# Is it still possible to achieve "horror" with tonal music anymore?



## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

When I was introduced to classical music as a kid, I remember being creeped out by the bloody opening of Puccini's Turandot and the blazing intro of Bruckner's Te Deum.

Looking back, I laughed at myself for thinking that Puccini and Bruckner could be considered scary. Only atonal music and microtonal music could give me a sense of dread at the moment. 

Do you think it is still possible to achieve "horror" with tonal music anymore?


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

One can instill horror in most (even contemporary) musicians by showing them a long part filled with scale-like yet trickily irregular figures


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

OffPitchNeb said:


> ...
> Do you think it is still possible to achieve "horror" with tonal music anymore?


I don't know, I can think of lots of creepy, tonal pop songs.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"It makes sense that we're experiencing a horror renaissance. The genre took off during the Great Depression and has been there for us in difficult times to accentuate and provide some semblance of shelter from our biggest fears. Since the dawn of the medium, music has proven just as important to film as visuals are; film scores complete the illusion of movement and help to further remove us from reality. But more so than any other genre of film music, horror is distinct and modern.
Cliff Martinez explained this to me perfectly when I interviewed him about his score for Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon (2016). "I hear some of the most adventurous, sound designer-ly music that seems to be happening a lot more in horror scores," he offered. "Also horror is the stuff that sounds more like modern 20th century symphonic music - it's the only stuff that references Stockhausen or Penderecki or Ligeti. That stuff doesn't go a long way in your romantic comedies or anyplace else, but it has a home in horror movies." Modern music, often composed in response to an increasingly terrifying reality, has become the perfect accompaniment to the nightmares we put up on the silver screen."
https://www.stereogum.com/2020331/h...vie-soundtrack-songs/lists/ultimate-playlist/

"From Bodysong (2003) to There Will Be Blood (2007) - which was disqualified from the Oscars because the soundtrack included music he had already released - there is much to love about his non-Radiohead cannon. The former film's score uses limited transposition and impressionistic strings; Stockhausen-inspired movements and exposing Olivier Messiaen's theory of grouping melodies around interval groups." https://www.musicmusingsandsuch.com...or-film-soundtrack-and-why-less-can-mean-more


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

hammeredklavier said:


> "It makes sense that we're experiencing a horror renaissance. The genre took off during the Great Depression and has been there for us in difficult times to accentuate and provide some semblance of shelter from our biggest fears. Since the dawn of the medium, music has proven just as important to film as visuals are; film scores complete the illusion of movement and help to further remove us from reality. But more so than any other genre of film music, horror is distinct and modern.
> Cliff Martinez explained this to me perfectly when I interviewed him about his score for Nicolas Winding Refn's The Neon Demon (2016). "I hear some of the most adventurous, sound designer-ly music that seems to be happening a lot more in horror scores," he offered. "Also horror is the stuff that sounds more like modern 20th century symphonic music - it's the only stuff that references Stockhausen or Penderecki or Ligeti. That stuff doesn't go a long way in your romantic comedies or anyplace else, but it has a home in horror movies." Modern music, often composed in response to an increasingly terrifying reality, has become the perfect accompaniment to the nightmares we put up on the silver screen."
> https://www.stereogum.com/2020331/h...vie-soundtrack-songs/lists/ultimate-playlist/
> [/url]


There are some really good examples in this.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Good question. It amuses that for Halloween concerts we drag out Night on Bald Mountain, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Danse Macabre...not really horrifyingly scary are they? You want scary music, then bring out a symphony by Humphrey Searle. Or the most scary thing I know: Ligeti's Lux Aeterna or Atmospheres. Or Christopher Young's soundtrack to Hellraiser 2. Writing truly horrifying music is really tough anymore...


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I can think of some works.

My thinking is that some members would consider then atonal.

I can think of a few works by Christopher Rouse that might qualify.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

OffPitchNeb said:


> When I was introduced to classical music as a kid, I remember being creeped out by the bloody opening of Puccini's Turandot and the blazing intro of Bruckner's Te Deum.
> 
> Looking back, I laughed at myself for thinking that Puccini and Bruckner could be considered scary. Only atonal music and microtonal music could give me a sense of dread at the moment.
> 
> Do you think it is still possible to achieve "horror" with tonal music anymore?


