Classial Music Chibis!

I drew up the cast of Romeo and Juliet, but I figured that everyone was tired of the constant R+J stuff that I've been posting, so I thought I'd do this first!

So here are the three pieces that I illustrated, Sheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Paul Dukas, and Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens. These three pieces are Tone Poems, meaning they tell a story through the music. Hence, they are the easiest to draw!

Sheherazade

Sheherazade is about a sultan who is convinced all women are faithless, and marries one woman each night and has her executed the next morning. Then one night, his bride is the clever and imaginative Sheherazade, who saves her life by telling him one enthralling story every night, and timing it just right so that it ends on a cliffhanger so that he needs her one more night to hear the rest! This goes on for 1,001 nights, until he finally lets her live. The piece ends tranquilly, with Sheherazade finally getting a good night's sleep!

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

[snort] We all know the story of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, right? A mischievous young apprentice gets ahold of his master's book of spells and wreaks havoc. I had a LOT of fun drawing this one, from his overblown look of awe to the random color swirls that are supposed to represent the magic he's performing. :D

Danse Macabre

Danse Macabre is a song made of awesome. It tells the story of Death, who goes to the graveyard at midnight on Halloween (the stroke of Twelve is represented by a Harp playing twelve D's in a row). He plays his violin (there is a solo violin part, and get this! The soloist actually uses a special tuning to sound really devilish!!) and forces the bones of the dead to dance a mad waltz. It becomes more frenzied and insane until the sun rises (represented by an oboe playing a chipper little riff). It's really cool, and we're playing it in concert this very Sunday! AAAAHHH!