Frank Thomas (Violin); Ronald Harding (Violoncello); Hubert Pengelly (Pianoforte)

The scene of Saint-Saens' 'programme' piece, which is based on the poem Danse Macabre, by Henri Cazalis, is a graveyard. Midnight strikes: Death emerges, knocks on the graves, and starts to tune his fiddle. The Dance then begins. The wintry wind whistles, the white skeletons cross the shadows, running and leaping.
Just when the Dance is at its height, the cock crows. Death plays a last strain, ending in a fluttering of wings as he disappears, his skeletons with him.