Ravel Scarbo from Gaspard de la nuit.
Liszt, Aux cyprès de la Villa D'Este, the Funeral March from Années III, , Nuages Gris.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

I'd be horrified if Mozart became the dominant influence for contemporary music....
Depending on one's definition of tonal and any context, scoring etc, I'd say yes, horror can be depicted.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mbhaub said:


> Good question. It amuses that for Halloween concerts we drag out Night on Bald Mountain, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Danse Macabre...not really horrifyingly scary are they? You want scary music, then bring out a symphony by Humphrey Searle. Or the most scary thing I know: Ligeti's Lux Aeterna or Atmospheres. Or Christopher Young's soundtrack to Hellraiser 2. Writing truly horrifying music is really tough anymore...


Depicting horror and inducing horror are not the same thing. Music that expresses horror isn't supposed to be literally horrifying. It's just supposed to give us a convincing sense of what horror is like. I imagine tonal music is still up to the task, since it hasn't lost its capacity to express other things.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

OffPitchNeb said:


> When I was introduced to classical music as a kid, I remember being creeped out by the bloody opening of Puccini's Turandot and the blazing intro of Bruckner's Te Deum.
> 
> Looking back, I laughed at myself for thinking that Puccini and Bruckner could be considered scary. Only atonal music and microtonal music could give me a sense of dread at the moment.
> 
> Do you think it is still possible to achieve "horror" with tonal music anymore?


Are you talking about standalone music? I ask because some of the responses so far have referenced film music where image and music combine, making it difficult to judge the significance of the music's contribution to the horror.

I must say I can't bring much "horror" music to mind at all that isn't film music. The George Crumb and the Penderecki I've heard convey a sense of horror (though maybe the title of the Penderecki was a bit of a giveaway)...the obvious Bartok is creepy (and I'd heard it before watching _The Shining_)...

...nope, struggling here...


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

deleted.......duplicate post..............silly boy.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Forster said:


> Are you talking about standalone music? I ask because some of the responses so far have referenced film music where image and music combine, making it difficult to judge the significance of the music's contribution to the horror.
> 
> I must say I can't bring much "horror" music to mind at all that isn't film music. The George Crumb and the Penderecki I've heard convey a sense of horror (though maybe the title of the Penderecki was a bit of a giveaway)...the obvious Bartok is creepy (and I'd heard it before watching _The Shining_)...
> 
> ...nope, struggling here...


 Some programmatic or referential context would certainly help the listeners 'get' the idea of horror or a related feeling written into a tonal concert work. Even without a reference, I'd say there is much that could be done in a tonal context with extremes of range, dynamics, orchestration, chord progression etc., that could easily depict unsettling moods one might connect with horror or similar. Depiction of feelings can never be precise though as one listener's horror is anothers intellectual and/or emotional exploration of harmony....devil


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

mikeh375 said:


> I'd be horrified if Mozart became the dominant influence for contemporary music....


I'm not sure what you exactly mean by "dominant influence", but there is this:
"we note that K 428 in E♭ is another quartet of which the youthful Schoenberg had acquired an intimate, inside knowledge. The canonic opening of the first movement's development section (Ex. 3), which exposes the twelve notes within the narrowest space, is a mature example of strict serialism: an anti- (tri-) tonal row of three notes and its mirror forms (BS, I, R, RI) revolves both horizontally and vertically underneath the rotations of its own segmental subordinate row, which is a series in extremest miniature consisting of two notes at the interval of a minor second.








This is purest Schoenberg. In a forthcoming Mozart symposium, I am in fact trying to demonstrate that the passacaglia from the chamber-musical Pierrot lunaire is actually if unconsciously modelled on this development. At the same time, the latter's technique looks far into Schoenberg's own future, down to the (pan)tonal serial technique of the Ode to Napoleon. Beside unifying the anti-harmonic passage as such, that is to say, Mozart's strict serial method has to conduct it back into its wider, harmonic context, whence the series continue to rotate down to the perfect C minor cadence, every note of which remains serially determined."
<"Strict Serial Technique in Classical Music" by Hans Keller>


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Very informative hammered. Just take my words at face value and you'll get my drift......


