# Dark Music



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I hope this hasn't been done before - I tried searching.

Some of us will be a little tired of the word "dark" being used to describe all atonal music. Tired because we know that it is the wrong word. But we can probably agree that there is darkness in music. Casual listening on the radio (BBC Radio 3) this morning led to my hearing a piece by Dowland being described as dark (accurately, I think) and then "Total Eclipse" from Handel's Samson ... obviously darkness is its literal subject. And I also heard Rachmaninov's "The Rock" and thought that it was really dark. For a while I became a little convinced that darkness was a speciality (not the only one) of Romantic music. Much of the alleged darkness of the avant garde is probably a matter of obscurity rather than the painting of dark pictures in sound. *But, anyway, what pieces do you think of as particularly dark? And which dark pieces do you love? *


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I would not describe the avant-garde music as dark. Dark music tries to depict dark emotions, or dark feelings such a depression, anxiety, hopelessness, anger, hate etc. Much of avant-garde music does not seem to depict anything meaningful to me. I perceive it as a collection of random sounds. But not all of it, some of it I can relate to.
Dark music?
Mussorgsky - Night On Bald Mountain
Scriabin - a lot of his music, but mainly some sonatas and the Mysterium
Penderecki - a lot of his music
Liszt - some of his music
Shostakovich - the grotesque, the dark, the absurd, the stalinist carnival
Mahler - darkness combined with self-pity
Crumb - Black Angels
etc


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## Frank Freaking Sinatra (Dec 6, 2018)

:tiphat: to @donnybrook (who?) for providing this in KenOC's thread - https://www.talkclassical.com/59189-moody-day.html?highlight=a+moody+day






This link leads to "The 50 Darkest Pieces of Classical Music" -






I would also add these because nothing is "darker" than "black" -

"Black is Black" - Los Bravos






"Paint It Black" - The Rolling Stones






and as long as we're riding that "black" riff hard and fast might as well add this -

"Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud" - James Brown


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## Frank Freaking Sinatra (Dec 6, 2018)

And if you're still hung up anything that is "dark" or relates to "darkness" knock yourself out with this list of 106 songs that have "dark" in the title -

https://www.ranker.com/list/the-best-songs-with-dark-in-the-title/ranker-music

And yes I do know that not one of them is "classical" but almost all of them are "classics" which is close enough when you come to think of it...


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Frank Freaking Sinatra said:


> And yes I do know that not one of them is "classical" but almost all of them are "classics" which is close enough when you come to think of it...


Welcome back, Mr. Freaking!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Here's a "cheery" little melodrama by...


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Larkenfield said:


> Here's a "cheery" little melodrama by...


Yep. A real whodunit.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Schubert: Erlkoenig

Not necessarily darkm but like looking through a warped mirror:
Mozart: c minor Serenade
Mahler: Landler from Ninth Symphony

Then there's any music composed by beings made of dark matter.


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## drmdjones (Dec 25, 2018)

I am interested in what you all think it is about the music that gives the impression of darkness. Some contributing factors, imo, are pitch level (low is dark), timbre (lacking high overtones), minor tonalities, and slow tempos.


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## Steerpike (Dec 29, 2018)

'Dark' to me relates to mood and meaning.

I always think of Sibelius 4th symphony as dark. Also the 4th and 6th symphonies by Vaughan Williams, and arguably the three 'fate' symphonies (4-6) by Tchaikovsky.


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## drmdjones (Dec 25, 2018)

Okay. So, I restate my question; what about the music creates this mood and meaning?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

A few favorites: 

Britten: War Requiem, op. 66
Górecki: Symphony #3 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs," op. 36 
Hartmann: Concerto funèbre 
Kilar: Angelus
Kodály: Psalmus Hungaricus, op. 13 
Pettersson: Symphony #7 
Shostakovich: Viola Sonata, op. 147 
Vaughan Williams: Symphony #4 in F minor

IMO, every single one of these works needs more support on the TC project....


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## zelenka (Feb 8, 2018)

Shostakovich string quart no. 8


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Scriabin's last preludes Op. 74 No. 2 & 5 have a great sense of impending doom.









In general though you can't say his late music is very dark; it's all kinds of shades between light and dark, sometimes in fact uplifting, shimmering and burning with fiery passion.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Shostakovich Symphony No. 8. Need I say more? Almost unbearable in its relentless darkness and anguish.


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