Just a little similarity that might get you curious…

Compare the Poco risoluto in Sibelius's best-known 'dance of death' - Valse triste - with the quoted passage from Dödens dans (=Dance of death) from the incidental music to Belshazzar's Feast (original version quoted).

Very different theatrical contexts, but interesting nonetheless that the motif itself is so similar (based on seconds, it almost goes without saying), and in both cases a low-pitched clarinet is involved.

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Similar motive and clarinet in its lowest register, but as Andrew B points out, a very different theatrical context. In Valse triste from the music to 'Kuolema' [Death] by Sibelius's brother-in-law Arvid Jarnefelt the central character Paavali is seen at the bedside of his dying mother. She tells of her dream that she has gone to a ball. Later, while Paavali himself sleeps, death itself comes to claim her and the mother, mistaking him for her dead husband, dances with him. When Paavali wakes up his mother is dead. Despite its travels round Europe in various guises 'Valse triste' is a masterpiece. Sibelius shows as great an economy of material as the Fourth Symphony, not a superfluous note.
In the Dance of death from Belshazzar's Feast, Khadra opens a box from which emerges a wriggling cobra, she winds the snake round her neck and dances. The snake wakes up and bites her. The clarinet captures the scene so well.
In a broader context its facinating that for a man who lived into his ninties, Sibelius does seem to have been haunted contantly by thoughts of death and it dominates much of his music.--kullervopete.

kullervopete wrote:

its facinating that for a man who lived into his ninties, Sibelius does seem to have been haunted contantly by thoughts of death and it dominates much of his music.

And yet unlike Mahler, he is never hysterical about it. I feel Sibelius treats death with reverance and dignity, never with the theatrical and in my opinion highly affected hystrionics that we hear in (almost all of) Mahler's works.

Yes I agree absolutely. Sibelius's view of death is far removed from Mahlers somewhat neurotic vision. For me two pieces of music embrace the subject of death with restrained, yet consumate artistry 'Dido's Lament' from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and 'The death of Melisande' from Sibelius's incidental music to Pelleas et Melisande.--kullervopete.