# Best Halloween Music



## Bella33 (Oct 22, 2020)

What is your favorite music for Halloween?


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## Bella33 (Oct 22, 2020)

*I love this masterpiece of Ludwig van Beethoven. It has some magic,mystery and power*


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Night on Bald Mountain, as cooked up nicely by Tomita.


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## Ned Low (Jul 29, 2020)

Totentanz. The first Liszt masterpiece i listened to. I have Ozawa and Zimerman recording which is amazing.
( also: Dance of Macabre Camille Saint-Saens)


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

I've seen more than one creepy movie that used LVB's Moonlight Sonata during a really, er, creepy scene.


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

I like Schumann's _Carnaval_, Op. 9 for Hallowe'en. Wrong festival, I know, but I like the costume/revelry kind of Hallowe'en, not so much spooky or scary stuff.


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## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

gregorx said:


> I've seen more than one creepy movie that used LVB's Moonlight Sonata during a really, er, creepy scene.


First thing that came to mind was Misery. The hobbling scene. I think they played a recording of Liberace's version because she was also obsessed with him.

gergorx: Speaking of creepy, is your avatar from the '60s British t.v. show The Prisoner?


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## Ulfilas (Mar 5, 2020)

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, or Prokofiev Symphony No. 3. 

Maybe Marschner's Der Vampyr?


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

My Halloween playlist:

1. Lyadov: Kikimora and Baba Yaga
2. Rimsky-Korsakov: A Night on Mt. Triglav
3. Ives: Halloween
4. Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (IV and V)
5. Saint-Saens: Danse Macabre
6. Balakirev: Thamar
7. Dvorak: The Noonday Witch
8. Christopher Young: soundtrack to Hellraiser
9. Waxman: soundtrack to Bride of Frankenstein 
10. Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Two others I would add. One's a classic for this event:

- Bach: Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
- Passacaglia & Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582

Both great for Holloween. But they must be performed on a good pipe organ and CRANK IT!!!!!!

V


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Lalo Schifrin - The Exorcist
Henry Cowell - The Banshee
Arnold Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

SearsPoncho said:


> First thing that came to mind was Misery. The hobbling scene. I think they played a recording of Liberace's version because she was also obsessed with him.
> 
> gergorx: Speaking of creepy, is your avatar from the '60s British t.v. show The Prisoner?


Haven't seen that one. King's books have had really mixed treatments on film. I see that Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 is also in it. I was thinking of Samuel Fuller's _The Naked Kiss_. Used in a very creepy scene. Since seeing that film, I think Moonlight Sonata is a creepy piece of music.

Yes, that's the high wheel bicycle that appears and disappears in the closing credits. It's the logo of the Village.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Dvorak The Water Goblin and The Noonday Witch
Liszt Faust Symphony I and II
Crumb Black Angels


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Sometimes music can set a mood or enhance a scene that it might not have originally been created for. Sounds can become spooky by context.

Among my experiences as a theatre sound designer were several that dealt with acquiring incidental music for creepy scenes. One was a masked Halloween dance in a _Frankenstein_ play, for which I chose the "Dance of the Knights" from _Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet._

Here's Gergiev doing the piece with his best scary-mask face on:






In that same play I utilized a segment of the opening movement, Allegro, of Ulvi Cemal Erkin's remarkable Symphony No. 2. Most memorable, to me at least, was the use of the second movement's opening moments (the Adagio) for a scene where Dr. Victor Frankenstein stitches together his "creature", his sweeping arm movements as he draws thread through the corpse on the table in front of him growing faster and faster in time with the pulse of the music. Creepy indeed.

And this was before I ever realized Kubrick had used the Adagio of Erkin's First Symphony in a segment of _2001: A Space Odyssey._

For a presentation of Poe's "Masque of the Red Death", in an evening of five Poe short story dramatizations titled _Poe-V-ganza_ I chose the Prokofiev "Waltz & Midnight Scene" from _Cinderella_. Again, a costume ball was the feature on stage which included the dreaded entrance of the character The Red Death.






And in that same production I chose to open "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" segment with the opening movement _Funebre, energico_ of Estonian composer Kaljo Raid's Symphony No. 1 in C minor, perhaps a piece not so familiar, but certainly unforgettable as incidental music for a murder scene.






I recall using the famous opening section of Orff's _Carmina Burana_ in a similar creepy masked-ball opening for a _Dracula_ play. That's a musical piece that just might frighten trick-or-treaters away from your front porch on Halloween night. Especially if they know Latin and listen to the words.






Were I to enjoy a concert comprised of the pieces mentioned above this Halloween season, I will have creeps enough for days, as well as some wonderful memories of time spent in the theatre with good friends and good times. And isn't that the real meaning behind Halloween celebration?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Listen to the eerie voices of the flexaton, siren, sega, and a typewriter, included as members of the sixth percussion battery. To produce the aural effects heard in Fluorescences performers are instructed to hum while they play, to saw wood or iron with a hand saw, to rub percussion instruments vigorously with a metal file, and to rub the soundboard of the string instruments with an open [bleeding?] hand. For each of these new gestures, Penderecki created oh so graphic symbols.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)




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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

George Crumb's "A Haunted Landscape".






Bernard Herrmann "Sinfonietta for Strings". Note, some of the music was reused in his score for "Psycho".


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Oh, how did I forget? Bartok-- Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta.


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## SearsPoncho (Sep 23, 2020)

gregorx said:


> Haven't seen that one. King's books have had really mixed treatments on film. I see that Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 is also in it. I was thinking of Samuel Fuller's _The Naked Kiss_. Used in a very creepy scene. Since seeing that film, I think Moonlight Sonata is a creepy piece of music.
> 
> Yes, that's the high wheel bicycle that appears and disappears in the closing credits. It's the logo of the Village.


Misery is actually one of the rare adaptations of a King book that is faithful to the source material. It's also a pretty good movie. Kathy Bates won Best Actress for it.

Be seeing you...


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## Alinde (Feb 8, 2020)

Danse Macabre as imagined by Saint-Saëns:






Zig, zig, zig, Death in a cadence,
Striking with his heel a tomb,
Death at midnight plays a dance-tune,
Zig, zig, zig, on his violin.


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## Ulfilas (Mar 5, 2020)

I ended up listening to this gem of a work, where a group of Druids put on scary costumes to scare away the pesky Christians.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Robert Ward's The Crucible.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

ORigel said:


> Oh, how did I forget? Bartok-- Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta.


The opening movement of which served well for the Prologue of a _Medea_ production I once worked on. The music accompanied the opening of the curtain where, in front of a cracked, wasting, and ruined Greek-like temple, the Old Nurse, on her haunches, threw a handful of sorcerer bones, over and over, as she delivered the dark and prophetic opening prologue concerning the destiny of Medea. Talk about Halloween! What tragedy is darker or scarier than _Medea_?


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