The paranormal and supernatural in music

[Ciel_Rouge]

Yes, I know the Ghost Trio by Beethoven or the Doppelgänger by Schubert or Hexenlied by Mendelssohn or the Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky. I suppose it would be fun to create a thread with pieces coming from the paranormal or supernatural theme. I am looking forward to the pieces of this kind that you know of/like/listen to

[gomro]

Yes, I know the Ghost Trio by Beethoven or the Doppelgänger by Schubert or Hexenlied by Mendelssohn or the Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky. I suppose it would be fun to create a thread with pieces coming from the paranormal or supernatural theme. I am looking forward to the pieces of this kind that you know of/like/listen to

A great deal of Stockhausen's output revolves around the archangel Michael and his adversary Lucifer -- or the signs of the Zodiac -- or visitors from Sirius -- I guess all those sort of things have a bit of the "supernatural" or "paranormal" about them. So did Stockhausen.

[Opus106]

pieces coming from [a] supernatural theme.

Virtually every sacred ever written.

[snyprrr]

Black Angels/ George Crumb (1971)

written at, and FOR, one of the creepiest times ever. It uses a 6 (evil) versus 7 (good)= 13 (well, you know 13!) rhythmic scheme and generally sounds like ghost version of "Heart of Darkness."

Diamanda Galas...everything.  Ditto GG Allin.

Besides the fact that it depends on what you believe music IS 0:)!!!
But if you want to keep this thread "spiritual theory-free" and just stick to really creepy sounding music?...

yea (scratching head), how is THIS gonna run?

[Szykneij]

This is an excellent CD with several pieces appropriate to the thread:



   1. Danse Macabre (Camille Saint-Saëns)     
   2. Overture to "Orpheus in the Underworld": Jacques Offenbach: Allegro Con Fuoco - Lento - Allegro Vivace - Andante (Carl Binder)     
   3. Overture to "Orpheus in the Underworld": Jacques Offenbach: Allegro Con Fuoco (Carl Binder)     
   4. The Devil's Trill: I. Larghetto Afettuoso (Giuseppe Tartini)     
   5. The Devil's Trill: II. Allegro Energico, The Devil's Trill: III. Grave - Allegro Assai (Giuseppe Tartini)     
   6. Les Beautés Du Diable (François Dompierre)     
   7. Pantomima (Manuel de Falla)     
   8. Danza Ritual Del Fuego (Manuel de Falla)     
   9. Mephisto Waltz No. 1 (Franz Liszt)     
10. Le Diable Matou (François Dompierre)     
11. Caprice No. 24 (Nicolò Paganini)     
12. Le Reel Du Diable     
13. Sinfonia Op. 12, No.4 "Nella Del Diavolo" - Andante Sostenuto (Luigi Boccherini)     
14. Sinfonia Op. 12, No.4 "Nella Del Diavolo" - Allegro Con Molto (Luigi Boccherini)     
15. Paint It Black/Sympathy For The Devil (The Rolling Stones)     
16. Once Upon A Time?The Devil (Ennio Morricone)

[The new erato]

von Weber: Freischutz.

[Ciel_Rouge]

Yeap, I want to keep this thread "conspiracy theory free", just examples of pieces with explicit references to this theme. I am especially curious about pre-20th century pieces as the 20th century had a lot of "paranormal" composers The obvious examples of sacred music do not "qualify", but pieces like "Devil's Trill" or with angels in title certainly do. And definitely things like Doppelgänger. So Lieder and maybe madrigals as well - opera is too obvious - I am already aware of Faust, Rusalka etc. I am trying to expand my musical horizons and thought this may be a fun way to do that. Besides, I don't think we ever had a thread like that.

[Opus106]

Der Tod und das Mädchen Franz Schubert

?

[knight66]

Danse Macabre (Camille Saint-Saëns) This was initially written as a song. It imagines skeletons dancing together from the stroke of 12, then eventually the cock crows, dawn arrives, the graves become quiet again.

It is more usually performed in its orchestral guise where the rattle of the bones is so well evoked. Recently I attended a performance of a transcription for two pianos; quite exciting as they provoked one another into a frenzied tempo for the climax of the piece.

Mike

[knight66]

Verdi's Macbeth has plenty of supernatural appearances. The witches, forget about their initial appearance; it is not in the least spooky. However, later ghosts appear and there is an entire scene with Macbeth, the witches and various apparitions appear, the atmosphere here is clearly much more unworldly.

