as constantly changing. “Each time, the approach feels different,” she says. Sometimes she begins with improvisation, while at other times a connection emerges through sight-reading. “It can feel like a dialogue across time.”

Music also serves a personal function. “Sometimes music feels like a kind of embrace,” she says. “I often feel that new music already exists somewhere, waiting to be given sound.” Honesty, she emphasises, is central to her work. “I only create when the impulse comes from the deepest place within me. I cannot lie in front of music.”

Currently, her piano showcases her diverse interests. Beethoven scores sit next to handwritten sketches for a reworking of Sweeney Todd, originally by Stephen Sondheim. As she says, it’s “a very unlikely house share: Beethoven on one side, Sondheim on the other.” To learn more about Marina Baranova, visit her website at www.marinabaranova.com.

A Debut of Note: Himari

by Maureen Buja  October 7th, 2026

The young Japanese violinist Himari (b. 2011 as Himari Yoshimura) made her American concert debut with Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor with the Santa Fe Symphony in 2023, aged 11, and then made her European debut with the work in 2025, age 13. That debut with the Berlin Philharmonic is captured on her debut recording on Decca Classics, appropriately called Debut.

Himari © himari-info.com

Himari started her violin study at age 3, working with Koichiro Harada and Machie Oguri. She made her debut with a professional orchestra at age 6, and at age 11 she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Ida Kavafian. At age 13, she signed an exclusive contract with Decca Classics, becoming the label’s youngest female artist.

In competition, Himari has been awarded grand prizes at the Arthur Grumiaux Competition in Belgium (2019) and the International Competition for Young Violinists in Honour of Karol Lipinski and Henryk Wieniawski, Lublin, Poland (2021), as well as the 26th Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition in Italy and the Kogan International Violin Competition in Belgium. She plays the 1717 ‘Hamma’ Stradivari on loan from Mr Yusaku Maezawa. Her bow is on loan from the Munetsugu Collection.

Henryk Wieniawski (1835–1880) wrote his first violin concerto in 1851 while on tour in Russia with his brother. After returning to give concerts in Leipzig, Paris, and London, he returned to Russia in 1860 at the invitation of Anton Rubinstein. He spent the next 12 years there, variously as solo violinist to the Tsar, leader of the opera Orchestra, and professor of violin at Rubinstein’s conservatory. When he returned to his touring career in 1872, he extended his travels to North America with Rubinstein. When he returned to Europe in 1875, he was appointed professor of violin at the Brussels Conservatory. His health was increasingly frail, and he had to leave the stage during a performance of his Violin Concerto No. 2 in Berlin. Joseph Joachim was in the audience and took his place on stage, replacing the concerto with a performance of the Bach Chaconne on Wieniawski’s violin. Despite this setback, Wieniawski continued his tour out of financial need, but he was often forced to leave the stage, unable to perform. Wieniawski died on 31 March 1880 in the house of Tchaikovsky’s patroness, Nadezhda von Meck.

In the first movement, after a first subject in the clarinet and a more lyrical second subject, the violin enters in a technically demanding solo entry in 10ths. The first subject follows, played only on the G string. The rest of the movement includes a brief cadenza, followed by a lyrical passage that gives the violinist a chance to display technique, complete with triple-stopped chords and difficult but dazzling arpeggios. The final coda brings back the first subject.

Henryk Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 14 – I. Allegro moderato

Himari plays with authority and assurance, and even her own teacher remarks on her maturity: ‘If you’re listening to Himari and you close your eyes, you wouldn’t realise her age. Inside Himari, there is an older person and a wise musician… she’s immensely talented.’

After this brilliant orchestra debut, Himari fills the rest of the album with recital material of the highest quality, including Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne No. 16 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, No. 2 (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Leopold Godowsky’s Triakontameron: XI. Alt Wien (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Jean Sibelius’ Mazurka, Op. 81, No. 1; and Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp minor (transcribed by Nathan Milstein). These are works by the virtuosos of their day, and even Sibelius’ Mazurka is technically demanding, with a cadenza-like opening, double stopping, and huge leaps in the melodic line, requiring a virtuoso hand.

She closes the album with more Henryk Wieniawski, with his Fantasia on Themes from Gounod’s ‘Faust’, Op. 20.

With its mix of orchestral and recital material, Himari’s debut recording gives us an exceptional view of her skills. Sometimes, as happens on live recordings, her leaps may fall a hair short, but that’s the excitement of live performance. In the piano and violin works, where Chelsea Wang, who made her own orchestral debut at age 6, ably accompanies her, we have a more traditional format. Still, again, Himari’s choice of works distinguishes her. In Wieniawski’s Faust Fantasia, she has the vision to create a coherent storyline amid all the virtuoso fireworks.

