# Go to hell!



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Is there anything in classical music more fun than programmatically depicting hell? Berlioz adjusted the Faust myth because going to hell is so much more musically entertaining than depicting heaven, quite understandably. Aren't choirs yelling demonic names and random gibberish so much more fun in a concert than heavenly choirs?






Or Stokowski going to hell so hard in Tchaikovsky's Francesca di Rimini that the timpani overdrive the mic (20:00)





Of course, there's a lot of hellish music, depicting the supernatural, or fear, or demons, or war, but as for actual programmatic depictions of hell, it seems to be dominated by the above two literary sources- Faust and Dante.

So if we want to listen to hell, where else should we go beyond Faust and Inferno? Do we have any great modernist, dissonant hells out there?


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Crumb's Black Angels (but it ends in reconciliation)


----------



## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

Penderecki`s _Paradise Lost _which is based on Milton`s epic should be considered. A serious, monumental work but not very fun I guess. If you want some fun try Adriana Hölszky`s _Dämonen_ instead.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Offenbach: Orpheus in the Underworld
Liszt: Dante Symphony
Sibelius: Swan of Tuonela


----------



## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Listening to Carl Orff's De Temporum Fine Comoedia must be what hell feels like.






It is also kind of about that. So... win win?


----------



## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> Offenbach: Orpheus in the Underworld


Gluck, for that matter, with his 'Orfeo & Euridice' which served for Offenbach to parody this then highly popular opera in his 'Orpheus'.


----------



## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain is along the same lines.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Well, since you'd like to avoid specific Dante- and Faust scenes, of which there are of course many, here are some others:

Lubos Fiser, "15 Pictures after Durer's Apocalypse" for orchestra; Piano Sonata no.6 "Fras/Devil";

Serge Nigg, "Symphonie, Jerome Bosch" for orchestra;

Langgaard, "Afgrundsmusik / Music of the Abyss", for piano.


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Finale of Mozart's Don Giovanni 
(and there is already a Don Juan Ballet by Gluck but I don't know this)

Conjuring scenes like Ulrica in Ballo, Purcell's "Saul and the witch of Endor" and the similar scene in Handel's Saul.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

This is a fun thread, thanks!


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

In Dvorak's enchanting comic opera "The Devil & Kate", hell is depicted as a real fun place , and the devils are just a bunch of good ol' boys who sit around drinking and playing cards , although Lucifer gets a bit annoyed at them at times and tells them not to be so loud and rowdy . 
But things get a bit more complicated when Lucifer's wimpy assistant devil Marbuel accidentally brings the furious village girl Kate down with him . She's rather overweight and talkative, and she had been at a village dance where nobody wanted to dance with her ! 
Marbuel has been sent to earth to find out whether the local princess, who has been cruel to the local people by foreign them to do unpaid labor, should be sent to hell . 
Everything works out for the best in the end, though . This opera is a blast !


----------



## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> Finale of Mozart's Don Giovanni
> (and there is already a Don Juan Ballet by Gluck but I don't know this)
> 
> Conjuring scenes like Ulrica in Ballo, Purcell's "Saul and the witch of Endor" and the similar scene in Handel's Saul.


Ah Gluck Dance of the Furies from Don Juan...






and Boccherini's reworking of the Gluck in his Symphony "La casa del diavolo".


----------



## EnescuCvartet (Dec 16, 2016)

Tartini's Devil's Trill.

Paganini's Faust-related-publicity.


----------



## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Vaughan Williams ballet Job "Satan's Dance Of Triumph".






or from his opera "The Pilgrim's Progress" the pilgrim meets Apollyon....


----------



## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

Lucifer's Tanz" from Stockhausen's opera "Samstag aus Licht".


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

superhorn said:


> In Dvorak's enchanting comic opera "The Devil & Kate", hell is depicted as a real fun place ...


Great one! And it reminded me of another Czech opera, Schwanda the Bagpiper by Jaromir Weinberger. In it, Schwanda is taken down to hell to entertain the devil with his bagpipes in a witty, brilliant scene.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

For me, the greatest modern example of the classic morality play: An ordinary everyman fights a battle with temptation in the form of the Devil -- and loses.


----------



## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

Schnittke - Five Fragments to Pictures of Hieronymus Bosch


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Parts of the slow movement of Bruckner 9 seem hellish, but it resolves at the end.


----------



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

gregorx said:


> Schnittke - Five Fragments to Pictures of Hieronymus Bosch


Oh, music and Bosch, now I've got to hear this one. Thanks!


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Kancheli's Styx is a sort of requiem for parted artists. It pictures the famous rive that divides our world from the underworld. Schnittke's Faust Cantata is a crazy piece of music and great fun ... but Hell is there.

Then there are the obvious example - Don Giovani being taken to hell in Mozart's opera and so on.


----------



## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Captainnumber36 said:


> This is a fun thread, thanks!


Yes, one hell of a thread.


----------

