I remember watching The Shining (1980) and being absolutely terrified by the music. That film was my introduction to Bartok and I've never looked back.
Shostakovich Symphony no. 13 mvt. 4 - "Fears." Not so much for the text, which is all about the everyday fears of the Stalin-era (and after) USSR (which is scary, but in a different way), but the superb orchestral score, starting off with a disturbing atonal tuba solo, and then going through a panoply of quivering strings, and bells and other disturbing percussion, and all kinds of effects that are straight out of any good horror movie score. It's hair raising.
My nomination Franz Waxman’s The Creation of the Female monster (from The Bride of Frankenstein) Charles Gerhardt memorably recorded this in his 1970’s series of Classic Film Scores for RCA
Thank you for the list! May I suggest Myaskovsky Symphony No.7. About 20 minutes of macabre. Or his "Silentium" after Edgar Poe. Also Gubaidulina Bassoon Concerto, a BIS recording, where the soloist suddenly screams. Yet the whole concerto is spooky indeed. Tchaikovsky "Francesca da Rimini" and "Fatum". Bruckner Scherzo from Symphony No.9 with all those fata-morganas 👻As well as Scherzo from Mahler Symphony No.7. Finally, Protopopov Piano Sonata No.2 (a fellow of Mosolov) -- I believe the most scaring piece for piano ever written. But my choice for today is Mussorgsky "Songs and dances of Death".
Although not so scaring, but very evocative nevertheless, Glazunov's The Forest is worth mentioning. So is Bax's November Woods, for that matter, and,.... Barber's Music for a Scene from Shelley
That Martinu chord sequence in the central movement so gripped me that I pestered an older piano student at school to play them. Very tragic and effective, really appreciate your advocacy of Martinu also one of my favourite composers. With respect to your video on most beautiful melodies you nailed his distinctive "fingerprint" style😀 Great choices will add to listening list, thanks for your enthusiasm and sharing your knowledge.
Perfect choices! Thanks especially for your inclusion of the Sibelius. I'd like to add two of my own: Franz Schubert's song "Der Doppelgänger" from "Schwanengesang" - perhaps the scariest five minutes in all vocal literature - and a symphonic poem by Norwegian composer Fartein Valen, "The Cemetery by the Sea."
At a concert where he was conducting some Sibelius, Hannu Lintu was a giving a talk beforehand and said that, contrary to common notions, Sibelius didn’t love nature so much as held it in awe and terror. Tapiola certainly suggests as much.
I remember a Fritz Reiner LP which had Liszt's Totentanz (with Byron Janis) and Mephisto Waltz coupled with Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead. Ooh, the chills!
Wonderful choices. May I add Tam O'Shanter Overture. Both Malcolm Arnold and Chadwick's. (Many think Arnold invented bagpipes sound in the orchestra but I believe it was Sullivan for Haddon Hall.) Not much that's funny exactly but Shostakovich 14 always scares the hell out of me. Weber Freischuetz Wolf's Glen scene. Gavin Bryars' Sinking of the Titanic doesn't make much noise but it's quietly sinister and very unsettling, literally the lower depths. (No loaded apples here. I give out full size candy bars!)
I'm under the impression that you don't think much of Britten's Cello Symphony, but at least the two middle movements (Presto inquieto and Adagio) could qualify as decent enough Halloween music, at least on my list. Especially the Presto movement, where these strange woodwind arabesques, quiet and spooky brass chords and cello's spiccato passages keep appearing from nowhere like ghosts. I suppose that's one feature that makes music sound spooky. There's something mysterious and unpredictable about the texture and/or harmony of the work, so that you don't quite know what to expect.
Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King always gave me the creeps as a kid and still does in a way. There's something diabolical about it that gets under the skin.
Your recommendation of Viktoria Mullova and Sibelius was my Halloween moment. It grabbed me by the throat, in a good way. Oh dear, Jascha will now take 2nd place😬 Your Schnitke singing was quite scary too.