Himari: Debut (Wieniawski, Chopin, Sibelius, and Godowsky)

Himari, violin; Berlin Philharmonic with Sebastian Weigle, conductor; Chelsea Wang, piano
Decca Classics 00028948722099
Release date: 25 September 2026

Vienna Soundscapes: The Quatuor Hermès

 by Maureen Buja  October 12th, 2026

The Quatuor Hermès (Omer Bouchez, violin 1; Elise Liu, violin 2; Lou Yung-Hsin Chang, viola; and Yan Levionnois, cello) have brought together three musical emblems of Vienna on their new album Echoes of Vienna. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), Anton Webern (1883–1945), and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957). They view Korngold as the source of these echoes, signalling through his 1933 String Quartet the end of the brilliant ‘music school of Vienna’ created by Mozart and which Webern had ushered ‘into modernity’. Through his farewell, Korngold, who was to leave the city in 1934 for Hollywood, acknowledge the twilight of the once-great city of music.

In choosing their works for this album, the Quartet looked at both Beethoven and Haydn before settling on Mozart. As the starting cornerstone, Mozart’s 1783 quartet (Quartet No. 15 in D minor) opens the discussion. The Quartet sees Webern and Korngold as further embodiments of the Viennese soul.

The invisible body in the middle of these works is Romanticism, and by jumping from Mozart’s Classical quartet, which they view as ‘pre-Romantic’, to Webern’s and Korngold’s definitive post-Romantic works, we’re asked to imagine what lies between them. Mozart’s dramatic quartet and its use of D minor as its key only emphasises the work’s ‘post-Classical’ position in this context.

Webern’s Langsamer Satz, written in 1905, transcends Romanticism on the edge of atonality. Webern sets a love story in a man’s walk with his beloved, but at the same time finds traditional atonality unable to fully convey the emotions he wants to express. In the same idea of intimacy and anxiety that can be found in Mozart’s Quartet No. 15, said to have been written while he awaited the birth of his first child, Webern carries us with a sense of emotional restraint.

The album ends with Erich Korngold’s String Quartet No. 2. The precocious Korngold was often compared to the equally precocious Mozart, and one of the strengths of his music from the beginning was its ability to conjure up stories and images. The Quartet first met Korngold through his Piano Quintet, and they found the same sense of farewell in this String Quartet. They are protagonists in an epic tale, and the music seems to have cinematic qualities, as will so much of his future Hollywood material.

The recording is an imaginative and creative look at the string quartet as it moves from tradition to the future. Emotions give way to emotional stories that lead to cinematic ones.

Quatuor Hermès (photo by Lyodoh Kaneko)

They play with skill and authority, and their extensive work with late Romantic and Early Modern quartets and quintets gives them a unique modern viewpoint. They note that this recording is their first to include Mozart.

This album joins an extensive list on La Dolce Volta by the Quartet, including Schumann’s Three Quartets, Op. 41 (LDV 17), String quartets by Ravel, Dutilleux, and Debussy (LDV 33), Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, with Geoffroy Couteau (LDV 61), and his Piano Quartets nos. 1–3 (LDV 62.3), and Schubert’s Rosamunde and Der Tod und das Mädchen (LDV 85).

Echoes of Vienna: Mozart, Webern, Korngold

Quatuor Hermès
La Dolce Volta LDV 134

Official Website

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Chopin’s Final Year: A Month-By-Month Guide to 1849

 Emily E. Hogstad  October 15th, 2026

Frédéric Chopin’s death on 17 October 1849 was not sudden. It was the end of a long, slow, painful decline.

During the final year of his life, he gave his last public concert, signed his will, and stopped taking new pupils. His famous relationship with author George Sand was over, and the two would never reconcile. He was 39, weighed 99 pounds, and spent months unable to compose.

What followed was one of the most romanticised and mythologised deaths in classical music history. Former students, celebrated artists, and the Parisian elite attended and mourned across Europe.

Here is how Chopin’s final year unfolded, month by month.

October 1848: Chopin Draws Up a Will

Maria Wodzińska: Chopin, 1836 (National Museum in Warsaw)

In October 1848, Chopin was finishing his final concert tour through Scotland and England, accompanied by his student Jane Stirling.

At the time, he was battling late-stage tuberculosis. His health deteriorated so much that, later in the month, while he was staying in Edinburgh, he signed a last will.

He described his choice to his friend Wojciech Grzymała as “a kind of disposition to be made of my stuff in the future, if I should drop dead somewhere.”

