# Extraordinarily Musically Disturbing Works



## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Have you ever been unfathomably disturbed by some work most people wouldn't find disturbing? 
I've mentioned that some of the early Mahler symphonies have given me migraines, and the first time I listened to a work by Xenakis (I don't even recall which one), I dreamt of being in a blazing furnace in hell that same night. 
Well, now it's the last two movements of Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto. There are a couple of measures that have been playing over and over in my head nonstop for hours - I do not exaggerate. It is precisely because I find the concerto so disturbing - it makes me feel like I have a slowly-tightening noose around my neck, or I'm in total desperation or something. I don't understand at all.

I know that's an extreme example, but has anyone else experienced intense repulsion listening to a generally unoffending work?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Well, the Mahler Seventh sours my stomach -- but I think it does that to a lot of people.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

It's interesting to read these accounts for me. Personally, I've never experienced any negative physiological affects from listening to music, only positive or neutral.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

violadude said:


> Personally, I've never had experienced any negative physiological affects from listening to music, only positive or neutral.


I'm actually surprised to hear this - I'd say about half of the music I respond to, so to speak, produces a negative effect on me. Sometimes, certain works seek to reference particular concepts or internal experiences. It sounds weird, but I can't describe it well... Is this usual or is it just me?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

MarkW said:


> Well, the Mahler Seventh sours my stomach -- but I think it does that to a lot of people.


Not I. I can only relate to violadude's remarks.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Some music annoys me. That's about it. Well, some music can take me places that make me uneasy, but that's a good thing.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

violadude said:


> It's interesting to read these accounts for me. Personally, I've never had experienced any negative physiological affects from listening to music, only positive or neutral.


You wouldn't necessarily know it. It might seem quite normal when you pick up that ax and head for the neighbor's house.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

KenOC said:


> You wouldn't necessarily know it. It might seem quite normal when you pick up that ax and head for the neighbor's house.


Uh what? ............................


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## Guest (Apr 29, 2016)

I don't read "disturbing" as necessarily a negative experience, but I can see how that term might, for some listeners, mean "moving" in a way that is less than joyful. I wonder, Mstar, if you don't in fact mean "uncanny". 
In those terms, I have far too many examples to post here, but I'll give you a taste or three of what I'm driving at. In all three examples, I get the shivers, and I'll be damned if you don't, too!!

1) *Bruckner*, the opening bars (just listen to the first 5 minutes or so) of his *9th symphony*:





2)* Beethoven*, the coda of the first movement of his *9th symphony*, starting here:





3) *Scelsi*, "*Aion*" (and here I really suggest you listen to the entire 7 minutes or so of the opening movement for the full beauty and horror):





When I hear such music (classical-romantic-contemporary), I realize how totally irrelevant (to me) the arguments raging at the moment on this forum about modernism/tonality/atonality are.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I'm a little jealous. I like the idea of being safely disturbed, but I think the most I've experienced is being a bit creeped out by Ligeti or Penderecki or Crumb, but that was early on in my journey. I'd love to have that deep an experience again.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I do find some pop music -- Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus ... uh, and what's his/her/their name? -- rather _disturbing_. In a sad way (as I contemplate its ineptitude). But "classical" music, even the most contemporary avant-garde stuff, doesn't do that to me. Not even Penderecki's _Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima_, which probably _should_ disturb us all as we listen and contemplate the horrors the music recounts. But for me, the horrors of nuclear war may prove disturbing, but not music that warns us of those horrors. Art doesn't disturb because of its own presence, or being, but for what it may prompt us to consider as possibilities in this worldly existence (nuclear destruction, the holocaust, suffering, poverty and disease, etc.)

So ... I guess I'm not much help here.


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

Mahler's 9th symphony gives me the creeps, but I can never get enough of it. I sense death in this work, but in a natural, inevitable way. I feel my own end when I listen.

(Great thought provoking thread, by the way.)