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mikeh375 said:


> Very informative hammered. Just take my words at face value and you'll get my drift......


In WAM, Michael Finnissy explores pitch patterns he found in Mozart's music.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Aw c'mon folks, you know what I mean......


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Ravel Scarbo from Gaspard de la nuit.
> Liszt, Aux cyprès de la Villa D'Este, the Funeral March from Années III, , *Nuages Gris*.


I remember especially Nuages Gris as something bordering atonality and Liszt in general was pushing in that direction probably more than any other 19th century composer... I'm not sure it's a great example of common practice harmony.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Personally I haven't found any music (tonal or otherwise) genuinely horrifying since I was 12-13 and artists like Marilyn Manson, or the Black Sabbath title track, freaked me out--but at the time I was a pretty sheltered religious conservative. Once I developed a taste for metal in my teen years there certainly wasn't anything in classical that was going to scare me after that. Though I think the argument could be made that there's a lot of extreme metal that most would consider scarier than even atonal classical, despite being tonal itself.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Heavy/death metal makes my ears hurt before they scare me(I do not use earphones), if some music can scare me without hurting my fragility of physiological health I would probably enjoy it later. Do not avoid music that always raise some instinctive repulsion or scare, my secret recipe. Mansion thing is beyond me, that makeup is unforgivable as a musician not that his music is either bad or good.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Ariasexta said:


> Heavy/death metal makes my ears hurt before they scare me(I do not use earphones), if some music can scare me without hurting my fragility of physiological health I would probably enjoy it later. Do not avoid music that always raise some instinctive repulsion or scare, my secret recipe. Mansion thing is beyond me, that makeup is unforgivable as a musician not that his music is either bad or good.


Manson, White/Rob Zombie, and people like Alice Cooper before them were essentially shock rock, which fundamentally was a just a return to a kind-of vaudevillian show in which the visual, theatrical spectacle played just as much of a role as the music did. You see a similar approach in rock artists like David Bowie but without the horror element. You might find some of the "softer" forms of extreme metal more palatable. Opeth was my gateway, but even with them I found it difficult to get past the harsh vocals at first. They definitely take some time to get used to, but Opeth also mixed in a lot of clean vocals and beautiful passages, making them more accessible than most bands in the genre.


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> Ravel Scarbo from Gaspard de la nuit.
> Liszt, Aux cyprès de la Villa D'Este, the Funeral March from Années III, , Nuages Gris.


I listened to the Liszt's pieces and find them fairly creepy. They could even be good candidateS for the soundtrack of some thriller/mystery film.

But they are not horror and scary.


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

Forster said:


> Are you talking about standalone music? I ask because some of the responses so far have referenced film music where image and music combine, making it difficult to judge the significance of the music's contribution to the horror.
> 
> I must say I can't bring much "horror" music to mind at all that isn't film music. The George Crumb and the Penderecki I've heard convey a sense of horror (though maybe the title of the Penderecki was a bit of a giveaway)...the obvious Bartok is creepy (and I'd heard it before watching _The Shining_)...
> 
> ...nope, struggling here...


Yeah, I am talking about stand-alone music.

When combined with images and effects, even a simple song can sound scary in a certain context. Some horror movies love to use the cliche that the piano is playing a simple tune when no one is at home


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

I have a theory why tonal music can no longer induce horror.

To quote H. P. Lovecraft, _"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."_ For those of us who have grown accustomed to tonal music, and already appreciated its full potential in expressing all sorts of emotion, music is no longer in the realm of the unknown. Upon hearing a few notes, we have the tendency to anticipate the structures that follow and associate them with certain context and usage, thus leaving no room for the mind to wander and experience dread.

I think classical tonal music can still be scary for those who are not familiar with it.