On 31 October, he arrived in London on his way back home.

November 1848: Chopin’s Final Concert

In November, Chopin’s health continued to go downhill. His doctors began acknowledging that his diagnosis was almost certainly a terminal one. He lost weight until he was just 99 pounds (45 kilograms).

Chopin gave his final public concert at London’s Guildhall on 16 November 1848. It was a benefit show for Polish refugees. Unfortunately, the English crowd was more interested in socialising and dancing than in listening to Chopin’s playing.

Chopin understood then that the end was nearing. He wrote to his friend, writer Stanisław Koźmian, that “I have ended my public career.”

A week later, on 23 November, he left London by rail and crossed the English Channel. He wrote to Grzymała, asking him to leave out flowers so his apartment would smell good when he arrived. He returned to his Parisian home on the 24th.

December 1848: Chopin’s Final Compositions

It is believed that sometime before the year ended, or in very early 1849, Chopin wrote some of his last music: a Waltz in A minor (WN 63) and a Mazurka in G minor (WN 64).   

January 1849: Chopin’s Final Picture

On New Year’s Day, they took Chopin’s last picture. Looking at it, it’s clear that he wasn’t feeling well.

He spent the rest of January resting, playing privately, and teaching.

Sadly, his condition deteriorated enough during the month that he stopped accepting new pupils, despite the financial hit.

February 1849: Visiting With Friends

Portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand by Eugène Delacroix

In February, artist Eugène Delacroix visited Chopin. He would visit eight times throughout the year.

Delacroix wrote that one of the things they discussed was Chopin’s legendary ex, the author George Sand.

Sand was writing her memoirs at the time, and the two men wondered what she would write about. Chopin would not live to see the book: she only finished and published it in the mid-1850s, years after his death.

We wrote about Chopin and Sand’s tumultuous relationship here: https://interlude.hk/frederic-chopin-and-george-sand-the-real-story-behind-their-relationship/.

March 1849: Visiting With Former Students

His health continued to deteriorate. Friends continued to come by.

In late March, Chopin’s friend and former student Countess Delfina Potocka visited to perform for him. Fellow student Maria Kalergis also dropped in to play piano.

April 1849: “Boredom is for him the cruellest torment”

Although he had broken up with her mother, George Sand, Chopin continued to correspond with Solange Clésinger, whom he viewed as a kind of daughter figure. Solange was about to give birth to her first child.

On 5 April, Chopin reported to her, “I am at a loss what to do. I have a fourth successive doctor; they take from me 10 fr. a visit – they come sometimes twice a day but bring me little relief.”

On 7 April, Delacroix swung by again, and the two went on a ride down the Champs-Élysées. Wanting to distract Chopin from his pain, Delacroix asked him about the logic of music.

Delacroix returned a week later, but by that time, Chopin was in no shape to go riding again. He reported that Chopin was “distressed” and “breathless.” “Boredom is for him the cruellest torment,” Delacroix wrote.

May 1849: Corresponding With George Sand’s Daughter

In May, Solange Clésinger wrote to Chopin to let him know that she had given birth to a daughter. She asked if he would consider encouraging her husband, sculptor Auguste Clésinger, to work in London.

A few months later, Auguste Clésinger would create Chopin’s death mask.

June 1849: Summering in the Suburbs

It was common in aristocratic Parisian circles to leave the city for the summer. Accordingly, Chopin’s friends banded together to find him summer housing in the suburb of Chaillot.

On 18 June, he wrote to Grzymała, painting a vivid picture of life in the Parisian capital in the summer of 1849: “Everyone is leaving – some from fear of cholera, others from fear of revolution.”

In the same letter, he reported, “I am stronger, as I have caught up on eating and thrown up my medicine – but I am panting and coughing the same, just that I am bearing it better – I have not yet started to play – I cannot compose – I do not know what kind of straw I shall soon be eating.”

Four days later, he wrote, “Violent attacks of illness. Two haemorrhages during the night.”

A week later, he wrote to his sister Ludwika, asking if she could come to Paris to be with him in his final months. “If you can, then come. I am weak, and no doctor can help me like you.”

July 1849: The Door Closes on a George Sand Reconciliation

In July, Amélie Grille de Beuzelin wrote to George Sand, “He painfully feels your absence.”

George Sand replied with exasperation, making it clear that their legendary relationship was over: “His sentiment died long ago, and if my memory still oppresses him, it is because he feels pangs of conscience.”

The couple would never reconcile – and a few months later, she’d choose not to attend his funeral.

