# Haunting Romantic Period Music?



## linz

Some of my favorite pieces from the Romantic Period are eerie and troubling such as "Night on Bald Mountain", "The Witches Sabbath", from Symphony Fantastique, and "Mephisto Waltz no.1" scored for orchestra. I'm looking for any other haunting music of this period, or any other period in music, do you know of any?


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## Hexameron

I burned my own disc of piano pieces JUST from Liszt that were either influenced or inspired by hell, demons or evil.

1. Danse Macabre (Liszt's piano transcriptions of Saint-Saens' work)
2. Csardas macabre (a late Liszt piano work of a dark dance)
3. Scherzo und March (a devilish virtuoso piece)
4. Reminiscences of Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable (the valse infernale music)
5. Totentanz (I prefer the piano transcription instead of the orchestral)
6. Dante Sonata (easily the supreme musical depiction of Hell)

I also encourage Liszt's "Dante Symphony," but there are so many pieces from other composers that I could recommend. Glazunov's symphonic poems "The Sea" and "The Forest" are surprisingly dark and gloomy. Balakirev's symphonic poem "Tamara" is another bleak but beautiful piece.

Charles-Valentin Alkan is another composer with some dark haunting stuff. The largo movement from his "Grande Sonate Op. 33" is a morbid funeral march. The entire Op. 15, or "Souvenirs morceaux dans le genre pathetique for piano" are the most haunting piano works from Alkan. The "Le vent" or "like the wind" is a ghostly piece of moaning arpeggios that send chills up the spine. The "Morte" piece speaks for itself, opening with the infinitely haunting and famous "Dies Irae" theme. Lastly, the prelude No. 8 "Song of the Mad-Woman by the Seashore" will make you go insane from the eerie despair. Just recently I also mentioned in another thread here about a chamber work by Alkan, the Op. 21 second movement called "L'enfer" or "Hell." I think if you like Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," Liszt's Mephisto Waltzes and Berlioz' SF, you'll find more of Liszt's black works and Alkan's undeniably haunting pieces a godsend.

But why stop with Romantic period. You can go to Beethoven for this stuff too. The Piano Sonatas Op. 106 (adagio sostenuto) and Op. 110 (last movement) contain his most sorrowful moments. Mozart's Requiem and his Mass in C minor (the kyrie movement) are Mozart's avenues of agony.

There's plenty of "troubling" and "eerie" works out there both from Classical and Romantic. Modern music, though... like Stravinsky and Ives, tend to stray from consonant poetry, emotional keys, and the strength of hot-blooded feeling, so I can't recommend anything there, although the Rite of Spring has its eerie moments.


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## linz

Hungarian Dance '12'? Johannes Brahms. Haunting
Pictures at an Exhibition 'gnome' theme Modest Mussorgsky. Eerie
Mozart's Requiem: The 'Tuba Merum?' were the voice starts at the baritone and moves up to soprano is truely flawless music!


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## Hexameron

Hmm... that looks good, linz. But here's mine 

A German Requiem "For all Flesh is as Grass" Johannes Brahms. Haunting
Pictures at an Exhibition "Catacombs" Modest Mussorgsky. Eerie
Mozart's Requiem: the "Lacrimosa" is simply the most profound choral moment of all time.


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## Celloman

The Isle of the Dead by Rachmaninov
Riders to the Sea by Vaughan Williams
Symphony No. 6 by Vaughan Williams
Neptune the Mystic from The Planets by Gustav Holst
The Swan of Tuonela from Lemminkanen Suite by Jean Sibelius


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## Topaz

Just a few more:

Beethoven: Piano Sonata 23 "Appasionata"
Schubert: Piano Sonata D 894
Brahms: Piano Quintet Op 34
Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Festival
Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia
Wagner: Gotterdammerung, Siegfried's Rhine Journey, and Funeral March


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