Hey David, wonderful idea for a video and great list. Some here in the comments have mentioned other very suitable works. I'd like to add two very different pieces: first the Tarantella movement from John Corigliano's First Symphony. The original idea of that movement was the delirium and total loss of control over your mental capacities in a late stadium of AIDS before there was a cure for it. There's this great moment in the movement, when the Tarantella theme is being dragged through the whole range of the orchestra from the deepest basses, contrabassoons and tubas higher and higher, thereby incrementally accelerating with increasing madness. Superb! And very much Halloween! The second piece is "Pression" for a solo cello by German avantgarde composer Helmut Lachenmann. It starts with very soft and quiet subtle white noises, but it develops into a frenzy of really frightening and haunting scratching and squeeking noises that remind more of some gruesome monster or alien wanting to eat you alive than of that romantic warmth you usually have in mind when thinking of a cello's sound. I once heard it alone in my darkened room when I still lived together with a friend in one apartment during our studying time. He came home and didn't know that I was at home already. He didn't hear the soft beginning of the piece and got totally freaked out when the loud noises started. He really thought there had been some kind of monster in our apartment and was totally relieved when he recognized that it was just me in my room listening to avantgarde music.
Gotta admit, my Halloween wouldn't be complete without a little Moonlight Sonata, and Bernard Herrmann's Murder theme from Psycho kind of puts me in the mood. Schubert plays well on a dreary, rainy All Hallow's Eve, namely Der Doppelgänger and Erlkönig. Finish it off with Trauermarsch from Götterdämmerung and you've got yourself one hell of a deliciously dark night!
So commentary says for me to hear Britten cello Symphony middle movements.Bernard Hermann Sinfonietta;Everyone already is familiar with both Ligeti and Penderecki.I've forgotten Schnittke's viola concerto but i love allhis work.ChrisRouse's Phantasmata.Corigliano's1st Symphony.Kokonnen's Music for Strings .Protopotov?2ndPfSonata.Xenakis Nuits.Never heard !Myakovsky Silentium and Symphony 7! Jerry Goldsmith Ave Satana.Shost no.14 and 15!??? Martinu doing expressionisn Concerto for 2 String orch,pf and timpani.Gotta catch that.
Fabulous choices, especially the Messiaen and Pettersson. The 2nd movement of Vaughan Williams' 6th Symphony still always gives me the creeps, even after 55 years' familiarity with it. It's so claustrophobic. (No point in having the eerie last movement playing in the background when kids are at the door - they wouldn't hear it!)
I think a great pick for this is the first movement of Christopher Rouse's Phantasmata, which is a spooky depiction of a disembodied soul making its way through the Sagrada Familia at night. All three movements are great, but this is the most Halloweeny one.
Great choices! I used to pipe through the loft above our front porch Rautavaara’s Angels and Visitations as well as the first two books from Crumb’s Makrokosmos on Halloween.
These are all good choices. Before I moved to Europe, where I live in an apartment building and nobody is interested in Trick or Treat, I used to use the Carlos Kleiber recording of the Wolf's Glen scene from Weber's Freischuetz on a loop, cranked up to full volume, of course. That definitely startled some youngsters.
Great choices! The Crumb is so wonderful in its colors that I got the score. I do not understand, why this piece isn't played or recorded more often. What I would add is the Sinfonietta for String Orchestra by Bernard Herrmann, which is even scarier than his "Psycho"-score, "Lontano" by György Ligeti, because of it's sick beauty (I always have the impression of a beautiful painting, but when one looks closely, one sees that it's painted with blood) and then, of course, "De natura sonoris 2" by Krzysztof Penderecki with its groaning and moaning and unhealthy breathing.
How about Arcana by Varese? I love the music of Varese, but Arcana still scares the heck out of me. I think The Myth of Sampo by Rautavaara also deserves consideration. The electronics used in the work are old-timey, but what can be more frightening than stealing the Sampo from the Mistress of Pohola?