August 1849: Chopin’s Sister Ludwika Arrives to Caretake

Ludwika Chopin

After a few weeks of preparing and travelling, Chopin’s sister Ludwika arrived in Paris on 9 August with her husband and their daughter.

She would stay with her brother until the end.

September 1849: Final Visits

In September, it was time to return to Paris proper.

It had been months since he could teach or make money, so Jane Stirling paid for his lodgings at the Hôtel Baudard de Saint-James on the Place Vendôme. He moved there on 9 September.

Pauline Viardot as Orphée, 1860

His colleague, singer and composer Pauline Viardot, reported that during this time, as the city paid its respects, “All the grande dames of Paris considered it their duty to faint in his room.”

October 1849: Chopin’s Death

Time was rapidly running out, and Chopin knew it. He informed his sister Ludwika that he wanted his unpublished work thrown into the fire. (She ended up disobeying his wishes, which is why we have so many posthumous Chopin works.)   

His condition deteriorated badly on 15 October. By then, only his closest loved ones remained, waiting with him for the end. We wrote about those final days here: https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-17-october-frederic-chopin-died/.

Soon after midnight on 17 October, his physician asked him if he was suffering. “No longer,” Chopin replied. He died about an hour later.

His sister Ludwika and George Sand’s daughter, Solange Clésinger, were present for his death.

After Ludwika liquidated her brother’s estate, she returned to Poland. She carried her brother’s heart with her so that it could be buried in Polish soil, as per his wishes.

Solange Clésinger-Sand

Conclusion

Chopin’s death at 39 cut short one of the most singular careers in Western music history.

Even at the end, he was surrounded by an extraordinary web of loyalty and love. His student Jane Stirling funded his final months. His friend Delacroix visited eight times. His sister Ludwika crossed Europe to be with him, stayed until the last breath, and then carried his heart home to Poland.

The works he wanted burned survived because the people closest to him ignored his wishes. We’ve been grateful ever since.

From Witches’ Sabbath to Dance of Death: Four Related Pieces for October

 by Bruce Robinson  October 12th, 2026

Orchestras love to program Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre around Halloween. But you can celebrate the season all month with other dances of death—no candy corn required. From Berlioz’ hallucinatory Sabbath to Saint-Saëns’ skeletal waltz—by way of Liszt and Mussorgsky—here are four works that summon the spirits.

Looking at just the Romantic era, it all starts with Hector Berlioz’ 1830 Symphonie fantastique. Has there ever been a work of such startling originality? Berlioz’ program for the last movement states, “He sees himself at the Witches’ Sabbath, amidst a hideous throng of shades, sorcerers, and monsters of every kind, gathered for his funeral.” The idea of a witches’ sabbath—a nighttime gathering with Satan—dates from the Middle Ages.

Berlioz recasts his idée fixe—the recurring theme of the symphony—as a mocking dance tune for the clarinet. Bells announce the introduction of two other themes. In a blaze of imagination, he introduces the plainchant Dies Irae with its evocation of the Last Judgment: “Day of wrath—that day—shall dissolve the world into ash.” And a new, energetic melody piles a “witches’ round” on top of the madness.

Hear the Witches’ Sabbath, the fifth movement of Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, played by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

From the first performance, audiences responded with passion. Yet repeat performances didn’t materialise, and Berlioz remained poor. Franz Liszt, who was present at the premiere, transcribed the piece for piano solo and performed it frequently—a remarkable achievement for a 21-year-old.

A decade later, Liszt appropriated parts of Berlioz’ concept as he began composing his Totentanz (Dance of Death) for piano and orchestra; the first version was completed in 1849. Rather than the witches’ sabbath, Liszt drew on the tradition of the Dance of Death, particularly the woodcuts of Hans Holbein the Younger and the Triumph of Death fresco at Pisa’s Campo Santo. In Holbein’s woodcuts, the agent of death—a skeleton—drags people away from all walks of life, in all conditions, often while playing an instrument. In his single-movement showpiece, Liszt transforms the Dies Irae melody through a series of dazzling variations. Liszt has the strings play col legno—“with the wood,” using the back of the bow—to signify the bones of the skeleton.

The Noblewoman, by Hans Holbein

Hear pianist Nelson Freire with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Michel Plasson.

Liszt made three tours of Russia in the 1840s, including his last as a virtuoso. Partly because of the personal connections he made, Liszt exerted a profound influence on the direction of Russian music in the decades that followed. In 1867, Modest Mussorgsky knew of Liszt’s Totentanz as he wrote his tone poem, St. John’s Night on Bald Mountain. Mussorgsky wrote, “The form and character of my composition are Russian and original. Its tone is ardent and chaotic.” While Mussorgsky didn’t incorporate the Dies Irae in its original form, several of its themes echo the chant.

