# Pieces that scares the crap out of you



## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Hi. Have you ever encountered a piece that makes you jump in your chair?

In that case, share the piece/story!

For me it was the first movement from tchaikovsky's 6th symphony.

to be precise, at 9.36 



 when it's just silence, and then suddenly "BOOM". I actually screamed out loud the first time :lol: And it actually gets me everytime. I'm never really prepared.

And it was the first symphony i ever heard.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

I think something similar happened when I first listened to Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, but I can't remember which part of it. I haven't listened to it for ages. Other then that, off the top of my head, I would say the opening to Brahms' 1st symphony, probably the most emotionally charged and daunting opening to a symphony I have heard. 

Sorry, here comes another, when I 1st heard the opening to Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence as well.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

The guillotine chops in the final scene of Poulenc's _Dialogues of the Carmelites_ can cause one to soil oneself if one is not aware they're coming.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Bach's St Matthew Passion, the Barrabas bit. Seriously alarming. The "crucify Him" bit after is also pretty scary.

Edit: Add to that the commandantore scene in Don Giovanni. "Don Giooovaaaaaaaaaani..."


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## belfastboy (Aug 3, 2012)

Psycho Suite - Bernard Herrmann (Proms 2011)


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

This piece gave me a nightmare. That E flat clarinet solo...    !!!!


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## Praeludium (Oct 9, 2011)

I'd say George Crumb's Black angels.
Unfortunately, I can't think of any other - I'd love to be scared to hell by music, but I often find music people think of as scary rather tame - or not scary at all. That's certainly because we have different understandings of the word scary.

The Ravel makes me think of a LSD trip (no that I take drugs) or whatever. Kind of scherzo like.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Berio's _Visage_ is absolutely chilling. For me, this is not the dark but harmless Tim Burton type of scary; this is the very real David Lynch type of scary.


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## belfastboy (Aug 3, 2012)

Eschbeg said:


> Berio's _Visage_ is absolutely chilling. For me, this is not the dark but harmless Tim Burton type of scary; this is the very real David Lynch type of scary.


What the....


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## Rinaldino (Aug 2, 2012)

The moment when Wozzeck dies in the eponymous opera. That orchestral music in the background is indeed breath-taking. The whole opera is quite upsetting to me, to be honest.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Ligeti's requiem.
It gives me an other worldly creepy feeling when it appears in 2001.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Eschbeg said:


> Berio's _Visage_ is absolutely chilling. For me, this is not the dark but harmless Tim Burton type of scary; this is the very real David Lynch type of scary.


dafuq did i just hear?


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> This piece gave me a nightmare. That E flat clarinet solo...    !!!!


I actually heard daphnis and chloe live in Berlin 2 months ago. Amazing experience 

so i know what you mean!


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

20th century modern-classical music!


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## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

I am very quickly frightened by Scriabin's Black Mass Piano Sonata. I always feel like it is too evil to listen to and I have never been able to listen to it all the way through


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The Kronos Quartet play a mean trick in their _Winter Was Hard_ CD. Right after Webern's _6 Bagatelles_ - almost whispers - the next track, Zorn's _Forbidden Fruit_, starts out triple-forte with scratching violins. It is literally a shock if you don't know it's coming.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Manxfeeder said:


> The Kronos Quartet play a mean trick in their _Winter Was Hard_ CD. Right after Webern's _6 Bagatelles_ - almost whispers - the next track, Zorn's _Forbidden Fruit_, starts out triple-forte with scratching violins. It is literally a shock if you don't know it's coming.


Holy ****! Just checked it out. That is pure evil! It scared me, even if i knew about it


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

John Zorn's quartets are evil perverted sick demented twisted masses of noise!

I kind of like them.


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

Once i fell a sleep with headphones on my ear, ( Hadn't slept for 22h) when i woke up i wondered why do i feel scared then i noticed that Beethovens Grosse fuge was playing. It can be a scary piece too, .


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

I've just spent most of the evening listening to Kraus' Symphony in C minor 'funebre'. The beginning of the 1st movement with the ominous use of the timpani, is pretty unsettling.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

The last movement of Shostakovich sy 5 - third mvt ends quietly - and if the volume is turned up - the big sound of the last mvt starting is like a sledgehammer hitting you on the head.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

stomanek said:


> The last movement of Shostakovich sy 5 - third mvt ends quietly - and if the volume is turned up - the big sound of the last mvt starting is like a sledgehammer hitting you on the head.


