# Seeing it's Halloween - how much classical music is convingly evil?



## LancsMan (Oct 28, 2013)

Maybe it's a good thing, but I don't know that much classical music that evokes an 'evil' or 'wicked' atmosphere with any great conviction. Most evocations of evil prior to the 20th century seem to miss the mark. Purcell's witches in Dido and Aeneas are perhaps slightly naughty, and the music for the devil's in Elgar's Dream of Gerontius seem to be pantomime devils.

To my ear Wagner's getting much closer to the mark with Mime in The Ring. However If I really fancy wallowing in an evil atmosphere I listen to Richard Strauss's 'Electra'. 

Berg's Lulu' evokes an evil world to me, but a feeling of sadness pervades much of the music whilst Strauss in 'Electra' seems to positively relish the evil world he conjures up.

Of course Electra is about as close as Strauss gets to atonality, and Berg's the real deal. I guess finding atonal music the best for evil won't come as too much of a surprise to musical traditionalists. 
Any other suggestions for convincingly evil music?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

According to Ligeti, his Requiem should sound as "sinister and demoniac":


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Another forum ran a game recently to determine the best devilish music ("Diabolus in Musica" after the famous interval). Fitting for the season. Here are the results.

1 - Rachmaninov: Isle of the Dead
2 - Saint-Saëns: Danse Macabre
3 - Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit
4 - Franck: Le Chasseur maudit ('Accursed Huntsman')
5 - Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain
6 - Prokofiev: The Fiery Angel (Opera)
7 - Dvorak: The Water Goblin
8 - Dvorak: The Noon Witch
9 - Liszt: Totentanz
10 - Dvorak: The Spectre's Bride


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

*Tartini's* Devil's Trill.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

The witches sabbath from Symphonie Fantastique. In the slightly creepy category I put the minuet from Mozart's c-minor Serenade. The mad scene from Boris Godunov. The Miraculous Mandarin has some evil qualities. At least one number from Crumb's Makrokosmos is creepy. I don't know if you would call Duke Bluebeard's Castle evil, but it might be close. Then, of course, there's The Sorcerer's Apprentice.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The Witch's Scherzo from Haydn's Quinten quartet...


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Bartok's Music for strings, percussion and celesta was used to spine-chilling effect in the film "The Shining." Not sure that is the kind if thing that Bartok ever had in mind for it!

And then there is Florence Foster Jenkins' performance of the Queen of the night aria, which is enough to kill a horse at fifty paces...






In other performances, it is semi-evil. It is quasi evil. It's the margarine of evil. The diet Coke of evil. Just one calorie - not evil enough.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

The ride to the abyss from the Damnation of Faust - that's pretty chilling in Solti's digital recording from the 80s. 
GG


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

The Dies Irae part in Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique fits in pretty well. In J. Haydn: Seven Last Words, Introduzione. Symphony No. 49, Adagio. 'Und Gott Schuf große Walfische' from The Creation also has something eerie about it. 
M. Haydn: beginning of the Requiem in C minor.


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## Wandering (Feb 27, 2012)

The second string quartet of Schnittke has a movement that always makes me think of lost souls in the agonising throws of hell's torment. All the strings inharmonious and frenzied try escaping what they seemingly cannot, guess they haven't given up hope yet.  If this quartet has an agitato movement, chances are this is the movement I'm talking about. Demonic imagery indeed! :devil:


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

The witches' scene in Verdi's Macbeth.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Itullian said:


> The witches' scene in Verdi's Macbeth.


Supposedly Beethoven did a bit of work on an opera of Macbeth, including sketches for the witches' scene. Those sketches were used as the basis for the slow movement of his "Ghost" piano trio Op. 70 #1. Again, supposedly.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Raff's Lenore symphony.


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

Mephistopheles's gruesome tango from Schnittke's Faust Cantata. This is like listening to Weill & Brecht while on a seriously bad trip.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

Most attempts at evil or scary music come across more as black comedy, e.g. Liszt's Totentanz or Berlioz's Fantastique or Saint-Saens' Danse Macabre.


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## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

Ligeti's Devil's Staircase


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## LancsMan (Oct 28, 2013)

brianvds - I agree the queen of the night aria isn't very evil - but you are for making me listen to Florence Foster Jenkin's rendition of it!


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

"Seeing it's Halloween - how much classical music is convingly evil?"

None of it. What's Halloween got to do with evil? Today's candy coated version stems from centuries of traditional observance and remembrance of the dead. All Hallows Eve, as it used to be called.


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## LancsMan (Oct 28, 2013)

Fair point starthrower. I was thinking about 'evil' music and happened to notice it was Halloween and stupidly linked the two!


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Everything I find, aside form the Ligeti above, actually comes across more grim than evil. There is a difference.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Weston said:


> Everything I find, aside form the Ligeti above, actually comes across more grim than evil. There is a difference.


I agree. Most of the Romantic-era examples cited were attempting to depict "the uncanny", the "supernatural", and so forth. Evil isn't necessarily dark on the surface. Look at propaganda art from various 20th century dictatorships. Evil can be quite outwardly, if superficially, attractive.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Dance of the the Sugar Plum Fairy


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

The OP said "Evil" or "Wicked" and I think that a number of the examples given fall into those categories. Whereas "Lulu" is completely unpleasant and sickening.
Danse Macabre often sounds feeble,but not when Stokowski does it. The Liszt/Horowitz piano version --demonic.
Witches Sabbath from Symphonie Fantastique. Same as above,listen to the bellowing ,slurring brass and squealing,shrieking wind.
Alkan. Les Diablotins--Capriccio Alla Soldatesca--Le Tambour Bat Aux Champs.
Liszt. Malediction For Piano and Strings--Csardas Macabre--Gnomenreigen--Bagatelle Without Tonality--Mephisto Waltzes--Mephisto Polka--Totentanz.
Ravel. Gaspard.
Tausig. The Ghostship Ballade.


