# Scary classical music?



## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

So what are the scariest classical tunes/ pieces of music that you have ever heard?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Penderecki - Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima


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## Iforgotmypassword (May 16, 2011)

Art Rock said:


> Penderecki - Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima


Haha dammit I knew someone would get there first.

I suppose a large portion of pieces by Alfred Schnittke would qualify as "scary" but not quite as much so as Penderecki's piece.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Art Rock said:


> Penderecki - Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima


Yes, I'll buy that. It is genuinely scary - as opposed to being written to induce a scared feeling in the listener (eg the music to _Psycho_).

I'll suggest Schnittke's _(K)ein Sommernachtstraum_ in which an innocent little tune is subject to ever increasing levels of violation by the orchestra until it is obliterated (or is it?).


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I don't find Threnody scary. It makes me smile! Of course there's a lot more to it than the screechy dissonance of the first section. I choose to disassociate the piece from its title and listen to it as pure music.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)




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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The way the music remorselessly ratchets up the tension towards the end of Puccini's Il Tabarro when Michele is preparing to reveal the dead body of Luigi to Giorgetta and then Giorgetta's scream that ends the opera.

The witches' cave/apparitions scene in act III of Verdi's Macbeth.

Britten's Turn of the Screw - young Miles singing "malo malo" as if possessed, the first appearance of Quint's ghost on the tower and that of Miss Jessel's at the lake. Plus the initial aura of isolation that turns into downright evil once the ghosts make their presence felt.

The 'hammer blows' in the final movement of Mahler's 6th symphony (especially if they are loud!).


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

:lol::lol::lol::lol:


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Almost all music composed in the late 20th century is scary for me.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Crumb's Black Angels.
I always jump out of my skin when the Night of the Electric Insects movements start, even when I'm expecting it.

Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire is kind of spooky too.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

A classic is Ligeti's Requiem:






(kyrie)


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

This isn't a classical piece but i find this piece of music to be little scary/haunting.


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## Toddlertoddy (Sep 17, 2011)

SuperTonic said:


> Crumb's Black Angels.
> I always jump out of my skin when the Night of the Electric Insects movements start, even when I'm expecting it.
> 
> Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire is kind of spooky too.


Beat me to it. I show this to my friends and tell them to play it in the washroom at 2am when their siblings enter it.



norman bates said:


>


I don't get it


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I had my library on shuffle the other day and it came up with a piece I hadn't eard before by Poulenc. (Organ Symphony?) it sounded real horror movie.


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## powerbooks (Jun 30, 2012)

I have two opera scenes that could feel scary, or nervous.

Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk, the poisoning of her husband.
Poulenc: Dialogues of the Carmelites, finale: the beheading of the nuns (one by one)!


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Devil's trill sonata by Tartini?


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## FrankieP (Aug 24, 2011)

I agree with Black Angels! 
I took my speakers to outside my friend's door at about 11 one night and played the 'Night of the Electric Insects' - she didn't speak to me for a while after that! She's also terrified of 'the Teddybears' picnic' so I played that too


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## Dimboukas (Oct 12, 2011)

I find it strange that nobody has proposed Stravinsky's _The Rite of Spring_.


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## BenthicCorvid (Jul 18, 2012)

The allegro molto from Bartok's suite op.14. The chords of the last bar always make me $hit myself.

Also for creepy terror, try the closing passages of the 2nd movement of Shostakovich's 4th symphony, which uses woodblock, castanets and a snare drum.... sounds like some hideous clockwork doll in a horror movie.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

The first one is fiery and destructive, the other one subtle and surreal. Both can be scary.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

starthrower said:


> I don't find Threnody scary. It makes me smile! Of course there's a lot more to it than the screechy dissonance of the first section. I choose to disassociate the piece from its title and listen to it as pure music.


That was the original intent :3 but when Penderecki heard it played, he was struck by the emotive qualities of it and gave it a more romantic kind of title.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

It's a pity some composers turn to screeching noises for scary effect. I'd rather listen to some proper dark ambient in that case.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

DeepR said:


> It's a pity some composers turn to screeching noises for scary effect. I'd rather listen to some proper dark ambient in that case.


Alot of that music isn't really trying to be scary  Or least not scary in a horror fiction kinda way. Like Black Angels, which was written as tribute to Crumb's students who were forced to go to the hell that was Vietnam by the draft.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Hmmmm... scary music...

The Banshee, by Henry Cowell, is pretty eerie.


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