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

When I was a little boy my mother bought a copy of Béla Bartók's _Concerto for Orchestra_. Whenever she would play it I would run away to my room and hide because the sound of it would make me shiver and become nauseated. I don't know why it did this. I have to say that my mother was aware of this, and her kind nature precluded the use of the record as a form of punishment. But, you know, it could have been used that way with me. I would have rather been beaten with a switch, or been denied food, rather than have to endure the _Elegia _movement of this work. Today, however, I enjoy it, and really can't for the life of me understand how this music could have repulsed. I suppose, like anything, taste changes with age. Now I can hardly endure Pachelbel's _Canon in D major_. Go figure.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Music, and art in general, does not provoke me fear. As movies, I always have in mind that they are "made out", not real.

Real life issues, like disease of a loved one, can cause me fear.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

TalkingHead said:


> 3) *Scelsi*, "*Aion*" (and here I really suggest you listen to the entire 7 minutes or so of the opening movement for the full beauty and horror):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks. Also, in the related links I found this one: In nomine lucis

After the lovely piece, keep hearing until the end for the real shock!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

aleazk said:


> Music, and art in general, does not provoke me fear.


"Beethoven's music sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain..." --ETA Hoffman, 1810

Perhaps we aren't listening carefully these days.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony give me the creeps as do most of his work


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Antiquarian said:


> When I was a little boy my mother bought a copy of Béla Bartók's _Concerto for Orchestra_. Whenever she would play it I would run away to my room and hide because the sound of it would make me shiver and become nauseated. I don't know why it did this. I have to say that my mother was aware of this, and her kind nature precluded the use of the record as a form of punishment. But, you know, it could have been used that way with me. I would have rather been beaten with a switch, or been denied food, rather than have to endure the _Elegia _movement of this work. Today, however, I enjoy it, and really can't for the life of me understand how this music could have repulsed. I suppose, like anything, taste changes with age. Now I can hardly endure Pachelbel's _Canon in D major_. Go figure.


When I was a little kid, this is how I used to feel about that scene in "The Little Mermaid" when Ursula steals Ariel's voice.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

KenOC said:


> "Beethoven's music sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain..." --ETA Hoffman, 1810


I really feel other things when I listen, or play at the piano, Beethoven.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Pugg said:


> Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony give me the creeps as do most of his work


Hm interesting. I always perceived the expressive quality of Turangalila as emotionally positive overall.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Well, a lot of us never reach the state of Bartokian bliss. I immediately liked Bartók when I was 14 although nobody of my age did and nobody else I knew off. So probably I was the one torturing my environment. But I had the same thing with ants. I got a book on them from my parents when I was 12 but I hated them to disgust. Just the image on the cover was enough. Now I know they keep the world a liveable place.

As far as music is concerned. A lot of the music I listen to is disturbing in some sense, even physical, but I like it that way. Then there's also a lot of music that disturbs me (in a different way). There can be a thousand reasons for that...but mostly it's the music being overjoyous and far too simple.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

violadude said:


> Hm interesting. I always perceived the expressive quality of Turangalila as emotionally positive overall.


Let's agree to disagree :tiphat:


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Pugg said:


> Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony give me the creeps as do most of his work


You might like this.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Shostakovich 5 is compellingly intense in the 1st movement, but I feel compelled to use the adjective 'pathological' sometimes. There is a certain darkness to it, it connects me to my dark side in a way and strengthens this black and misunderstood feeling. I can almost imagine the music saying "I hate you and you won't know it till you've lost".


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mstar said:


> I know that's an extreme example, but has anyone else experienced intense repulsion listening to a generally unoffending work?


In Britten's Turn of the Screw certainly. And in Birtwistle's Punch and Judy.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Art can either enhance what little beauty remains in the world or document its atrocities. I am disturbed and horrified by most contemporary pop music because it mirrors the society we've created: selfish, lustful, cruel, and increasingly devoid of moral conscience and empathy.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Richard8655 said:


> Mahler's 9th symphony gives me the creeps, but I can never get enough of it. I sense death in this work, but in a natural, inevitable way. I feel my own end when I listen.
> 
> (Great thought provoking thread, by the way.)


