Classical music desert island playlist...for the Isle of the Dead?
March 6, 2018 6:50 PM Subscribe
I am on a hunt for little or lesser-known classical music that invokes disquiet or suspense in the listener. Specifics below the fold!
While Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, Grieg's In The Hall Of The Mountain King, Berlioz’s Dreams of a Witches’ Sabbath and March to the Scaffold are all terrific they've appeared in popular culture so often that they've lost (at least to me) any ability to conjure up unease (likewise with themes from horror movies, such as William's Jaws or Herrmann’s Psycho).
Some examples of what I'm looking for: I find Rachmaninov's The Isle Of The Dead wonderfully foreboding. Michael Nyman's Memorial unnerves me. Tigran Mansurian's Three Pieces For Piano is unsettling. I need MORE!!!! It doesn't have to be an entire symphony or opera, if there is part of a score that you return to because it sends shivers through you then that is what I'm looking for. In short, I want my very own macabre soundtrack that will create an atmosphere of fear and dread. Thank you.
While Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, Grieg's In The Hall Of The Mountain King, Berlioz’s Dreams of a Witches’ Sabbath and March to the Scaffold are all terrific they've appeared in popular culture so often that they've lost (at least to me) any ability to conjure up unease (likewise with themes from horror movies, such as William's Jaws or Herrmann’s Psycho).
Some examples of what I'm looking for: I find Rachmaninov's The Isle Of The Dead wonderfully foreboding. Michael Nyman's Memorial unnerves me. Tigran Mansurian's Three Pieces For Piano is unsettling. I need MORE!!!! It doesn't have to be an entire symphony or opera, if there is part of a score that you return to because it sends shivers through you then that is what I'm looking for. In short, I want my very own macabre soundtrack that will create an atmosphere of fear and dread. Thank you.
Univers Zero's album Heresie is my suggestion.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 7:48 PM on March 6, 2018
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 7:48 PM on March 6, 2018
La forza del destino by Verdi includes the aria La Vergine Degli Angeli, which I find disquieting.
Tristan und Isolde by Wagner includes the aria Liebestodt. ("Love-Death") My music student friends are fond of saying that everyone they know who likes Wagner is also into alcohol or downers.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:14 PM on March 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
Tristan und Isolde by Wagner includes the aria Liebestodt. ("Love-Death") My music student friends are fond of saying that everyone they know who likes Wagner is also into alcohol or downers.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:14 PM on March 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Creepy is a little bit in the ear of the beholder but let's see...
Bartok's opera Bluebeard's Castle is consistently creepy.
George Crumb's Vietnam-themed string quartet Black Angels and some of Crumb's other work I would call creepy.
Ligeti gets used in soundtracks but not overused. (It's one of the only non-laughable things about Eyes Wide Shut.)
Webern can be kind of unnerving.
I will probably think of other things and spout them later.
posted by Smearcase at 8:30 PM on March 6, 2018
Bartok's opera Bluebeard's Castle is consistently creepy.
George Crumb's Vietnam-themed string quartet Black Angels and some of Crumb's other work I would call creepy.
Ligeti gets used in soundtracks but not overused. (It's one of the only non-laughable things about Eyes Wide Shut.)
Webern can be kind of unnerving.
I will probably think of other things and spout them later.
posted by Smearcase at 8:30 PM on March 6, 2018
Bartok - The Miraculous Mandarin
Stravinsky - Orpheus
posted by dilaudid at 8:51 PM on March 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
Stravinsky - Orpheus
posted by dilaudid at 8:51 PM on March 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
soundtrack for the Shining
Krzysztof Penderecki in general ...
posted by philip-random at 8:53 PM on March 6, 2018
Krzysztof Penderecki in general ...
posted by philip-random at 8:53 PM on March 6, 2018
Anger by Ryuichi Sakamoto. If it's too discordant on it's own, listen to the whole of the piece it's from if you have an hour to spend on it.
posted by Candleman at 9:12 PM on March 6, 2018
posted by Candleman at 9:12 PM on March 6, 2018
You are going to love (and fear) Wolfgang Rihm’s Musik für drei streicher.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 9:52 PM on March 6, 2018
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 9:52 PM on March 6, 2018
Best answer: The Wolf Glen scene from Weber's Der Freischütz is pretty freaky.
Menotti wrote a one-hour long opera called The Medium (the supernatural kind), synopsis here . Apparently there's a film version, though I haven't watched it.
A Survivor from Warsaw by Schoenberg. Text here.
Shostakovich's 8th string quartet (cw suicide ideation, if someone who doesn't know the piece wanted to look it up)
The latter two are less supernaturally scary (which seems to be the theme of your OP) than surrounded-by-fascists-scary, but they do fit the suspenseful/foreboding/unsettling/fear+dread criterias.
