Work of the Week – Jörg Widmann: Danse macabre

Halloween in the Orchestra: On October 25, 2024, Jörg Widmann’s Danse macabre will invite listeners to a chilling dance with death at the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid. The Orquesta Nacional de España, conducted by the composer himself, will perform this dark and fascinating composition as a Spanish premiere.

The orchestral work Danse macabre, which premiered in Paris in 2022, has already made its mark internationally despite its young age. Renowned ensembles like the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Kungliga Filharmoniska Orkestern, as well as the radio orchestras of BR and NDR, have performed the work – always under Widmann’s baton. With its unconventional compositional style, dramatic programmatic themes, and cross-cultural elements, Danse macabre has become highly sought after worldwide.

Danse macabre by Jörg Widmann: When Death Invites You to Dance

In Danse macabre, Jörg Widmann leads the audience into a final dance – a dance with eerie and fearsome elements, a dance with death itself. Through musical ambivalence, the composer creates various masks of death: smooth, calm melodies portray death as seductive and beautiful, while dark, dissonant brass soundscapes illustrate its threatening power. Sudden, high-register motifs evoke fear and unease. But one thing is certain: it is, and always will be, death, who holds us in its grasp and dances with us to a place where no one has been, but everyone must go. The pull of this dance is stronger than anything earthly.

Wild and beautiful, dreadful and final – this last dance was meant to be. My Danse macabre has become one of my most intense and forward-driving orchestral works. May this macabre dance bring joy to the orchestra and the audience despite its grim nature. (Jörg Widmann)

Following its Spanish premiere on October 25, two more performances of Danse macabre will take place in Madrid over the same weekend. On November 23, 2024, the piece will have its Asian premiere at the National Concert Hall in Taiwan.

Further Information:

Composer Profile: Jörg Widmann
Danse macabre: Work Details and Online Score
Auditorio Nacional de Música Website

photo: Marco Borggreve