William Bolcom - Black Host for organ, percussion and tape (1967) This is off an old Nonesuch LP "New Music for Organ" featuring organist William Allbright that I purchased a long long time ago. This demonic sounding piece throws everything but the kitchen sink at you: loud organ passages and outbursts, the Dies Irae, chimes, ragtime music and demented electronic tape sounds. This wont just scare the kids out trick or treating but their parents too. I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor. For me, that's iconic haunted house music.
I've always used Bartok's "The Miraculous Mandarin" to get rid of guests who are reluctant to leave. Always works like a charm, particularly if I fawn over it...which is the true part of my deceit.
Thanks, there are some pieces I did not know and I will listen to them...but the most important fact is that finally I know who is to blame for this Halloween explosion since years here in Italy...😉.
OMG I cannot believe you just said your sister and nephew live or lived in Milan!!! That's where I live! Corso Garibaldi? I work a five- minute walk from there! It's a small world.....
I would add Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony, 1st movement. On time I was listening to it at night, alone. And once that second half of the movement started (you know what I mean!) I was so freaked out that I took my headphones off and just stopped listening.
Some other pieces that I find Halloweeney are Lisztz Totenstatz for piano and orchestra, Gounoud’s Funeral March for a Marionette and the Commendator scene in Act II of Don Giovanni.
Definitely Henry Cowell's Banshee. Probably the creepiest music ever written. The first movement of Gorecki's second symphony, "Copernican." Probably the loudest ever written, and plenty creepy.
I was at my in-laws tonight and I put on their copy of Harry Partch's Delusion of the Fury. That did the trick. The music was creepy enough by itself but there was the added element that I thought my wife might kill me.
Of course, we might be here forever if we did include film music; one commenter has already named Psycho for one. Tho' in film's, the use of silence at the appropriate moment can be just as terrifying. There can be few creepier scores than the totally electronic one for the suspenseful Forbidden Planet to set the stage for shocks and scares, tho' one could argue it really isn't music (?). Thanks Dave, another great list full of pieces I did not really know; not that's truly scary!!!
Yeah I completely agree, Halloween is a turn off to me personally. I was working at a famous NYC comic book/sci-fi store in Manhattan right when the day was gathering steam as an adult event in the 1980’s, and that store had a whole seasonal Halloween mask and makeup section. But I never got it myself
Some great suggestions, Dave. I would add Joonas Kokkonen's Music for Strings, a strange, disturbing work that sounds like it could've been written for a Hitchcock film. And Vaughan Williams' 6th symphony, mentioned by another commenter, except that I find the last movement most chilling, especially in light of Russia's recent nuclear saber-rattling
The original religious celebration was the Celtic New year, the traditional start of Winter in the North. At that time, the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest and so it was a time for remembering those who went before us: our ancestors, our loved ones etc. There were time-honored rituals that did include dressing up in scary costumes to scare away the mischievous sprites (it was wasn't just our dead relatives who could visit us during this time.) So, dressing up was a real part of the tradition, many centuries ago. Of course, once the Borg religion assimilated it and turned it into Halloween and All Saints' Day, that meaning was lost. And so, I totally hear what you're saying regarding the commercialization of Halloween. Same with ****** (insert traditional celebration here).
No Penderecki on the list!? Devils of Loudon Knosmogonia Cello Concerto Dies Irae (Auschwitz) Threnody Utrenja Also, I highly recommend Ligeti’s Apparitions. This piece scared me so much when I was a kid, it’s what got me into contemporary classical music for good. Very underrated and not performed enough.
Ligeti’s requiem, part II: Kyrie. If that doesn’t make your skin crawl, I don’t know what does…
I remember watching The Shining (1980) and being absolutely terrified by the music. That film was my introduction to Bartok and I've never looked back.