I stress again that it all depends who is performing.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

The Dirge from Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horns & Strings is pretty chilling.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

starthrower said:


> "Seeing it's Halloween - how much classical music is convingly evil?"
> 
> None of it. What's Halloween got to do with evil? Today's candy coated version stems from centuries of traditional observance and remembrance of the dead. All Hallows Eve, as it used to be called.


I think Halloween is more an American thing, I'm not sure it's that big anywhere else.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

starry said:


> I think Halloween is more an American thing, I'm not sure it's that big anywhere else.


It's big in the UK now,my seven grandchildren are all deeply into it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

moody said:


> It's big in the UK now,my seven grandchildren are all deeply into it.


Sadly it is big in the UK. But why on earth do people want to celebrate evil?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

moody said:


> The OP said "Evil" or "Wicked" and I think that a number of the examples given fall into those categories. Whereas "Lulu" is completely unpleasant and sickening.


Really? I think the music is absolutely gorgeous in places. It's filled with lush chords and lyrical lines. Sure it has harsher parts too, but doesn't every opera?






Lulu as a character isn't really supposed to be "evil", just amoral (in the literal sense meaning apart from morality).


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Luigi Boccherini wrote a symphony "House of Devils" or something like that. Lovely Classical piece, of course.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. The music is creepy, but the poems themselves are very dark, downright wicked.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. The music is creepy, but the poems themselves are very dark, downright wicked.


Have you performed the flute part? It looks quite treacherous.

Another one for the unearthly-sounding category. Some might find it on the creepy side. I'm not sure the picture is anything like the way Messiaen thought of his paean to physical/Earthly love, though... (Possibly NSFW?)


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Have you performed the flute part? It looks quite treacherous.
> 
> Another one for the unearthly-sounding category. Some might find it on the creepy side. I'm not sure the picture is anything like the way Messiaen thought of his paean to physical/Earthly love, though... (Possibly NSFW?)


I might have a chance to in 2 week's time actually! A grad conductor lab session is happening soon with that piece, and they hire musicians to be the ensemble for the occasion. There's another flutist who rotates with me though, she might get that week instead of me. Depends on what works.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Yes... Elektra has moments of great "evil"... but I most certainly would not forget Salome... especially with Teresa Stratas:






Neither would I forget the finale from _Don Giovanni_...






This version with Kurt Moll and Sam Ramey is perhaps the best on video... but in my book the best finale on record is that of Joseph Krips.

And surely this come more than close:


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Sadly it is big in the UK. But why on earth do people want to celebrate evil?


It's more fun than good !


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Really? I think the music is absolutely gorgeous in places. It's filled with lush chords and lyrical lines. Sure it has harsher parts too, but doesn't every opera?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You are right about some of the music but it's the whole concept that I find totally unappetising.
"Lulu" is much longer than "Wozzeck" ...the story is still more squalid but lacks the unmistakeable human brand of its predecessor...in "Lulu" events at an extreme of horribleness and emotional heightening are presented casually. "LulU" is nothing if not oblique, overkill makes it ludicrous (gory, gory gory --Stravinsky)its very awfulness is historical and brings back with acute nostalgia what it felt like to listen to modern music in the 50s. Robin Holloway. "Opera On Record."
I think that sums it up very well.


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## Schubussy (Nov 2, 2012)




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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

moody said:


> the story is still more squalid but lacks the unmistakeable human brand of its predecessor...in "Lulu" events at an extreme of horribleness and emotional heightening are presented casually. "LulU" is nothing if not oblique, overkill makes it ludicrous (gory, gory gory --Stravinsky)its very awfulness is historical and brings back with acute nostalgia what it felt like to listen to modern music in the 50s. Robin Holloway. "Opera On Record."


True enough. It is a rather cynical piece, you're right about that, and in that sense quite anti-Romantic in its view of human nature. 'Tis the expressionist aesthetic, to show extremes of turpitude.


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## Forte (Jul 26, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Raff's Lenore symphony.


I assume that you are referring to the final movement?

This discussion reminds me that I was terrified of Don Giovanni when I was very small. Maybe it was the particular performance. Or not, who knows.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Shostakovich String Quartet 13. I don't know if "evil" is the exact word I'm looking for but this sounds pretty insane. First time hearing it.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

brianvds said:


> Bartok's Music for strings, percussion and celesta was used to spine-chilling effect in the film "The Shining." Not sure that is the kind if thing that Bartok ever had in mind for it!
> 
> And then there is Florence Foster Jenkins' performance of the Queen of the night aria, which is enough to kill a horse at fifty paces...
> 
> ...


My god she's awful, I couldn't listen without laughing


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

[I find this to be rather boring and musically shallow but nonetheless it fits the "evil" label.]


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

How about Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta?

Some of that is downright scary! Warning: Keep the lights on and hide the kids when listening.


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

The first movement of Mendelssohn's 2nd piano trio sounds quite evil


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