Comments on: (Non-obvious) classical music to scare girls to...?

Question: (Non-obvious) classical music to scare girls to...?

skylar — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:13:02 -0800

Can you suggest some dark, foreboding, scary classical music? Not the obvious stuff like The Hall of the Mountain King or Carmina Burana, but some pieces that might not be instantly recognisable. Can be any era - I'd love to find some stuff from the baroque era that fits the bill - but any period as long as it sends chills up and down the spine.

By: Jason and Laszlo

Jason and Laszlo — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:21:40 -0800

Ligeti's "Musica Ricercata, II" from the Eyes Wide Shut soundtrack is kinda freaky.

By: pjern

pjern — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:32:52 -0800

"La Valse" by Ravel has sort of that effect on me. It's unsettling, while ostensibly being a dance form, Ravel does some freaky and dark things to the music. There's a sense of unstable motion, misty and half-seen scenes, that I always thought would make a good horror soundtrack.

By: pjern

pjern — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:38:03 -0800

I'd also add Tchaikovsky's Symphony #6.... If there's bleaker, more hopeless music on the planet, I don't know what it might be.

By: Jaltcoh

Jaltcoh — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:44:51 -0800

Shostakovich's String Quartet #8 (starting with the 2nd movement).

2nd movement of Bruckner's 9th Symphony.

By: skylar

skylar — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:46:21 -0800

Great suggestion - Ligeti! Yes, of course, Ligeti is TERRIFYING. Great suggestions. And keep bringing on the bleak and hopeless. I love you, oh dark souls of AskMeFi...

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:49:24 -0800

There's plenty more unnerving Ligeti: Atmosphères and the Requiem, for example. In a similar vein, Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.

Seconding Ravel's La Valse, which sounds even spookier when played from a crackly old LP.

Some suitable piano pieces could be Rachmaninov's Prelude in C-Sharp minor, or Scriabin's White Mass sonata.

Are classical-lite soundtracks OK? if so, I have a fondness for the nicely ominous music from the not especially scary movie The Ninth Gate.

By: ChickenringNYC

ChickenringNYC — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:16:12 -0800

Bartok The Miraculous Mandarin for insane freak-out scary.

Xenakis string quartet 'Tetras' for spine-bending psychosis.

scherzo from Malcolm Arnold's 5th symphony for Grand Guignol silly scariness.

Varese 'Arcana' for aggressive fright.

By: that girl

that girl — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:22:16 -0800

Another silly scariness is Camille Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:25:38 -0800

I'm afraid my tastes run to the late Romantic and Modern, so no baroque from me:

Shostakovich: "The Execution of Stepan Razin"; Symphony No. 8, third movement; Symphony No. 11, second movement; Symphony No. 15, second movement; most of the "Katerina Ismailovna" Suite, except for the Allegretto.
Prokofiev: Second movement ("Le dieu ennemi et la danse des esprits noirs") of the "Ala and Lolly" Scythian Suite, Op. 20
Stravinsky: "Kashchei's Infernal Dance" from the "Firebird" Suite. (Perhaps a little too "obvious", though?)
Revueltas: "Sensemaya"
Respighi: "Il Giubileo" from "Feste Romane", and "Pini presso una catacomba" from "Pines of Rome" (though both of these movements have decidedly non-bleak sections.)
Berlioz: "Songe d'une Nuit du Sabbat" from "Symphonie Fantastique"
Mussorgsky: "Night on Bald Mountain" is almost certainly too obvious, but movements 12–14 of "Pictures at an Exhibition" are nice & foreboding.

By: Augenblick

Augenblick — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:17:22 -0800

Film music any good? How about the soundtrack for Enduring Love, proper stalker strings.

By: skylar

skylar — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:33:55 -0800

I'll take film music as long as it's not too easily-recognisable as a classic movie theme.

By: spamguy

spamguy — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:45:57 -0800

Try 'Milch Des Mondes Fiel Aufs Kraut' from Weber's Der Freischutz. So eerie. (Yeah, there's an umlaut there, but I could never type the damn things in Windows.)