A Faust Overture by Wagner, especially Toscanini's recording. It literally gives me goosebumps.
Shostakovich Symphony no. 13 mvt. 4 - "Fears." Not so much for the text, which is all about the everyday fears of the Stalin-era (and after) USSR (which is scary, but in a different way), but the superb orchestral score, starting off with a disturbing atonal tuba solo, and then going through a panoply of quivering strings, and bells and other disturbing percussion, and all kinds of effects that are straight out of any good horror movie score. It's hair raising.
My nomination Franz Waxman’s The Creation of the Female monster (from The Bride of Frankenstein) Charles Gerhardt memorably recorded this in his 1970’s series of Classic Film Scores for RCA
How about the first section from Poulenc’s organ concerto? Also Mendelssohn’s Walpurgis Night?
Kabeláč Symphony No. 8 "Antiphons" is a total overdose of scariness from the first to the last note.
Thank you for the list!
May I suggest Myaskovsky Symphony No.7. About 20 minutes of macabre. Or his "Silentium" after Edgar Poe.
Also Gubaidulina Bassoon Concerto, a BIS recording, where the soloist suddenly screams. Yet the whole concerto is spooky indeed.
Tchaikovsky "Francesca da Rimini" and "Fatum".
Bruckner Scherzo from Symphony No.9 with all those fata-morganas 👻As well as Scherzo from Mahler Symphony No.7.
Finally, Protopopov Piano Sonata No.2 (a fellow of Mosolov) -- I believe the most scaring piece for piano ever written.
But my choice for today is Mussorgsky "Songs and dances of Death".
Although not so scaring, but very evocative nevertheless, Glazunov's The Forest is worth mentioning.
So is Bax's November Woods, for that matter, and,....
Barber's Music for a Scene from Shelley
I used to play Pierrot Lunaire while answering the door to trick-or-treaters. Actually, anything with sprechstimme works.
Pierrot Luinaire is such a beautiful piece. I love the 19th, the Serenade. Transcendental
That Martinu chord sequence in the central movement so gripped me that I pestered an older piano student at school to play them.
Very tragic and effective, really appreciate your advocacy of Martinu also one of my favourite composers.
With respect to your video on most beautiful melodies you nailed his distinctive "fingerprint" style😀
Great choices will add to listening list, thanks for your enthusiasm and sharing your knowledge.
Perfect choices! Thanks especially for your inclusion of the Sibelius. I'd like to add two of my own: Franz Schubert's song "Der Doppelgänger" from "Schwanengesang" - perhaps the scariest five minutes in all vocal literature - and a symphonic poem by Norwegian composer Fartein Valen, "The Cemetery by the Sea."
At a concert where he was conducting some Sibelius, Hannu Lintu was a giving a talk beforehand and said that, contrary to common notions, Sibelius didn’t love nature so much as held it in awe and terror. Tapiola certainly suggests as much.
I remember a Fritz Reiner LP which had Liszt's Totentanz (with Byron Janis) and Mephisto Waltz coupled with Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead. Ooh, the chills!
Liszt's Mephisto Waltz (orchestral) is on my Halloween playlist.
Wonderful choices. May I add
Tam O'Shanter Overture. Both Malcolm Arnold and Chadwick's.
(Many think Arnold invented bagpipes sound in the orchestra but I believe it was Sullivan for Haddon Hall.)
Not much that's funny exactly but Shostakovich 14 always scares the hell out of me.
Weber Freischuetz Wolf's Glen scene.
Gavin Bryars' Sinking of the Titanic doesn't make much noise but it's quietly sinister and very unsettling, literally the lower depths.
(No loaded apples here. I give out full size candy bars!)