I once play Brahms's Piano Quartet in C minor to a non-classical music listener. The piece is hardly scary but definitely too dense for a novice (it's Brahms after all). He described it as creepy and asked me to stop it.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

OffPitchNeb said:


> I have a theory why tonal music can no longer induce horror.
> 
> To quote H. P. Lovecraft, _"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."_ For those of us who have grown accustomed to tonal music, and already appreciated its full potential in expressing all sorts of emotion, music is no longer in the realm of the unknown. Upon hearing a few notes, we have the tendency to anticipate the structures that follow and associate them with certain context and usage, thus leaving no room for the mind to wander and experience dread.
> 
> ...


Great post and all very true.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Sometime horror can be achieved through instrumentation. 

Bernard Hermann could achieve this through the use of the serpent.


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

arpeggio said:


> Sometime horror can be achieved through instrumentation.
> 
> Bernard Hermann could achieve this through the use of the serpent.


With the right instrumentation and gesture, music can sound pretty horrifying. My favorite example is the opening of Britten's War Requiem:


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I just thought of a band work: David Maslanka-_A Child's Garden of Dreams:_, Third Movement-"A Horde of Small Animals Frightens the Dreamer". Composed 1981


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Another more recent band work: _Wine-Dark Sea: Symphony for Band_ by John Mackey. Based on parts of Homer's _Odysseus_.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*DE MEIJ Symphony No. 1, Lord of the Rings: Mvt. 4*

DE MEIJ Symphony No. 1, Lord of the Rings: Mvt. 4 "Journey in the dark"


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Qual nuovo terrore"


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I think the OP is talking about modern music, not Mozart.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Yes, it is possible. In fact, I have a recurring nightmare that I'm stuck in an all-Brahms concert and unable to leave. Horrifying.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

OffPitchNeb said:


> When I was introduced to classical music as a kid, I remember being creeped out by the bloody opening of Puccini's Turandot and the blazing intro of Bruckner's Te Deum.
> 
> Looking back, I laughed at myself for thinking that Puccini and Bruckner could be considered scary. Only atonal music and microtonal music could give me a sense of dread at the moment.
> 
> Do you think it is still possible to achieve "horror" with tonal music anymore?


Why? Are you contemplating a career writing film scores for that kind of movie?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Couchie said:


> Yes, it is possible. In fact, I have a recurring nightmare that I'm stuck in an all-Brahms concert and unable to leave. Horrifying.


You know, I sometimes wonder which of the two (Hans & Dick) you find more horrifying


Couchie said:


> Whatever you do, never listen to Richard Wagner. You have been warned.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

OffPitchNeb said:


> When I was introduced to classical music as a kid, I remember being creeped out by the bloody opening of Puccini's Turandot and the blazing intro of Bruckner's Te Deum.
> 
> Looking back, I laughed at myself for thinking that Puccini and Bruckner could be considered scary. Only atonal music and microtonal music could give me a sense of dread at the moment.
> 
> Do you think it is still possible to achieve "horror" with tonal music anymore?


For me, "horror" brings with it a sense of something revolting, sickening - not just creepy or scary. I think some of the examples offered might be scary, but not horrifying (at least, not as standalone music which is what the OP confirmed in #23 that this is about.)

Is "horror" possible in music?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think that with modernity, uncertainty is a givens. Maybe it has become somewhat cliche, and this might explain how we can become desensitised to it.

Uncertainty, or the unknown if you like, is a big part of the experience of modernity. A key aspect of this was industrialisation, which really got going in the 19th century. I think that Baudelaire's capture of how modern life, especially city life, impacts on aesthetics was pivotal.

Then there's what many see to be the archetypal modernist novel, Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_. Its famous quote "the horror!" is a valid reaction to a world where any notion of God is dispensible, as is any sense of right and wrong, and there are no longer any restraints on humanity doing virtually anything.

The first piece I found to express horror was the middle movement of Bartok's _Divertimento for Strings._ I remember my feelings upon first hearing it. I must have been just getting into my teens. I felt revulsion, shock, grief. The climax of the movement, where the orchestra is screaming out, chilled me to the bone.

