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Danse Macabre, by Saint-Saens

My mother had a record with this and the Russian Sailor's Dance and a few other orchestral dances on it but this was definitely my favorite.  With that name how could it not be?  There's a little interlude in Disney's Fantasia where they talk about how some music is representational -- it's supposed to directly suggest a scene.  I always think of this as the epitome of such music.  The sound's of the bone clanking and the cock crowing at the end.

It was only recently since I've taken up ballroom dancing that I see it as a very fast waltz.   The energy it would take to dance so fast and so long.  Even the dead would be exhausted at the end.
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