Forget about the music - this thread is making me queezy: Richard is contemplating his end and KenOC has thoughts of heading next door with an axe!


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

If this thread is about reactions to unsuspect works, well I can't think of any right now. I feel I react in the usual way. For example, the 1st mvmt of Bartok's _Music for Strings and What-not_ I call that the Worm Fugue, because it makes me think of worms crawling out of the dark one by one until they're a swarm, and then they_ eat you alive_, and then they recede back into the darkness. That's what I call disturbing music!


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

Good point Dave. Ken and I are fast sliding down the slippery slope, Morimur is doing battle with contemporary culture, and clavichorder is entering the dark side. Blaming it on mstar!


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## Guest (Apr 30, 2016)

When I was an older kid my younger brother and sister and I would enjoy giving ourselves the willies by listening to some of _Atom Heart Mother _and _Whistle Rhymes._

Not exactly Crumb or Penderecki, but it still did the trick.

As for physiological impact, I was struck last night (ha ha) by the harsh yearning of the opening of the 3rd movement of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

DaveM said:


> Forget about the music - this thread is making me queezy: Richard is contemplating his end and KenOC has thoughts of heading next door with an axe!


I liked your post not because it makes me queezy, but because what you say is funny.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> It's interesting to read these accounts for me. Personally, I've never experienced any negative physiological affects from listening to music, only positive or neutral.


You've never had a rush of some dark feeling that felt good from listening to music? I find that hard to believe.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

clavichorder said:


> You've never had a rush of some dark feeling that felt good from listening to music? I find that hard to believe.


I suppose a dark rush of passion or something could feel good, but in my first post, I was speaking more of a totally negative reaction - as if you could feel the composer (or whoever) experiencing some emotional or psychological torture. I really can't describe it!


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## TwoPhotons (Feb 13, 2015)

Two "odd" occurences come to mind:

I was listening to the 2nd movement from Mahler's Sixth Symphony whilst following the score, and by the end felt a tad queasy. The constantly shifting harmonies got a bit dizzying sometimes! Although I was feeling a bit ill on that day anyway, so the queasiness probably arose more from that. I should say, I love the 6th Symphony generally. It's just on that particular occasion that I didn't end up feeling well. 

More recently, I watched a performance of Korngold's "Violin Concerto" on Youtube. The colour of the video was a kind of sickly yellow, and the camera was constantly moving up and down. By the end I was feeling sick...and the connotations of the music with the sea didn't help much either! It got to the point where, for the next week, if I even began to think about the music I felt ill. I'm glad that phase eventually passed though, since I actually think the piece itself is great.

Apart from those occurences, I have found myself disturbed by music sometimes, but only in the most positive sense.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

There's one piece of music I heard a long time ago. I think it's Stockhausen, but can’t swear to it. Low pitched ominous chanting / moaning that sounds like it was recorded in a tin bucket fathoms beneath the earth. Ring any bells?


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I've had a lot of bedtime-headphone-sessions with dark ambient music and while there were many fascinating, unsettling, creepy atmospheric moments I've never been really disturbed by music. I don't think it's possible.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

SimonTemplar said:


> There's one piece of music I heard a long time ago. I think it's Stockhausen, but can't swear to it. Low pitched ominous chanting / moaning that sounds like it was recorded in a tin bucket fathoms beneath the earth. Ring any bells?


I hope you don't mean _Stimmung_!

I really like that piece and find it the opposite of disturbing.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

MacLeod said:


> When I was an older kid my younger brother and sister and I would enjoy giving ourselves the willies by listening to some of _Atom Heart Mother _and _Whistle Rhymes._
> 
> Not exactly Crumb or Penderecki, but it still did the trick.
> 
> As for physiological impact, I was struck last night (ha ha) by the harsh yearning of the opening of the 3rd movement of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony.


