ExclusiveSaint-Saëns: Samson and Delilah, Op. 47 - Danse Baccanale

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Camille Saint-Saëns: Samson and Delilah, Op. 47 - Danse Baccanale. This beautiful piece was played by US Air Force Band. It has Creative Commons license (PDM 1.0 DEED, Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal) and is provided through www.musopen.org.

From the third act of the opera Samson and Delilah, this dance is a celebration of the Philistines' victory over the Israelites. Exotic, fast-paced and oriental influences permeate this musical accompaniment to the festivities.

The opera is based on the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, found in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. The danse bacchanale is performed in the third act of the opera by the priests of Dagon as the Philistines, led by Delilah, prepare a sacrifice to celebrate their victory over Samson and the Hebrews.

Camille Saint-Saëns' famous opera Samson et Dalila tells the biblical story of the man whose strength lay in his hair (step aside, Fabio) and the despised Philistine woman who tried to ruin him. After Samson rejects Dalila's advances, she cuts off his hair while he sleeps. He is then captured and taken to the temple of the Philistine god Dagon, where he is tied up and mocked. While the priests prepare a sacrifice for their god, they take the now blind Samson out to entertain him. He asks to be placed between two pillars supporting the temple and, with his dying breath, crashes into the pillars, causing the temple to collapse and killing everyone in the temple, including himself. Although the Bible only mentions that the priests and guests were "in high spirits", Saint-Saëns depicted this gathering as an exaggerated, wine-soaked, depraved ceremony that exploited the Bacchanale: a dance named after the mythological god of wine and fertility.

The Rainbow was filmed by Simone Schlegel and edited by Wenjing Ma.




#classicalmusic, #Music, #古典音樂, #klassischemusik, #GJWexclusive, #Switzerland, #Schweiz, #Natur, #Nature, #KlassischeMusikundNatur, #ClassicalMusicAndNature, #古典音樂小站,