Top 11 Scared Works, GMG Halloween Special

[amw]

From the opera world there's that one bit in Der Freischütz with the evil bullets. And Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice (technically mythology but whatever) and Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable. An awful lot of Fausts (Berlioz, Gounod, Boito and so forth). From Wagner we have Der fliegende Hollander and I guess Tännhauser. There's also Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. And Britten's The Turn of the Screw... Actually... it might be easier to make a list of operas that don't have a supernatural component

[Lisztianwagner]

Some of mine:

Wagner Siegfried (preludes of Acts I and II)
Leifs Hekla
Shostakovich Symphony No.10
Bartók Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1st and 3rd movement)
Penderecki Polymorphia
Mussorgsky Night on the Bare Mountain
Berg Three Pieces for Orchestra

I think Expressionism and atonal works sound particularly suitable for a dark, scary atmosphere; a tense, dramatic music, rich of violent dissonances and  haunting, hyptonic rhythms, able to evoke those instinctive forces hidden at the bottom of the human being.

[Mirror Image]

Here are some that quite creepy -

Schnittke: Faust Cantata
Martin: Polyptyque
Penderecki: Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8
Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra
Hartmann: Symphony No. 8
Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin
Schuman: Symphony No. 9, "Le fosse ardeatine"
Kurtag: Stele

...to be continued....

[The new erato]

...to be continued....

I don't doubt it......

[Mirror Image]

I don't doubt it......

[TheGSMoeller]

http://www.youtube.com/v/1OIiFNKhtk0

[kyjo]

Can't believe I forgot Holmboe's Four Symphonic Metamorphoses, which are quite "scary" in their slumbering, subterranean power.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but has no one mentioned Berg's Wozzeck yet?!

[kyjo]

Mennin: Symphonies 8 and 9
Tishchenko: Dante Symphonies

[Cato]

Several parts of Webern's 6 Pieces for Orchestra work nicely here, especially the highly disturbed and disturbing #2.

[ibanezmonster]

Several parts of Webern's 6 Pieces for Orchestra work nicely here, especially the highly disturbed and disturbing #2.

The word "disturbing" is seriously making me want to go back to this.


No mention of Xenakis yet? 
Ata is a good one...

[Karl Henning]

Anyone else surprised at this? You could have knocked me over with a Yellow Submarine DVD.

[kyjo]

Revueltas' Sensemaya has a sense of looming threat that can be quite "scary" if handled effectively.

[kyjo]

I've always thought the first movement of Nielsen 5 is kinda scary, with its "approaching storm" feel and epic side-drum vs. orchestra battle.

[Brian]

Can't believe I forgot Holmboe's Four Symphonic Metamorphoses, which are quite "scary" in their slumbering, subterranean power.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but has no one mentioned Berg's Wozzeck yet?!

Check reply #3

Don't agree about the Holmboe (wouldn't play it for trick-or-treaters anyway), but Wozzeck is one of the best possible examples!

[TheGSMoeller]

The opening moments from the second mvt "The Evil God and the Dance of the Pagan Monsters" of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite has always seemed a bit frightening to me 
Either that or it's the best example of classical music as heavy metal.

[Cato]

The opening moments from the second mvt "The Evil God and the Dance of the Pagan Monsters" of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite has always seemed a bit frightening to me 
Either that or it's the best example of classical music as heavy metal.

Amen!  Prokofiev rawks!

[Mirror Image]

The Scherzo in Mahler's 7th is pretty darn spooky.

[jochanaan]

...Ligeti - Musica Ricercata, II (Mesto, Rigido E Cerimoniale)

The one from Eyes Wide Shut?  Only scary by association with the movie.

[jochanaan]

Several parts of Webern's 6 Pieces for Orchestra work nicely here, especially the highly disturbed and disturbing #2.

I'd go for #4 of those; spooky stuff!

[kyjo]

Lutoslawski's Funeral Music is pretty scary, especially the brief section entitled Apogeum, which approaches an (early) Penderecki-like intensity.