# Top 10 Most Powerfully (and/or Compellingly) Nightmarish/Horrifying Works of Music?



## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

For you, what are the top 10 most powerfully (and/or compellingly) nightmarish/horrifying works of music?

Definitions being applied:
Powerful: "having a strong effect on someone or something."
Compelling: "evoking interest, attention, or admiration in a powerfully irresistible way."
Nightmarish: "of the nature of a nightmare; very frightening or unpleasant."
Horrify: "fill with horror; shock greatly."

So, for your lists you are taking both "powerful"/"compelling" (as applicable, whether both or one) _and_ "nightmarish"/"horrifying" (as applicable, whether both or one) into combined account.

You may choose Classical works, Rock albums and Jazz albums. I'd _prefer_ you selected full works for your lists (entire symphonies, concertos, albums, etc), but feel free to also mention movements or songs -- _preferably_ not as substitutes but in addition to your top 10 full works.

An ordered, ranked list can be quite challenging to conclude as one can have works that reach very high peaks of these emotions/themes but are maybe not as consistent as others. And one can have those that are very consistent but perhaps don't reach such high peaks, leaving it a difficult task to determine which is better. One could say that the very greatest examples should be both very consistent and reach considerable peaks, but I'll leave that judgment up to you.


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## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

1. Diamanda Galas - Diamanda Galas (1984) 
2. Slow, Deep & Hard - Type O Negative (1991)
3. Requiem - Gyorgy Ligeti (1965) 
4. Suicide - Suicide (1977) 
5. The Litanies of Satan - Diamanda Galas (1982) 
6. Twin Infinitives - Royal Trux (1990) 
7. Geek the Girl - Lisa Germano (1994)
8. The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails (1994) 
9. White Light/White Heat - The Velvet Underground (1967) 
10. Atlantis - Sun Ra (1967)


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

1. Mussorgsky- Night on Bald Mountain
2. Mahler- Tragic Symphony (especially scherzo and last movement)
3. Saint-Saens- Danse Macabre
4. Berlioz- Symphonie Fantastique
5. Rachmaninov- Isle of the Dead
6. Bach- Several Preludes and Fugues from Well-Tempered Clavier
7. Verdi- Dies Irae From Requiem
8. Mozart- Parts of Don Giovanni
9. Dvorak- The Noon-Day Witch
10. Mozart- Requiem


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

1. Strauss: Elektra
2. Liszt: Dante Sonata
3. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire
4. Liszt: Totentanz
5. Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle
6. Penderecki: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
7. Schubert: Erlkönig 
8. Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
9. Schoenberg: Erwartung
10. Babbitt: Philomel


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

1. Berg - Wozzeck
2. Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
3. Pettersson - Symphony No. 7
4. Schoenberg - Pierrot Lunaire
5. Ligeti - Atmosphères
6. Prokofiev - The Fiery Angel
7. Mahler - Symphony No. 6
8. Bartòk - Bluebeard's Castle
9. Crumb - Black Angels
10. Strauss - Elektra


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Schnittke: Piano Quintet


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

WildThing said:


> 2. Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima


This.

And of course, Justin Bieber. If that doesn't fill you with:

_Nightmarish: "of the nature of a nightmare; very frightening or unpleasant."
Horrify: "fill with horror; shock greatly."_

then nothing will...


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## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

brianvds said:


> This.
> 
> And of course, Justin Bieber. If that doesn't fill you with:
> 
> ...


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I'll nominate just one.

Wojciech Kilar - Bogurodzica (Mother of God).

Seriously, don't listen to this if you're a very sensitive type. Nightmarish stuff.


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

Carl Maria von WEBER: Wolf's Glen Scene from _Der Freischütz_
:: Keilberth/BPO [EMI]

Giuseppi VERDI: Dies irae from Requiem
:: Giulini/Philharmonia [EMI]

Aleksandr SCRIABIN: Piano Sonata No. 9
:: Horowitz [CBS/Sony]

Béla BARTÓK: _The Miraculous Mandarin_ (Suite)
:: Dorati/CSO [Mercury]

Arnold SCHOENBERG: String Trio
:: Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival [Nonesuch LP]

Arnold SCHOENBERG: _A Survivor from Warsaw_
:: Reich, Boulez/BBC SO & Chorus [CBS/Sony]

Frank MARTIN: 6 Monologe aus "Jedermann"
:: Fischer-Dieskau, Martin/BPO [DG]

Benjamin BRITTEN: _The Turn of the Screw_
:: Britten/English Opera Group [Decca]

Alberto GINASTERA: _Bomarzo_
:: Rudel/The Opera Society of Washington [CBS/Sony]

Galina USTVOLSKAYA: Duet
:: Beths & De Leeuw [hat ART]


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Suk's Asrael Symphony. I've never liked it but it's an uncomfortable, harrowing symphony to my ears.


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## Vronsky (Jan 5, 2015)




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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

^ I _love_ Luzifers Abschied.


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

Ever since hearing Mussorgsky's Night on a Bare Mountain as a child being used as the theme music to a talking book of Hound of the Baskervilles it has scared the living daylights out of me. I listened to it again last week and almost turned it off, it still has the power to genuinely scare me.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

*Schubert: Eine Leichenphantasie, D7*

An early, multipart, thoroughly chilling and depressive work with text by Schiller, set to music by Schubert ca. 1811 (when he was 14!) and wonderfully performed here by Christoph Prégardien. This is kind of like a very long _Erlkönig_ in that it requires great characterization skills of a singing actor. Briefly, a father follows a funeral procession at night to a graveyard on a moonlit night and mourns the death of his young son.






:tiphat:

Kind regards,

George


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## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

Barelytenor said:


> An early, multipart, thoroughly chilling and depressive work with text by Schiller, set to music by Schubert ca. 1811 (when he was 14!) and wonderfully performed here by Christoph Prégardien. This is kind of like a very long _Erlkönig_ in that it requires great characterization skills of a singing actor. Briefly, a father follows a funeral procession at night to a graveyard on a moonlit night and mourns the death of his young son.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you, I do not believe I've heard this work from Schubert yet (unless it was several years ago and I've forgotten), and I think Staier and Pregardien are extraordinary talents!


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I don't think I can nominate 10 such pieces. However...

The only time a piece of CM has genuinely frightened me was a performance of Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony a few years back. The progressive build-up and increasingly mad, jagged tone of the opening movement induced a sense of fear that I have never encountered in music before or since.


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## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

Pat Fairlea said:


> I don't think I can nominate 10 such pieces. However...
> 
> The only time a piece of CM has genuinely frightened me was a performance of Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony a few years back. The progressive build-up and increasingly mad, jagged tone of the opening movement induced a sense of fear that I have never encountered in music before or since.


Thank you, great point, I consider his 7th one of the greatest works of the 20th century!


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