Haloween is coming and my playing is spookier than a jackolantern

Favorite Scary Piece: Toccata and Fugue in D min ( you know, the famous overplayed piece)

Other people in my neighborhood dress their doorway with cobwebs and jack-o-lanterns.

I hide small outdoor speakers and play Ligeti's Requiem and Xenakis's Pithoprakta. Okay, so it's not piano music, but it scares the dickens out of the smaller trick-or-treaters, a few of whom wouldn't approach my door despite assurances from their parents.

Edward MacDowell's "A Haunted House" from Op.61 "Fireside Tales"

http://www.angelfire.com/ks/landzastanza/em615.mid

Im scared of how difficult the Tchaikovsky concerto is.

More chilling music has flowed from the pen of this woman than just about any composer I know!

(whippen boy) - If Rosemary Brown is to be believed, these composers were composing and decomposing simultaneously

Baba Yaga´s hut from Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky comes to mind.

hungarian rhapsody No. 17

Frank -

I like the Adagio molto appassionato movement from the first Ginastera Sonata. The Presto misterioso movement is also pretty creepy.

William Bolcom's Graceful Ghost Rag is very cute - not scary at all. But I always play it for Halloween.

Funerailles
(Liszt)

Sonata in a minor opus 143? Movement 1
(Schubert)

What about ligeti's autumn in warsaw etude (1/6) Very lamenting and scary.

The Ligeti requiem and Xenakis were mentioned. What about Penderecki's Threnody.

Crumb always scared my girlfriend.

Im thinking of an Alkan piece... the Morte of the Souveniers (spelling is horrible). He actually uses the latin chant of the dead or something. Scary!

The presto movement from Chopin´s sonata No 2

To Rubinstein it was night winds sweeping over churchyard graves. To Alfred Cortot, a mysterious whirlwind, fanned by the icy blast of death.

Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste...

Alkan's op. 31 no. 8. Have a listen. Chanson de la folle au bord de la mer

Alkan's sheetmusic can be found here Alkan society

penderecki's threnody. the prokofiev 2nd concerto. scarbo from gaspard by ravel. allegro barbaro by bartok. dukas' the sorcerers apprentice(especially the 5 browns version). scriabin's etude in d sharp minor. prokofiev diabolic sugestions and the toccata. villa-lobos' music. mars from the planets. yeah and theres tons more. enjoy

To my ears, most contemporary classical music scare me. I once listened to an atonal modern piece for 5 sopranos. I lost my footing. It felt like the ground was opening and that I was falling into the abyss with nothing to cling on to. A truly scary experience.

Sounds like my choir on Sunday morning! :rolleyes:

The third movement of Rachmaninoffs The Bells, penderecki's threnody for the victims of hiroshima ad two of my favourites.

Moussorgsky's Night on bare mountain and Prokofiev's diabolical suggestion and I agree, almost all atonal music sounds scary to those who aren't familiar with it

Hey, Whippen Boy, do you lead a church choir ?
You are really a brave person , I guess your choir is like us :
We are doing our very best, but sometimes it is just very far from good enough

Maybe not scary but frightening: Confutatis maledictis from Mozarts Requiem.

Ragnhild

I don't lead the choir, just accompany.

When pianistical mentioned the 5 atonal sopranos causing him to fall into an abyss, I couldn't resist comparing it to my choir!

Actually, my choir is rather large and are usually quite good. Like any church choir, we do have our moments of 'scary atonality'.

bruce-san, that Penderecki Threnody is a very good suggestion. Another Rachmaninoff piece to consider is the Isle of the Dead.

Ah of course, I forgot about the Isle of the Dead. Mostly the middle section climaxes that are scary. The rest of it is just hauntingly sombre.
A lot of late scrabin is also quite scary.

That Ligeti scares the dickens out of me too...

Dies Irae from Verdi's Requiem. Not piano music but it has a very dark-doomed tune.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDFFHaz9GsY&feature=related

The scariest pieces to me:

Scriabin's 9th sonata

Scriabin Prelude opus 67 no. 1

... ... ...

and my no. 1 choice

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Klavierstucke "Luzifers Traum"

it is PURE EVIL!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uylxuexFOPY

That Stockhausen is pure evil...that guy must have had too much spicy food right before bedtime.

I'm scared of two-year-old threads that come back to life ... three weeks after Halloween!

Steven

I agree. BTW, Steven, you've got a PM from me.

LOL...

Prokofiev's Suggestion! (I don't find it that diabolic sounding actually, that's why composers shouldn't name pieces...) His Op. 2/3 Etude is pretty diabolic sounding though.