The last movement should always sound like a sledgehammer hitting you on the head. Always. And then the brass starts throwing heavy things at you.

I've always found the March from Berg's Three Pieces for Orchestra to be especially terrifying.


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## Head_case (Feb 5, 2010)

Sofronitsky said:


> I am very quickly frightened by Scriabin's Black Mass Piano Sonata. I always feel like it is too evil to listen to and I have never been able to listen to it all the way through


???? 

That is my favourite Scriabin sonata. I've never thought of it as scary though.

Back to the question:



> Hi. Have you ever encountered a piece that makes you jump in your chair?


Yes...being drugged with Coca Cola and popcorn as a teenager at a mate's house for the evening. He was big into 'Like a virgin'. I'd never watched MTV in my life. Madonna did her petulant 'Like a virgin - hey!' salute and raised her arm.

I was aghast. I was only 12 at the time and I was completely shocked. She looked so like a normal human. Then when she did her salute, she opened up her armpit. She was so unbelievably hairy I thought Tina Turner was coming out.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Head_case said:


> ????
> 
> That is my favourite Scriabin sonata. I've never thought of it as scary though.
> 
> ...


Hahahahaha! Oh my god :lol:


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Tchaikovsky 'Symphony 2' - The Second movement. 

Decrescendo ended with a sudden forte. unpleasant


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

It isn't exactly traditional classical music, but labels like Marco Polo have done reconstructions of film scores as newly recorded orchestral suites. Stuff by Salter and Steiner and others for classic horror films are wonderful assemblages referencing Stravinsky, Sibelius, Wagner, etc. fantastic stuff. I have a whole book full of these CDs.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

By the way, Poulenc's organ concerto has stuff straight out of Dracula and Frankenstein.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

lol, several times listening to it, I have been startled out of my skin by Beethoven's Fidelio Overture. It gets quiet and then suddenly the opening returns and its so loud!


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

> By the way, Poulenc's organ concerto has stuff straight out of Dracula and Frankenstein.


Yes indeed, that really is a gothic concerto - wonderful stuff!
How about a really scary piece: Gerhards 'The Plague'. Try listening to this at night on your own...


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

To date, a piece has never caused me to defecate.


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## belfastboy (Aug 3, 2012)

bigshot said:


> By the way, Poulenc's organ concerto has stuff straight out of Dracula and Frankenstein.


I'm loving Poulenc!


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Excellent! I'd never gotten around to listening to my CD of that, but it came up in rotation on my music server, and I said, hey! What the heck is that?!


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## Toddlertoddy (Sep 17, 2011)

Penderecki: Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima






(This thread has been started multiple times before by the way:

http://www.talkclassical.com/20331-scary-classical-music.html
http://www.talkclassical.com/19368-scary-classical-music.html
http://www.talkclassical.com/17365-most-terrifying-moment-all.html
http://www.talkclassical.com/13994-terrifying-music.html)


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Not exactly. Those threads is about creepy and scary atmospheres. Mine is about music that that got sudden forte's etc. that scares you


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## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

Id also like to add that Tchaikovsky was kind of a **** with all of the soft- then extremely loud moments.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

Arsakes said:


> 20th century modern-classical music!


 THAT IS TRUE a lot of it lacks life to it.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

The end of Mahler's Sixth Symphony. The music winds down and fades away and you think its over, and then CRASH! The final hammer blow of fate falls! (I know Mahler removed the final hammer blow in a later revision, but even without it, it's a startling moment). That one gets me every time.


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## Guest (Aug 9, 2012)

I'm surprised no-one's yet mentioned Haydn's 'Surprise' Symphony!

Oh, alright...no, I'm not really.


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Only piece that ever made me jump, it always makes me jump is the first movment to the Pathetique symphony by Tchaikovsky. For whatever reason I'm a gulla bull(gullible) , and fall for it every time.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

Manok said:


> Only piece that ever made me jump, it always makes me jump is the first movment to the Pathetique symphony by Tchaikovsky. For whatever reason I'm a gulla bull(gullible) , and fall for it every time.


truedat!


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