Comments on: Music for the Midnight Hour

Question: Music for the Midnight Hour

orange swan — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:48:13 -0800

I'm trying to build my Halloween YouTube playlist, and I'd love recommendations for some haunting and eerie, yet beautiful music. This piece is exactly the kind of thing I have in mind, yet I haven't been able to find much that really measures up to it. I'd prefer instrumental and choral pieces, and they must be on YouTube. Classical recommendations are welcome. Mozart's Requiem Mass is on the playlist already.

By: scruss

scruss — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:55:16 -0800

Manége is creepy in a blood-soaked merry-go-round sort of a way.

By: empath

empath — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:57:20 -0800

I like this one.

And you can't go wrong with Dead Can Dance.

By: usonian

usonian — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:02:28 -0800

Perhaps Gnossienne No. 1 by Erik Satie.

By: davebush

davebush — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:03:44 -0800

John Foxx: Cathedral Oceans

By: bessel functions seem unnecessarily complicated

bessel functions seem unnecessarily complicated — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:11:07 -0800

Your example immediately made me think of the Interview with a Vampire soundtrack. E.g. this. Many of those tracks may fit the bill.

By: erst

erst — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:31:46 -0800

A few songs by Fever Ray might fit.

You can't forget Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Bach.

Would Mozart's "Dies Irae" work?

By: KathrynT

KathrynT — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:46:38 -0800

erst, the Dies Irae is one movement of the Requiem the OP says is already on the list. OP, may I suggest the Dies Irae from the Verdi requiem as well?

In a less raging, more haunting vein, Try the Ligeti Lux Aeterna, the Penderecki Stabat Mater, the Part Magnificat. All of those meet my definition of beautiful and eerie. There's also the Penderecki Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, which is definitely eerie but not so much the beautiful.

By: brujita

brujita — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:55:27 -0800

Funeral March of a Marionette

By: Currer Belfry

Currer Belfry — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 05:05:36 -0800

von Weber's Der Freischütz is kind of a classical "Monster Mash" for Halloween playlists. You can't miss.

By: saladin

saladin — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 05:09:38 -0800

Definitely should toss some Gesualdo on that playlist.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:00:17 -0800

You know about Danny Elfman, yes? This is pretty much what he does. Maybe shaded a bit more towards creepy and weird than haunting and eerie, but still in the right ballpark, I think.

By: nebulawindphone

nebulawindphone — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 07:06:42 -0800

Stravinski's Symphony of Psalms. The third movement in particular alternates between haunting beauty and some sorta proto-Elfman-ish creeping skittering weirdness.

By: altopower

altopower — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 09:08:53 -0800

Gorecki's Symphony #3 (that's an excerpt). Extremely haunting.

By: dr. boludo

dr. boludo — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:01:22 -0800

Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead.

By: therewolf

therewolf — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 13:10:37 -0800

Oh man, I could go on for days.

Eric Whitacre's Cloudburst
the soundtrack to The Shining, top to bottom (lots of Penderecki, Ligeti and Bartok)

beyond just the Dies Irae, Verdi's full Requiem (I prefer it to Mozart's)

This thread has a lot of good recommendations, particularly Kutsuwamushi's.

Any Bernard Hermann
or Pino Donaggio (especially his score for Carrie)--he manages to portray romance and fear simultaneously.

Philip Glass's score for The Hours