From vocal miniature to symphonic poem: the formation of the danse macabre thesaurus in western european romantic music

The article examines the process of formation of the musical-expressive complex associated with the embodiment of the Danse Macabre image in Western European vocal music of the first half of the 19th century. The relevance of the topic is determined by the absence in Russian musicology of special studies examining the genesis of the musical semantics of Danse Macabre as a preparatory stage for the creation of instrumental masterpieces by F. Liszt, G. Kastner, and C. Saint-Saëns. Based on vocal works by F. Schubert, C. Loewe, R. Schumann, F. Mendelssohn, J. Brahms, and other Roman-tic composers, three key plot motifs are analyzed: the dance-round dance, the procession-file, and the dialogue between Death and Man. The study reveals a stable complex of expressive means, including: genre rhythmic formulas (tarantella, siciliana, funeral march, and sarabande); modal-harmonic features (predominance of d-moll, g-moll, chromaticism); principles of textural organization – chordal (choral); technique of presentation – ostinato rhythmic figurations in the accompaniment; musical-rhetorical figures (Dies irae, passus duriusculus, catabasis, circulatio); tessitura-timbre differentiation between the images of Death and Man; typical forms – binary, ternary, rondo.The author concludes that vocal works of the 1810s-1850s serve as a «laboratory» where the semantic vocabulary of Danse Macabre was developed and crystallized, subsequently transferred into instrumental music.

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