By: stubby phillips

stubby phillips — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:59:56 -0800

Eerie 20th Century Music

Edgard Varese: Hyperprism
Luciano Berio: Symphonia

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:07:36 -0800

The soundtrack to Needful Things. While it does have the expected In the Hall of the Mountain King, the rest is pretty good and creepy. Check out Patrick Doyle's other soundtracks, namely Frankenstein and Hamlet.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:09:53 -0800

Oh! And Kronos Quartet's Black Angels.

By: bodywithoutorgans

bodywithoutorgans — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 08:34:24 -0800

The human voice used effectively is terrifying-
Modern Era:
St. Luke's Passion-Penderecki (horrifying serialist meditation on Christ's crucification)
Ancient Voices of Children-Crumb
Barqoue era: Check out Pergolesi's Stabat Mater
Classical Era: Mozart's Requiem (Popular but still dark as hell)
Romantic Era: Rachmaninoff's Isle of Dead

Let me know if you'd like some more recommendations.

By: Wet Spot

Wet Spot — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 08:47:41 -0800

Franz Liszt: Totentanz
Third on György Ligeti, especially Atmospheres.

By: radioamy

radioamy — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 08:57:59 -0800

How about instrumental-only versions of the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera?

By: canoehead

canoehead — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:12:28 -0800

From "the Omen" soundtrack

By: bent back tulips

bent back tulips — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:12:49 -0800

Bernard Herrmann's score for Hitchcock's Vertigo is quite haunting.

By: Quietgal

Quietgal — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:15:53 -0800

Check out some requiems (they're all about death - a good starting place for your needs, here). The "Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem is especially wail-of-tormented-souls scary.

By: Schlimmbesserung

Schlimmbesserung — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:34:10 -0800

Saint-Saens, "Danse Macabre"
The Allegro from Schumann's "Märchenbilder"
Rachmaninoff, "Toteninsel"

By: aperture_priority

aperture_priority — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 09:57:42 -0800

Danzig's Black Aria

By: mincus

mincus — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:37:14 -0800

Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta (movement III) by Bela Bartok - not instantly recognizable by most but has the scary advantage of being used by Kubrick in The Shining

By: inactivist

inactivist — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:53:23 -0800

Prokofiev's Montagues and Capulets theme.

By: taramosalata

taramosalata — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:07:12 -0800

George Crumb's 'Black Angels' is one of the most terrifying pieces of chamber music I've ever heard. I strongly recommend that you take a listen. There's a great recording with the Kronos Quartet.

By: skylar

skylar — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:23:17 -0800

Superb. I'd like to give you all "best of" answers if I could, but I'm going to listen to all of the above before reporting back at some later date. Huge thanks.

By: johnvaljohn

johnvaljohn — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:45:39 -0800

Seconding the "Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem.

By: Sonny Jim

Sonny Jim — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:03:56 -0800

Check out Alfred Schnittke's terrifyingly awesome Faust Cantata.

By: Sonny Jim

Sonny Jim — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:06:03 -0800

Also Arvo Pärt, Collage sur B-A-C-H, and Credo [1] [2].

By: LC

LC — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:15:36 -0800

The soundtrack to "The Fog of War" by Philip Glass

By: softlord

softlord — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:18:25 -0800

Total self-link (Sorry, but it answers the question...): A few years ago, my team at work put together a digital compilation of stuff called Fright Night: Music That Goes Bump In The Night (its $9.99 for 3cds worth of exactly this kind of material)...or you can stream on rhapsody/napster/whathaveyou.

By: captain cosine

captain cosine — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:22:02 -0800

Ravel - Gaspard de la Nuit ...... a three part piano suite....every part is very unique, scary, and very atmospheric. I highly recommend the version played by Martha Argerich... There should be some vids of this performance on youtube unless they've been removed.

By: captain cosine

captain cosine — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:28:05 -0800

oh, here is the 3rd part. Apparently its also one of the most difficult pieces in the repertoire. Heh, repertoire.

By: archagon

archagon — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:40:17 -0800

Bach - Passacaglia in C Minor

Handel - "Darkness" from "Israel in Egypt"

Bach - Violin Concerto No. 2 in E Major, BWV 1042, II.