Now that you mention it, I do remember first hearing Pink Floyd's Meddle in headphones in college and having it scare the willies out of me, especially the middle "pteradactyl" section.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

SimonTemplar said:


> There's one piece of music I heard a long time ago. I think it's Stockhausen, but can't swear to it. Low pitched ominous chanting / moaning that sounds like it was recorded in a tin bucket fathoms beneath the earth. Ring any bells?


Perhaps this?...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

mstar said:


> I suppose a dark rush of passion or something could feel good, but in my first post, I was speaking more of a totally negative reaction - as if you could feel the composer (or whoever) experiencing some emotional or psychological torture. I really can't describe it!


If I felt that I most likely wouldn't be drawn to listen to it again. There has to be something thrilling to bring me back.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

clavichorder said:


> If I felt that I most likely wouldn't be drawn to listen to it again. There has to be something thrilling to bring me back.


That's the thing - by the time that feeling hits me, I already know the work quite well. Well enough to get stuck in my head. Which can happen literally months after I had last listened to the work... 
Honestly, I thought most classical music listeners experience what I described in the OP. This thread makes me rethink music...


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> You've never had a rush of some dark feeling that felt good from listening to music? I find that hard to believe.


I'm saying, I've never experienced a "sour stomach" or something like that from listening to music.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

I remember listening to Bartok's stringquartets as a teenager. Lying in bed listening, dozing of and being shaken up with fear and anxiety with certain movements, like this sensation of falling in the first stages of sleep.
As you can guess I still haven't "cracked" them, but maybe one day..


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Try Lutoslawski's Musique Funebre. Brings death and putrefaction to the mind....


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

The first movement of Shostakovich's 7th symphony makes me feel like ants are crawling all over my body and my head is about to explode.


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

geralmar said:


> The first movement of Shostakovich's 7th symphony makes me feel like ants are crawling all over my body and my head is about to explode.


Agree. His 7th is by far the most disturbing and frightening. Probably the result of duress during WW2 with the Nazi invasion and siege of Leningrad while composing under Stalin. I guess I'd be a nervous wreck under those conditions too.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Richard8655 said:


> Agree. *His 7th is by far the most disturbing and frightening*. Probably the result of duress during WW2 with the Nazi invasion and siege of Leningrad while composing under Stalin. I guess I'd be a nervous wreck under those conditions too.


I feel that honor goes to the 13th or 14th, maybe even the 11th or 8th.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Fugue Meister said:


> Perhaps this?...


Arrŕtttghh. Eeeearrrgh. Yaŕŕrrghjkl.

That's it.

Rossini... I need Rossini...


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Having just had Strauss' Elektra lurch through my dreams last night I'd put that on the list!


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

This has become one of my favorite pieces. I find it wickedly awesome but maybe some find it disturbing.

Nikolai Roslavets - Komsomoliya


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

The scherzo of Bruckner's 9th I find unsettling.


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## TwoPhotons (Feb 13, 2015)

For more 'gore-ily' disgusting works, may I recommend Ornstein's "Suicide in an Airplane":






As well as Takehisa Kosugi's "Music for a Revolution" (NSFL)


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Disturbing works? Blake's "The Sick Rose" from 1794 as set by Britten in his Serenade for Tenor etc. The Dirge from the same work can set your teeth on edge...and make you reconsider how much you give to charity.


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

Just about all of Ligeti's works makes my cat hide under the sofa and my spouse nervous. I have to listen through headphones.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

DeepR said:


> This has become one of my favorite pieces. I find it wickedly awesome but maybe some find it disturbing.
> 
> Nikolai Roslavets - Komsomoliya


I went from feeling cold to feverish within the first 10 seconds.
So far, though, I like it in a mysteriously odd way.


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