Mike

[Superhorn]

   "The Fiery Angel", an opera by Prokofiev,is probably the weirdest and creepiest portrayal of occult,supernatural and paranormal in music.
It's the bone-chilling  tale of Renata,an insane religious mystic in 16th century Germany, who is obsessed with finding the earthly appearance of an angel of fire which had supposedly appeared to her as a child.
She meets a wandering soldier of fortune,Ruprecht,who falls in love with her without being requited,and goes on a mad,supernatural journey among sorcerors and demonologists, and the opera ends with a horrifying scene where she undergoes an exorcism in the monastary to which she has retired, which goes horribly out of control. She is sentenced by the grand inquisitor to be tortured and burned at the stake.
  Prokofiev's music is almost unbearably intense and creepy.
  This opera is definitely not for the faint-hearted !  I have the recordings conductied by Gergiev on Phillips,and Neeme Jarvi on DG, both hard to find,but worth looking for,if you have the courage !


            0:)    0:)

[snyprrr]

Langgaard ANTICHRIST opera
Penderecki DEVILS OF LOUDON

[Ten thumbs]

Two contrasting pieces:
Alkan: Grand Duo concertant Op. 21 - second movement: L'enfer
Very creepy!
Bonis: L'ange gardien Op. 99
Ethereal - the piece is headed "Caresse qui se penche, Frôlement d'aile blanche C'est ton ange gardien"

[Wendell_E]

Bartók's A csodálatos mandarin (The Miraculous Mandarin)

[bwv 1080]

Varese - Arcana

[Bunny]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz, yet.  hehe.  Or Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, La Cenerentola.  All take on supernatural or paranormal phenomena.   Oops! Almost forgot Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream.

[Bunny]

Der Tod und das Mädchen Franz Schubert

?

I think Der Erlkönig is even more chilling and supernatural.

[knight66]

I think Der Erlkönig is even more chilling and supernatural.

One of the three voices is the voice of The Erlkonig, some kind of supernatural being and it lures the child towards his death. A lot of notes to the song suggest it is Death itself whispering to the child, but seemingly Goethe idea was slightly different.

Lots of operas have supernatural stories and characters. There is an opera by Heinrich Marschner called The Vampire.

http://www.oldandsold.com/articles05/opera-26.shtml

Philip Glass wrote an opera to the film of 'La belle et la bete.' The opera was synchronised with the film, then shown a couple of times. But as far as I understood, the copyright owners of the film refused to allow the film to be produced on DVD with the new soundtrack as an alternative version. I should think Glass would have produced fascinating music for such atmospheric visuals. It would be good to see it surface sometime; however, the opera was made available in sound only.

Wagner's Ring is stuffed full of supernatural beings.

Mike

[Ten thumbs]

I think Der Erlkönig is even more chilling and supernatural.

There are also a number of arrangements of the Lorelei in which the boatman is lured to his death. That by Clara Schumann uses an insistent rhythm in the manner of Der Erlkönig.

[knight66]

Thinking about Schubert's Doppleganger, I googled and found the following which I though was quite interesting. Perhaps we should start a thread on the various themes within Schubert songs.

From here.......

http://www.answers.com/topic/der-doppelg-nger-still-ist-die-nacht-song-for-voice-piano-schwanengesang-d-957-13

Four of Schubert's six Heine settings are frankly frightening. In Ihr Bild (Her Portrait), the singer sees a painting of his beloved come to ghostly life. In Die Stadt (The City), the singer sees the city in which he lost his love shimmer spectrally on the horizon. In Am Meer (By the Sea), the singer drinks the poisoned tears of his beloved and his body is consumed by disease. But by far the scariest song of the six Heine settings -- indeed the single scariest song Schubert ever composed -- is Der Doppelganger (The Ghostly Double). In Heine's poem, the narrator walks the street of a dead city and meets beneath the window of the woman he loves his own doppelganger, wringing his hands with agony and grief. In Schubert's song, the shock and the terror of recognition is more than the singer can bear and he is realizes that he is in fact what he already was before the song began: quite mad.

Schubert's music is absolutely unique and absolutely unlike anything else that had ever been composed. Only Mussorgsky's On the River can compare with its staggering simplicity and stunning transparency. The accompaniment is nothing but chords -- unavoidable, inescapable chords, nearly all of them minor chords -- which fall on the downbeat of every bar with only two tiny embellishments to relieve their grim monotony. And the vocal melody is not much more; in fact, it is more recitative than melody: the voice circles obsessively, endless around a single pitch, climbing at the song's first fortississimo climax on the word Schmerz (pain) to the octave above but then collapsing hideously back down to the original pitch. But the agonizing pain is palpable from the first note and the first climax simply states the obvious. But at the song's second climax, the melody again rise to the same fortississimo climax on the same awful pitch but this time on the word Liebesleid (love pain). And at that moment we know that the singer is mad, that the pain of love has driven the singer mad, and that this doppelganger is not his ghostly double but the singer himself.

One of the most frightening works of art ever created, Schubert's Der Doppelganger was written when he was only thirty years old. He would only live to write one more song. He would not live to create songs more terrifying than this. Is that his curse and our blessing? ~ All Music Guide