[dB Cooper]

Due to a severe head injury, alien probing, or something of the kind, I have become much more receptive to classical music in my old age. I still don't dig the "powdered-wig" era much (as Frank Zappa put it, it reminds me of "painting by numbers"), and I tend to gravitate towards more modern and smaller scale works. With a few exceptions.

Last night I heard Saint-Säens' "Danse Macabre" on the "Beeb" and liked it enough to consider buying it. I see there is a Leonard Bernstein/NYP release (along with The Sorcerer's Apprentice and some pieces I don't know of) but wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions around these parts.
Y'all have been helpful to this noob before and I thank you in advance.

[Devil Doc]

Chiller a Telarc CD. It's got what you're looking for plus a bunch of other scary classical tunes by the Cincinnati Pops conducted by Erich Kunzel. It's also recorded quite well.

Doc

[Tyson]

Gil Shaham has a CD out called "Devil's Dance", with a bunch of stuff for violin and piano, and Danse Macabre is on it.  It doesn't give you a full orchestra, but it's even more excitingly performed, IMO.  Otherwise, the version with Charles Dutoit conducting on the Decca label is one of the best versions, mainly because of Kyung Wha Chung's amazing violin playing.

[Bob in St. Louis]

I searched on Spotify for "Danse Macabre", and there are more versions of that song that I can listen to in a single day.
To me, it appears like you'd have to sit down and listen to the various versions and see which one stirs your soul the most to make your wallet fly open in an uncontrollable manor.

Some of the versions were painful, and some were very nice.
Even the various versions listed that were preformed by Saint-Säens had a huge difference between them.
The one with Yo-Yo Ma and Eugene Ormandy was pretty cool. (to me)

Bob

[dB Cooper]

If I can find out what the version on the BBC was, I guess that would be a good place to start (since I liked that one), or failing that, it seems you can usually depend on Lenny B although that woulds be probably a much older recording. Supposedly the playlists are shown on the BBC website but the nav is somewhat inscrutable.

I will investigate the above versions; thanks for the suggestions

[jimdgoulding]

Do listen to Stravinsky's The Right of Spring if you haven't.

[Emsquare]

Do listen to Stravinsky's The Right of Spring if you haven't.

Preferably with a copy of Petrushka on the same disc. Which seems a common pairing.

[FullRangeMan]

I recommend a similar piece of modern music from the Argentinian Ginastera:
http://www.sa-cd.net/showtitle/6256

Some samples to listen:
http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Alberto-Ginastera-1916-1983-Popol-Vuh-op-44/hnum/7955527

[dB Cooper]

Do listen to Stravinsky's The Right of Spring if you haven't.

I have; got some good suggestions here on that one too.

Thanks for the link FULLRANGEMAN; I will look into that.

[dB Cooper]

I did some previewing on iTunes and bought one by the National Bolshoi Orchestra and one by (I swear I'm not making this up) The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain (don't judge me)(it's actually quite good).

My friends often tell me I have a strange sense of humor

If I like them I will hunt down a CD