# Favorite Piece of Halloween Music



## signorsciano (3 mo ago)

What is your favorite piece of classical music to listen around Halloween and why??? I have a bunch of favorites but my biggest and personal favorite is Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain". Which version?? ANY VERSION. From the original Mussorgsky version to the popular Rimsky-Korsakov version to the Stokowski version used in "Fantasia".


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

A Night on Mt. Triglav by Rimsky-Korsakov is my favorite. Followed by:

Danse Macabre (Saint-Saens)
A Night on Bald Mountain (Mussorgsky arr R-K)
Tamar (Balakirev)
Kikimore and Baba Yaga (Lyadov)
Baba Yaga (Serov)
Symphonie fantastique (Berlioz)
The Noonday Witch (Dvorak)
Symphony 2 (Searle)
Halloween (Ives)


and then come the movie soundtacks...


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Yes. Top of my list is Night on Bald Mountain.


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## signorsciano (3 mo ago)

mbhaub said:


> A Night on Mt. Triglav by Rimsky-Korsakov is my favorite. Followed by:
> 
> Danse Macabre (Saint-Saens)
> A Night on Bald Mountain (Mussorgsky arr R-K)
> ...


Great choices!!


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Liszt: Totentanz (piano solo version)
Weber: Wolf's Glen scene in Freischütz
Purcell: Saul and the Witch of Endor, Witches scenes from Dido and Aeneas


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## Shoskofiev (5 mo ago)

Something really scary for that day: Penderecki's _Utrenja._


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## Xenophiliu (Jan 2, 2022)

Bach: Toccata and Fugue in d minor, BWV 565

I assume I think of this during Halloween, plus Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice, and the previously mentioned Mussorgsky, due to association with Disney's Fantasia (1940) with Stokowski.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Luzifers Abschied


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Former TC owner Frederik Magle playing Bach in Halloween mood:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Art Rock said:


> Former TC owner Frederik Magle playing Bach in Halloween mood:



A bit obnoxious, don't you think?


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Here are a few favorites, although I'm pretty sure the spirit of Halloween wasn't the intention within these works, but nevertheless...

Scelsi: _Uaxuctum_
Penderecki: _Kosmogonia_
Berg: _Three Pieces for Orchestra_
Schoenberg: _Erwartung_
Webern: _Six Pieces for Orchestra_
Ligeti: _Atmosphères_
Feldman: _Cello and Orchestra_
Schnittke: _String Quartet No. 2_


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

_Night on Bald Mountain_ is great but I think to most people, Halloween isn't scary anymore. It's quite the opposite. Halloween's about dressing up and trick or treating for kids...or if you're an adult, another excuse to have a drink and if you can be bothered, party. *Malcolm Arnold's *_*Tam O'Shanter*_ seems more apt. The most menacing thing in that is some sort of demented bagpipe, a bit like the one in the Goodies classic sketch:


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## signorsciano (3 mo ago)

Sid James said:


> _Night on Bald Mountain_ is great but I think to most people, Halloween isn't scary anymore. It's quite the opposite. Halloween's about dressing up and trick or treating for kids...or if you're an adult, another excuse to have a drink and if you can be bothered, party. *Malcolm Arnold's *_*Tam O'Shanter*_ seems more apt. The most menacing thing in that is some sort of demented bagpipe, a bit like the one in the Goodies classic sketch:


Okay!! Malcolm Arnold's "Tam O'Shanter" is my second favorite piece I music I can listen around Halloween. In fact, I just did a painting based on Tam O'Shanter.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

there's really only one Halloween classic.....The Monster Mash


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## NÆTE (3 mo ago)

I mean who we kidding, gotta be Night on the Bald Mountain right? Though Danse Macabre is also a top contender. Or Liszt's Totentanz? Or honestly the final sequence from Berlioz "Damnation of Faust" with the Sancta Maria sequence. Actually there really is a lot when you think about it?


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Isle of the Dead (Rachmaninoff)


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Sid James said:


> _Night on Bald Mountain_ is great but I think to most people, Halloween isn't scary anymore. It's quite the opposite. Halloween's about dressing up and trick or treating for kids...or if you're an adult, another excuse to have a drink and if you can be bothered, party.


I never got the association of Halloween with horror. Certainly dark though, it invokes a village atmosphere with witches, hay and odd, summoned personalities, questionable practices inside homes. Frightening when kids or adults mistakingly take shortcuts through the village graveyard, don't do that!, or enter strange houses they're not supposed to, but I don't think fright was the main goal.

In any case, many areas of *Prokofiev's* works, such as _Peter and the Wolf, _seem to evoke less that sounds like Halloween rather than tremendously give off the eerie whimsical feeling somewhat related to the dark aspects of the holiday. One might rightly rename Prokofiev's minor modulations in his works as "The Nightmare After Halloween," as they sound like someone wandered too far from the village.

Not a fan of Night on Bald Mountain. _The Mighty Five _composer types were not good with autumn sounds, but I like the full orchestra version of This Is Halloween and the movie_ In The Mouth of Madness _is a very Halloween-evoking flick that's pretty decent.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I wonder if there is a somewhat famous church music piece for All Saints Day? For the heretics, there is e.g. "A mighty fortress" BWV 80 or Mendelssohn's "Reformation symphony" but for the papists?
(The closest I am aware of is Schubert's song "Allerseelen" (All Souls))


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## brpaulandrew (Sep 30, 2011)

I listened to Symphonie fantastique (Berlioz) yesterday evening for Halloween. I can't believe that Berlioz was that forward thinking in his composition. Folks in his time must have thought him outrageous. 




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BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique EMI 5176542 [DM]: Classical CD Reviews - July 2008 MusicWeb-International


Classical CD review



www.musicweb-international.com


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## RandallPeterListens (Feb 9, 2012)

Although not directly related to Halloween, but I don't see that anyone has mentioned the Liszt Mephisto Waltzes.  Kind of fits into that Halloween mood, though.


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## Ice Dragon (Jun 20, 2018)

My Classical/Romantic Halloween playlist:

Danse Macabre (Saint-Saens)
In the Hall of the Mountain King (Grieg)
Fortune Plango Vulnera (Orff)
In Taberna Quando Sumus (Orff)
Dream of a Witches Sabbath (Berlioz)
Prelude to Act I of Siegfried (Wagner)
Infernal Danse of King Kashchei (Stravinsky)
Funeral March of a Marionette (Gounod)

There's others on my Halloween playlist, but they're not from this era (like "This is Halloween", "Scaretale" by Nightwish, and the overture to "Cats").


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