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Recommendations sought for "spooky" classical music

Meadmaker

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Meadmaker
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Apr 27, 2004
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Every year on Halloween, I play music to help create atmosphere. Rather than the cheesy "Monster mash", or modern "Thriller" that I have heard in the neighborhood, I prefer classical. It started when I bought a very cheap CD called "Classical Terror".

The first four tracks of the CD feature Night on Bald Mountain, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Danse Macabre, and In the Hall of the Mountain King. The other tracks are fine, but not as recognizable, and I don't like them as much.

I'm looking to play something different this year. Expand the selection as it were. Does anyone have any recommendations that would go well with this set?

(Selections could be vocal or instrumental, and could include modern artists like John Williams....except that his stuff is so closely linked with specific movies that I'm not sure it would fit. "The Emperor's Theme" sounds pretty spooky, but it just invokes Star Wars too much this use. Likewise with most of the Harry Potter soundtrack.)
 
It sounds like you have all the usual suspects covered but Dukas' The Sorcerer's Apprentice is in keeping with the tracks you listed. Some other suggestions off the top of my head, which are scary without getting too avant-garde:

Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz 106: III. Adagio (used in The Shining)

Debussy: Le Mer, specifically L 109: III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and Sea), which has a scary, ominous vibe to it.

Orff's Carmina Burana, though like the pieces you listed, it suffers a bit from familiarity.

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

Holst: Mars, The Bringer of War

In terms of film music, I'd recommend Jerry Goldsmith's music for Alien, Planet of the Apes and Freud, the latter of which was also used in Alien.

I'm guessing John Williams' score for Jaws is too familiar for your requirements, but his score for Jaws 2 is similarly scary but relies less on the classic Jaws theme. The main theme has a beautiful but foreboding quality that always creeps me out.

Lalo Schifrin's main theme to The Amityville Horror is fairly creepy.

John Carpenter's score for Halloween is a classic but I'm guessing its minimalist synth score would be out of place amongst the classical stuff?
 
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Presumably works by Penderecki and Ligeti could work here if you are talking about "classical" in the broader sense.
 
Meadmaker said:
Every year on Halloween, I play music to help create atmosphere. Rather than the cheesy "Monster mash", or modern "Thriller" that I have heard in the neighborhood, I prefer classical. It started when I bought a very cheap CD called "Classical Terror".

The first four tracks of the CD feature Night on Bald Mountain, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Danse Macabre, and In the Hall of the Mountain King. The other tracks are fine, but not as recognizable, and I don't like them as much.

I'm looking to play something different this year. Expand the selection as it were. Does anyone have any recommendations that would go well with this set?

(Selections could be vocal or instrumental, and could include modern artists like John Williams....except that his stuff is so closely linked with specific movies that I'm not sure it would fit. "The Emperor's Theme" sounds pretty spooky, but it just invokes Star Wars too much this use. Likewise with most of the Harry Potter soundtrack.)
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You might find something you like on Kevin MacLeod's royalty free music site...

http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/
 
The Goldberg Variations have a limping yet implacable 'feel' to them which can be creepy.
Glenn Gould

Leonhardt
 
Going from memory while in work, Debussey's "Jeux" fits the bill. I believe an excerpt from this piece is a staple of old-time horror films.
 
Definitely recognizable, but maybe not as familiar to kids - Funeral March for a Marionette (The Hitchcock theme). Even the title is creepy.
 
Some of Camille Saint-Saëns' Carnival of Animals is spooky -- particularly The Acquarium, which you hear in Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven and other movies you've seen over the years.

 
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, second movement. I once saw this used as the theme music for an exhibition of photos of dead soldiers and civilians in Iraq, and it was quite effective, IMO.
 
From "Pictures At An Exhibition" by Modeste Mussorgsky (the most common orchestration being by Ravel I think)... The Gnome, Catacombs, Cum Mortis In Lingua Mortua, and The Witch's Hut.

And some of the other movements could fit too, being played in context; they feel different to me but I normally don't play them in the kind of context you're talking about. The Old Castle could go from soothing/calming/relaxing to quietly eery and haunting. And The Rich Jew And The Poor Jew is an encounter between the imposing and the pathetic, with the former crushing the latter in the end, so at least parts of it fit, although you might find the other parts irritatingly whiny.'

* * *

In response to the suggestion of Mars above: if you have The Planets, Neptune fits this much better.
 
Definitely the "Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDFFHaz9GsY

Part of this one is very familiar to all, but few know its name! Schubert, "Der Erlkönig" (orchestrated by Berlioz) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ALWvtvt_U

Liszt, "Totentanz" ("Dance of Death"). Basically a set of variations on the Gregorian chant "Dies Irae". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOLMFruHX-Q

Stravinsky, "Firebird": King Kashchei's Infernal Dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ashMSM_kc4M

Ravel, "Daphnis and Chloe": Danse Guerriere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHrstmOPKBQ#t=29m0s and Danse Generale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHrstmOPKBQ#t=52m03s

Wagner, "Die Götterdämmerung": Siegfried's Funeral Music. Used in the movie "Excalibur".

Bach Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542 http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-542/detail/

Bach Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-582/detail/
 
SpitfireIX said:
Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, second movement. I once saw this used as the theme music for an exhibition of photos of dead soldiers and civilians in Iraq, and it was quite effective, IMO.
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I'd put this in the (very) beautifully-sad category, but not spooky/horror/terror. Same with other funeral-related recommendations above. The music needs a fear-inducing element. I think it's why the Mountain King's increasing tempo or a horror movie's "stalking theme" works.
 
The theme for the film "The Thing From Another World" (which until just now, I had thought was just 'The Thing'), from 1951. Some great theremin and very spooky.
 
SumDood said:
The theme for the film "The Thing From Another World" (which until just now, I had thought was just 'The Thing'), from 1951. Some great theremin and very spooky.
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Great choice, I was tempted to suggest it myself but I figured it wouldn't be in keeping with the more conventionally orchestral vibe the OP was looking for. One of the best scifi/horror scores ever, IMO.
 
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