I'm under the impression that you don't think much of Britten's Cello Symphony, but at least the two middle movements (Presto inquieto and Adagio) could qualify as decent enough Halloween music, at least on my list. Especially the Presto movement, where these strange woodwind arabesques, quiet and spooky brass chords and cello's spiccato passages keep appearing from nowhere like ghosts. I suppose that's one feature that makes music sound spooky. There's something mysterious and unpredictable about the texture and/or harmony of the work, so that you don't quite know what to expect.
I always love to play Nuits by Xenakis ..that opening! Then the grunting!
Liszt's Csárdás Macabre played by my favourite pianist Zoltán Kocsis. Chills!
Thanks Dave, in this context is the first time that Tapiola ‘clicked’ for me. And what a piece is that Crumb!
Thanks for listening!
Great list. I think Schnittke’s Viola Concerto 1st movement is one of the most terrifying pieces ever written.
I totally agree!
Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King always gave me the creeps as a kid and still does in a way. There's something diabolical about it that gets under the skin.
Also add the Ligeti Requiem, which at times sounds like it’s wafting up from the depths of hell.
Yes! The Dies Irae movement is so much fun too!
I wouldn't go into the woods tonight if 'Tapiola' was roaming around.
Andre Caplet The Masque of the Red Death.Death knocking at the door at midnight scares me still!!.
That's a great one!
“Son lo spirito” from Boitos Mefistofele is perfect for Halloween.
Your recommendation of Viktoria Mullova and Sibelius was my Halloween moment. It grabbed me by the throat, in a good way. Oh dear, Jascha will now take 2nd place😬 Your Schnitke singing was quite scary too.
Great list. A couple additions: Mahler 7 Scherzo and Mahler 6 Finale beginning and very last outburst by Bernstein on DG.
Hey David, wonderful idea for a video and great list. Some here in the comments have mentioned other very suitable works. I'd like to add two very different pieces: first the Tarantella movement from John Corigliano's First Symphony. The original idea of that movement was the delirium and total loss of control over your mental capacities in a late stadium of AIDS before there was a cure for it. There's this great moment in the movement, when the Tarantella theme is being dragged through the whole range of the orchestra from the deepest basses, contrabassoons and tubas higher and higher, thereby incrementally accelerating with increasing madness. Superb! And very much Halloween! The second piece is "Pression" for a solo cello by German avantgarde composer Helmut Lachenmann. It starts with very soft and quiet subtle white noises, but it develops into a frenzy of really frightening and haunting scratching and squeeking noises that remind more of some gruesome monster or alien wanting to eat you alive than of that romantic warmth you usually have in mind when thinking of a cello's sound. I once heard it alone in my darkened room when I still lived together with a friend in one apartment during our studying time. He came home and didn't know that I was at home already. He didn't hear the soft beginning of the piece and got totally freaked out when the loud noises started. He really thought there had been some kind of monster in our apartment and was totally relieved when he recognized that it was just me in my room listening to avantgarde music.
Gotta admit, my Halloween wouldn't be complete without a little Moonlight Sonata, and Bernard Herrmann's Murder theme from Psycho kind of puts me in the mood. Schubert plays well on a dreary, rainy All Hallow's Eve, namely Der Doppelgänger and Erlkönig. Finish it off with Trauermarsch from Götterdämmerung and you've got yourself one hell of a deliciously dark night!
I recommend the first movement of Beethoven's "Cantata on the Death of Joseph II", and the Adagio for Glass Harmonica in C minor, K. 617 by Mozart.
So commentary says for me to hear Britten cello Symphony middle movements.Bernard Hermann Sinfonietta;Everyone already is familiar with both Ligeti and Penderecki.I've forgotten Schnittke's viola concerto but i love allhis work.ChrisRouse's Phantasmata.Corigliano's1st Symphony.Kokonnen's Music for Strings .Protopotov?2ndPfSonata.Xenakis Nuits.Never heard !Myakovsky Silentium and Symphony 7! Jerry Goldsmith Ave Satana.Shost no.14 and 15!??? Martinu doing expressionisn Concerto for 2 String orch,pf and timpani.Gotta catch that.