That movement is probably borderline atonal, as a lot of Bartok's night music movements would be. Since then, I've heard other music which can be described as horrific, or even psychopathic. Examples include Schoenberg's _Pierrot Lunaire_, Penderecki's _Threnody_ and Shostakovich's _String Quartet #8_.

These sorts of pieces are conveying aspects of the modern condition. They might bring to mind extreme psychological states, bizarre scenarios, alienation, war and so on. Whether music like this is tonal, atonal, microtonal or something in between is related to what these composers where trying to achieve with their music.

In other words, why and to what end are they conveying aspects of _the horror_?

I still find these pieces horrible, which is part of their power. Without that aspect, they probably wouldn't be modern, or at least not so tightly related to the experience of modernity as they so obviously are.



OffPitchNeb said:


> I once play Brahms's Piano Quartet in C minor to a non-classical music listener. The piece is hardly scary but definitely too dense for a novice (it's Brahms after all). He described it as creepy and asked me to stop it.


I think that the Brahms piece you mention is a good example of a work which does have hints of darkness, albeit more subtle. Your friend was perceptive, because in parts and on the surface the quartet can sound like salon music gone wrong. The obligatory dance of the finale is frenetic and even a bit crazy compared to what Brahms usually does.


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## Tarneem (Jan 3, 2022)

OffPitchNeb said:


> I have a theory why tonal music can no longer induce horror.
> 
> To quote H. P. Lovecraft, _"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."_ For those of us who have grown accustomed to tonal music, and already appreciated its full potential in expressing all sorts of emotion, music is no longer in the realm of the unknown. Upon hearing a few notes, we have the tendency to anticipate the structures that follow and associate them with certain context and usage, thus leaving no room for the mind to wander and experience dread.
> 
> ...


totally agree! 
for me baroque music for the solo organs and solo harpsichords can be very terrifying if it is played in the "right" tempo. But what truly horrifies me is when a composer compose a cheerful or may be heroic melodies but then add some flavor of sarcasm to it. Tchaikovsky's 3rd movement of his 6th symphony is the first that comes to my mind


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

Sid James said:


> I think that with modernity, uncertainty is a givens. Maybe it has become somewhat cliche, and this might explain how we can become desensitised to it.
> 
> Uncertainty, or the unknown if you like, is a big part of the experience of modernity. A key aspect of this was industrialisation, which really got going in the 19th century. I think that Baudelaire's capture of how modern life, especially city life, impacts on aesthetics was pivotal.
> 
> ...


Very well-put. I also think that while fear may be the strongest emotion, we are easier to get desensitized to it than other emotions (unless it escalates to any form of phobia).

And yes, the C-minor quartet is among the darkest compositions of Brahms. The way you described it, "salon music gone wrong", is brilliant .


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## OffPitchNeb (Jun 6, 2016)

Tarneem said:


> totally agree!
> for me baroque music for the solo organs and solo harpsichords can be very terrifying if it is played in the "right" tempo. But what truly horrifies me is when a composer compose a cheerful or may be heroic melodies but then add some flavor of sarcasm to it. Tchaikovsky's 3rd movement of his 6th symphony is the first that comes to my mind


I know the Toccata and Fugue in D minor is abused, but it does sound scary sometimes.

Poulenc took the creepiness to another level, within the range of tonality:






And speaking of the organ, there is always Messiaen.


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## bwv543 (May 25, 2021)

OffPitchNeb said:


> When I was introduced to classical music as a kid, I remember being creeped out by the bloody opening of Puccini's Turandot and the blazing intro of Bruckner's Te Deum.
> 
> Looking back, I laughed at myself for thinking that Puccini and Bruckner could be considered scary. Only atonal music and microtonal music could give me a sense of dread at the moment.
> 
> Do you think it is still possible to achieve "horror" with tonal music anymore?


I try never to lose touch with those original feelings. Bruckner's Te Deum still awes me as much as it did the day I first heard it - but now it's the awe of intimacy as opposed to the awe of novelty. It grabbed me, and still grabs me, because it's great music. Don't ever lose touch with that and you'll find that you'll still be able to experience a vast range of emotions with classical music.


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