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Berlioz "Symphonie Fantastique"

and. . .

"The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" for pipe organ.

:p

Scarbo, yes, is truly a haunting piece for the piano, both to hear and play. At the end, the FFF climax is truly a vision to behold...

But what about Le gibet? The repeated Bb notes, mimicking the toll of a bell as the corpse of a man hangs in the setting sun... I find that Le gibet is more frightening to hear than Scarbo. The quiet ppp sections with the strange chords that descend is very scary, and the middle section with the despairing melody... truly scary.

In 1970 I wrote a group of piano pieces after reading "Lord of the Rings". One in particular, "The Ascent of Mount Doom", sits at the bottom of the pile of my scores in a cupboard. I never play it; it has terrible associations for me and was conceived after a ghastly personal event. I played it privately for five people close to me and terrible misfortunes occurred to each of them. Silly rot I know, but if such coincidences happen a number of times the most hardened sceptics among us become uneasy. It's the only superstition I allow myself.

#6 was also the most frightening according to Scriabin himself, who refused to play it in public for this precise reason.

In one of his autobiographical books, Artur Rubinstein recounts a performance of Chopin's 2nd Sonata which revealed to one of the audience that he was dying. After that, Rubinstein never performed the piece in a private residence.

I found the recent reconstructed Chopin prélude, supposedly written when he was feverish, to be very evocative of that state.

Thanks, but I'm just trying to get a recording to permantly put in the collection. I took a look at the "Magic Circle of Infinity" and another from the second set and decided that reading the music is challenging enough.

I heard the 'Suite' at the last Cliburn, and it was indeed an interesting piece. Perhaps I will look at that one someday. It appears to be a good piece to learn the art of "plucking."

(non-piano)
Cesar Franck: Le Chasseur Maudit

OOPS! I meant the 7th Sonata, that's the one with the rolled chord.

My bad. I must be going senile.

Lots of scary ones:

The Erl King. A father rides hard with his sick son through a storm. The "Erl King" voice is in the wind calling to the boy to come to him (die). The boy pleads with his father to save him. At the end the boy dies. I did a sequenced arrangement of this once. It freaked out my kids.

Much of Pictures at an Exhibition.

The Oxcart (visions of cattle straining at the yoke and being whipped to pull harder)
The Gnome
The Old Castle
The Catacombs
and With the Dead in the Tongue of the Dead (the title alone is pretty creepy)

Fingles Cave Overture

"Mars, the bringer of war " from "The Planets" is scary from a "Thousands of soldiers are coming to kill you" point of view.

Finally, for something REALLY scary: "Kenny G plays Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits"

:p

Carmina Burana by Carl Orff has some chilling and beautiful moments in it, it is a great adventure in sound. Gregorian chant also has some interesting sounds that can be quite scary when you listen to it late at night! Sometimes I go to sleep listening to Chopin's nocturnes (Claudio Arrau) and some of the hauntingly beautiful melodies creep into my unconscience to the point that I often stay with that piece in my head all day!

If I may ask a basic question, why are the pieces you're mentioning scary? How do they scare you? Do they scare everyone? I am guesiign they do since human nature is common, and chords or notes have the same psychological effect (joy, sadness) on people. Or is it the unexpected nature of the progression of the piece that is so terrifying? If not, then what is it?

I was thinking to myself and seem to have found a clue to my question of why some pieces scare us. I think it the nature of the chords or nootes combined with an unsettling tempo, like the ones they use in horror movies. If you would like to add, go ahead.

Beethove's Appassionata scares me. It bursts into suddern loadness at several unexpected (to a new listener especially) moments.

I find the chord changes e.g. D minor - Bb minor - F# minor, essentially a change of minor harmony four semitones apart, have a very haunting effect on me. Put it this way, if I were to write the equivalent of a ghost story in piano music I would use these changes. These chords also lie on the notes of the bare augmented harmony, which I also find sometimes (though not always) chilling. What a splendidly ominous effect it has in Liszt's Funeral Gondolas.

Prokofiev Piano Concerto #2 -- The end of the first movement, when the orchestra finally returns and pretty much murders the pianist.

Pepper..
Yes! I so much agree! Every time I hear that part I get massive goosebumps. That part is so awesome.

Rachmaninoff's Etude No. 6, op. 39. If you know it is a little red riding hood and the wolf, you can hear er terror, her heart fluttering in the piece. It really is quite frightening, if you think of it from her perspective..

Also, "Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima".

This is honestly the most terrifying, Heart-pounding, frightening piece of music I have heard. My professor played it for class...by the end half of the class were crying out of fear, one girl had to leave the room, and I thought i was honestly going to have a panic attack. It is the most intense music I have ever heard...ecspecially one part, when the violins make it sound like someone shouting "NO! NO!" and it sounds like planes overhead, and sirens,and people shreiking, and your ears are ringing, and things falling...oh god, i cant even begin to describe it.

I think that the first movement of Rachmaninoff's Second (Concerto) is pretty haunting, especially the last few minutes, where the music is wandering in a way. Haunting but gorgeous! I'd expect that kind of thing, since it was a piece composed after he was lifted from his depression.

Allegri's Miserere. Sung by a chamber choir in candlelight in a 13th century chapel in perfect* harmony. Followed by Faure's requiem with an ancient organ and the strings in the antechapel.


*i.e. not tempered

Lets see...some organ works,
1.Bach's "Fantasia in c minor BWV 562"

2. Bach's Prelude and fugue in f minor BWV 534

3. Arr. Reinhart "I want Jesus to walk with me".

I play "I want Jesus to Walk with Me" and it still gives me the chills when the trumpets on the organ bellow out the melody in sanctuary.

As for piano I have to say Ravel's Le Gibet and rachmaninoff's prelude in c sharp minor and prelude in g sharp minor.