Fabulous choices, especially the Messiaen and Pettersson. The 2nd movement of Vaughan Williams' 6th Symphony still always gives me the creeps, even after 55 years' familiarity with it. It's so claustrophobic. (No point in having the eerie last movement playing in the background when kids are at the door - they wouldn't hear it!)
Wonderful list. Love to see Rachmaninoff. Some other pieces to consider are Vierne's messe sollemne and Honegger's Jeane d'arc de bucher.
Eino Tamberg Joanna Tentata Suite, has some of the spookiest music Mvt1,3 I know and sounds like perfect Halloween music...
I think a great pick for this is the first movement of Christopher Rouse's Phantasmata, which is a spooky depiction of a disembodied soul making its way through the Sagrada Familia at night. All three movements are great, but this is the most Halloweeny one.
Great choices! I used to pipe through the loft above our front porch Rautavaara’s Angels and Visitations as well as the first two books from Crumb’s Makrokosmos on Halloween.
These are all good choices.
Before I moved to Europe, where I live in an apartment building and nobody is interested in Trick or Treat, I used to use the Carlos Kleiber recording of the Wolf's Glen scene from Weber's Freischuetz on a loop, cranked up to full volume, of course. That definitely startled some youngsters.
Great choices! The Crumb is so wonderful in its colors that I got the score. I do not understand, why this piece isn't played or recorded more often.
What I would add is the Sinfonietta for String Orchestra by Bernard Herrmann, which is even scarier than his "Psycho"-score, "Lontano" by György Ligeti, because of it's sick beauty (I always have the impression of a beautiful painting, but when one looks closely, one sees that it's painted with blood) and then, of course, "De natura sonoris 2" by Krzysztof Penderecki with its groaning and moaning and unhealthy breathing.
“The Dream of Jacob” by Penderecki has to be one of the most disturbing pieces of music I have encountered.
How about Arcana by Varese? I love the music of Varese, but Arcana still scares the heck out of me. I think The Myth of Sampo by Rautavaara also deserves consideration. The electronics used in the work are old-timey, but what can be more frightening than stealing the Sampo from the Mistress of Pohola?
William Bolcom - Black Host for organ, percussion and tape (1967)
This is off an old Nonesuch LP "New Music for Organ" featuring organist William Allbright that I purchased a long long time ago. This demonic sounding piece throws everything but the kitchen sink at you: loud organ passages and outbursts, the Dies Irae, chimes, ragtime music and demented electronic tape sounds. This wont just scare the kids out trick or treating but their parents too.
I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention Bach's Toccata and Fugue in d minor. For me, that's iconic haunted house music.
Some great choices. Surprised not to see Holst's "Mars, the God of War." But, with that said, some of these are revelations. Thanks.
I've always used Bartok's "The Miraculous Mandarin" to get rid of guests who are reluctant to leave. Always works like a charm, particularly if I fawn over it...which is the true part of my deceit.
It deserves non-deceptive fawning. It's a great piece.
Excelent list! I dare to say that Penderecki's Utrenja is utterly scary too.
Thanks, there are some pieces I did not know and I will listen to them...but the most important fact is that finally I know who is to blame for this Halloween explosion since years here in Italy...😉.
For you rock music fans... Deep Purple wrote a song called, "Vincent Price" in 2013. A very fun video was made too. Happy Halloween Dave!
Messiaen scares me every time I hear him.
Terrific suggestions. Thanks and Happy Halloween!🎃
Great list! I would add The Banshee by Henry Cowell and two symphonic poems by Eugeniusz Morawski - Nevermore and Ulalume.
OMG I cannot believe you just said your sister and nephew live or lived in Milan!!! That's where I live! Corso Garibaldi? I work a five- minute walk from there! It's a small world.....
Yes, it is!
I would add Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony, 1st movement. On time I was listening to it at night, alone. And once that second half of the movement started (you know what I mean!) I was so freaked out that I took my headphones off and just stopped listening.