St. John’s Night refers to the Eve of St. John the Baptist’s birth, traditionally observed on June 23—six months before Christmas. Russian folk traditions include bonfires and other means of warding off evil spirits and witches. With this background, Nikolai Gogol wrote a short story, St. John’s Eve, about which Mussorgsky composed his music.

Bald Mountain was neither published nor performed during his lifetime. Mily Balakirev, who often imposed his views on his circle—Mussorgsky, César Cui, Alexander Borodin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov—didn’t approve of the work. It fell to Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov to tighten and redesign the piece into the version most often played now. You can read how Rimsky-Korsakov’s version differs from Mussorgsky’s in Maureen Buja’s Interlude story.

Hear Paavo Järvi conduct the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Rimsky-Korsakov’s arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain

Saint-Saëns drew on yet another legend for his brief tone poem Danse Macabre: Death playing the violin at midnight on Halloween, with skeletons leaving their graves to dance. Incredibly, the piece began in 1872 as an art song to a delicious text by Henri Cazalis, who wrote under the pseudonym Jean Lahor. The song is rarely performed, perhaps because of the difficulty of the rapid-fire text. The violin plays open strings as if tuning—but the E string is tuned to E Flat in a technique called scordatura. The interval from A to E-flat is a tritone—the devil’s interval.

Hear Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre for voice, Markus Poschner conducting the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana with Tassis Christoyannis, baritone.

Zig et zig et zig, la mort en cadence Frappant une tombe avec son talon, La mort à minuit joue un air de danse, Zig et zig et zag, sur son violon. Le vent d’hiver souffle, et la nuit est sombre, Des gémissements sortent des tilleuls; Les squelettes blancs vont à travers l’ombre Courant et sautant sous leurs grands linceuls. Zig et zig et zig, chacun se trémousse. On entend claquer les os des danseurs, Un couple lascif s’assoit sur la mousse Comme pour goûter d’anciennes douceurs. Zig et zig et zag, la mort continue De racler sans fin son aigre instrument. Un voile est tombé! La danseuse est nue! Son danseur la serre amoureusement. La dame est, dit-on, marquise ou baronne. Et le vert galant un pauvre charron— Horreur! Et voilà qu’elle s’abandonne Comme si le rustre était un baron. Zig et zig et zig, quelle sarabande! Quels cercles de morts se donnant la main! Zig et zig et zag, on voit dans la bande Le roi gambader auprès du vilain!

Zig and zig and zig, Death keeps the beat, Striking a tomb with a bony heel; At midnight, Death plays a dance-tune sweet— Zig and zig and zag—on the fiddle’s steel. The winter wind blows, and the night is deep; Moans rise up from the linden trees; White skeletons through the shadows sweep, Leaping and running in shrouds like these. Zig and zig and zig, how they sway and spin! One hears the clatter of dancing bones; A lustful pair sits where mosses begin, Savoring pleasures of old, in tones. Zig and zig and zag, Death plays on and on, Scraping the strings of that shrill instrument. The veil has fallen! The dancer is nude, Stripped bare! Her partner holds her, all intent. The lady, they say, is a marchioness— Her gallant, a lowly wheelwright—oh, dread! Yet she yields to his amorous, bold caress, As if the boor were a baron bred. Zig and zig and zag, what a wild saraband! What circles of dead, hand clasped in hand! Zig and zig and zag, in the throng we see The king capering near the peasant—glee!

In 1874, Saint-Saëns reworked the song as a tone poem, giving the vocal part to the violin. A single harp note is struck twelve times, marking the twelve strokes of midnight, before the violin’s satanic dance begins. The xylophone depicts the dancing skeletons. Saint-Saëns inserts a fugato, then the woodwinds play the Dies Irae—but in a major key, so listen carefully! The madness fully blossoms into a brilliant showpiece before the oboe imitates a rooster at dawn.

Hear Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre, Daniel Harding conducting the Bremen Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie with Renaud Capuçon, violin.

Almost a half-century after transcribing Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique, Liszt transcribed Danse Macabre for piano. Today, Liszt’s transcription is most often heard in Vladimir Horowitz’s 1942 reworking.

Hear Vladimir Horowitz, piano, play his version of Liszt’s transcription of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre.

Each of these four works offers a different answer to the same question: what does death sound like? The Dies Irae—that ancient warning of judgment—becomes, in their hands, a source of wonder. Death, for all its terror, can be made to dance.