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 2:30 AM on March 7, 2018
Menotti wrote a one-hour long opera called The Medium (the supernatural kind), synopsis here . Apparently there's a film version, though I haven't watched it.
A Survivor from Warsaw by Schoenberg. Text here.
Shostakovich's 8th string quartet (cw suicide ideation, if someone who doesn't know the piece wanted to look it up)
The latter two are less supernaturally scary (which seems to be the theme of your OP) than surrounded-by-fascists-scary, but they do fit the suspenseful/foreboding/unsettling/fear+dread criterias.
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 2:30 AM on March 7, 2018
Best answer: Definitely Penderecki. (Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima)
Wojciech Kilar's score for Coppola's Dracula is pretty great.
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 2:43 AM on March 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Wojciech Kilar's score for Coppola's Dracula is pretty great.
posted by Funeral march of an old jawbone at 2:43 AM on March 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Not super punchy like the Mussorgsky or Grieg, but Aulis Sallinen's Some Aspects of Peltoniemi Hintrik's Funeral March is one of my gloomy favorites.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 2:46 AM on March 7, 2018
posted by Mister Moofoo at 2:46 AM on March 7, 2018
Shostakovich's 5th symphony.
posted by ferret branca at 4:21 AM on March 7, 2018
posted by ferret branca at 4:21 AM on March 7, 2018
Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.
posted by huimangm at 5:16 AM on March 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by huimangm at 5:16 AM on March 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
William Lawes' consort music for viol is foreboding and strange if you are into the baroque.
posted by winna at 5:38 AM on March 7, 2018
posted by winna at 5:38 AM on March 7, 2018
Schoenberg's Erwartung.
posted by dr. boludo at 7:14 AM on March 7, 2018
posted by dr. boludo at 7:14 AM on March 7, 2018
There are several haunting Astor Piazzolla pieces that swerve into dissonance, often more unsettling in live versions (mostly from The Laussane Concert, or Disc 2 of Live in Colonia).
posted by ovvl at 7:33 AM on March 7, 2018
posted by ovvl at 7:33 AM on March 7, 2018
I find John Tavener's *The Protecting Veil* intensely disturbing, to the point where I cannot stand to listen to it.
posted by tel3path at 11:25 AM on March 7, 2018
posted by tel3path at 11:25 AM on March 7, 2018
Nuages Gris (1881) by Franz Liszt is less than four minutes long, but will stay with you a lot longer.
Schubert has a bunch of lieder -- art-songs in German -- that capture a very specific mournful and angsty vibe: see Der Leiermann and Der Doppelganger for instance.
posted by rollick at 1:20 PM on March 7, 2018
Schubert has a bunch of lieder -- art-songs in German -- that capture a very specific mournful and angsty vibe: see Der Leiermann and Der Doppelganger for instance.
posted by rollick at 1:20 PM on March 7, 2018
Response by poster: These are fabulous suggestions! I have slowly been working my way through this list and clearly need to listen to as much Penderecki as possible. The Germans (I'm thinking of Weber and Rihm) also have an air of creepiness that I am very happy to have discovered. While I'd heard Billie Holiday's version of Gloomy Sunday, Seress' original Vége a világnak (“My tears and my sorrows are all in vain/ People are heartless, greedy and wicked”) struck a chord and took the song into a totally different realm. Thank you very much for all of this! I'll be back later to mark best answers (at least from the perspective of my particular needs right now) once I've given everything a listen, but feel free to suggest any others missed above in the meantime.
posted by shelbaroo at 5:54 PM on March 7, 2018
posted by shelbaroo at 5:54 PM on March 7, 2018
Best answer: Just popping back in to co-sign the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima rec, which I first heard in the weirdest, most arty, most far out episode of Twin Peaks (ep 8 of The Return) so that should say enough right there.
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 11:24 PM on March 7, 2018
posted by Special Agent Dale Cooper at 11:24 PM on March 7, 2018
Liszt's "Lugubre Gondola," first written in response to a premonition of Wagner's death. You can have your pick of arrangements—piano, cello & piano, orchestral (this last by John Adams).
posted by Iridic at 9:44 AM on March 8, 2018
posted by Iridic at 9:44 AM on March 8, 2018
The piece itself is more 'disturbing' than 'unnerving', but I just remembered that there was this classic video going around a couple of years ago where someone put Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire over a clip of Teletubbies and it is the most terrifying thing (best experienced post midnight).
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 6:07 PM on March 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 6:07 PM on March 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
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posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 7:42 PM on March 6, 2018 [1 favorite]