Dave thanks for the hilarious video! Happy Halloween!!
Recently there is a new recording of Handels Theodora released by Maxim Emelyanychev. Are you planning to make a video about that?
If I can get it.
Great Halloween selections, but if you are in a hurry there is always Ives Halloween-all 1:56 of it in Bernstein’s performance!🎃
Some other pieces that I find Halloweeney are Lisztz Totenstatz for piano and orchestra, Gounoud’s Funeral March for a Marionette and the Commendator scene in Act II of Don Giovanni.
Definitely Henry Cowell's Banshee. Probably the creepiest music ever written.
The first movement of Gorecki's second symphony, "Copernican." Probably
the loudest ever written, and plenty creepy.
What about the Wolf's Glen scene in Der Freischutz?
I'm disappointed, Dave, that you didn't dress up for us.
But I did. I pretended to be a music critic.
When you started the concert pairings series, I was wondering what you might pair with Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead?
I add Bazzini- Dance of the Goblins to my Halloween playlist
On the fun side, I would add the Gounod Funeral March of a Marionette.
I was at my in-laws tonight and I put on their copy of Harry Partch's Delusion of the Fury. That did the trick. The music was creepy enough by itself but there was the added element that I thought my wife might kill me.
Of course, we might be here forever if we did include film music; one commenter has already named Psycho for one. Tho' in film's, the use of silence at the appropriate moment can be just as terrifying. There can be few creepier scores than the totally electronic one for the suspenseful Forbidden Planet to set the stage for shocks and scares, tho' one could argue it really isn't music (?). Thanks Dave, another great list full of pieces I did not really know; not that's truly scary!!!
Yeah I completely agree, Halloween is a turn off to me personally. I was working at a famous NYC comic book/sci-fi store in Manhattan right when the day was gathering steam as an adult event in the 1980’s, and that store had a whole seasonal Halloween mask and makeup section. But I never got it myself
Some great suggestions, Dave. I would add Joonas Kokkonen's Music for Strings, a strange, disturbing work that sounds like it could've been written for a Hitchcock film. And Vaughan Williams' 6th symphony, mentioned by another commenter, except that I find the last movement most chilling, especially in light of Russia's recent nuclear saber-rattling
Like Messiaen: Reger's Symphonic Fantasia and Fugue, Op 57
Beware pomological poisons - thank you for the amusing warnings Uncle Dave.
Arvo part pro et contra sounds to me like satanic ritual music. It’s fantastic for Halloween!
What about The Sorcerer s Apprentice?
What about it?
That's not scary at all
@@violintegral No, it isn't. It's just funny.
Strauss Elektra lol
The original religious celebration was the Celtic New year, the traditional start of Winter in the North. At that time, the veil between the worlds was at its thinnest and so it was a time for remembering those who went before us: our ancestors, our loved ones etc. There were time-honored rituals that did include dressing up in scary costumes to scare away the mischievous sprites (it was wasn't just our dead relatives who could visit us during this time.) So, dressing up was a real part of the tradition, many centuries ago. Of course, once the Borg religion assimilated it and turned it into Halloween and All Saints' Day, that meaning was lost. And so, I totally hear what you're saying regarding the commercialization of Halloween. Same with ****** (insert traditional celebration here).
No Penderecki on the list!?
Devils of Loudon
Knosmogonia
Cello Concerto
Dies Irae (Auschwitz)
Threnody
Utrenja
Also, I highly recommend Ligeti’s Apparitions. This piece scared me so much when I was a kid, it’s what got me into contemporary classical music for good. Very underrated and not performed enough.
His Magnificat is scary too !
Absolutely. Pretty much all of the early pieces he wrote are really scary
@@bobbysikoraOnce I invited a girl home a long time ago
I put the vinyl of Dies Irae on the record player in my bedroom
Never saw her again...