Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner classical pieces that sound evil/satanic

i've been wondering, what are some cool satanic/evil sounding classical piano pieces?
to get a little more specific, satanic/evil from my guitar playing is things based around tritones/dimished progressions and dominant phrygian.
but, if you have somethign in mind that you think is evil and isnt based around tritones nor domiant phrygian, i'm still interested.

i posted this in the non classical forum, i figure that there are more evil sounding classical compositions.

I guess you could class Stravinskys Rite of Spring as falling right into this category. It's not so much evil as savage though. Just like humans.

Britten's War Requiem is similar, very uncomfortable listening, but strangely beautiful as well.

How about Dance Macabre by Saint Saens? (I don't know how it will sound on a guitar, though.)
A Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky also comes to mind.

ill suggest the rude poem by villa-lobos. it is extremely harsh. very atonal.

Prokofiev's Diabolical Suggestions: it has tritones and diminished 9ths, even the title sounds evil. Though I wouldn't call it 'satanic.'

that prokofiev piece is also known as his "satanic apparations"

Rachmaninoff- Prelude in C# Minor comes to mind... all my friends think that is the most badass song ever.

Hahaha I like that, about the Rachmaninoff.
Some other ideas:
Liszt Don Juan Fantasy
Beethoven "Moonlight" sonata mvmt. 3
Ravel Scarbo

There is a Lizst transcription of the Saint-Saens mentioned above, although I think it's extremely hard.
The Prokofiev (op. 4 no. 4) and Rachmaninoff (op. 3 no. 2) are great suggestions.

edit: Also, check out The Hut on Hen's Legs from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.

Countless Scriabin Pieces:
Scriabin - Poem Op. 69 No. 2
Scriabin - Vers la Flamme
Scriabin - Tradgic Poem
Scriabin - any of the Op. 74 Preludes especially no. 4

Not piano but:
Shostakovich - String quartet no. 8 Mov. 2 Woooo!
(This piece scared me the first time I heard it).

For me alot of pieces seem to be very insane, bipolar, evil, devilish. Those include: Appasionata First and 3rd movement, Rach preludes (C#minor, Bflat Minor, C Major, C minor) Tchaikovsky...Im not sure of the name, at my teachers recital long ago it was called 'Puss in boots' its a very freaky melody which gives me goosebumps from the Disney movie Sleeping Beauty when she is walking up to P-rick her finger in the green light...such an amazing work....what else....OH YES, Chopins' B Flat Minor Sonata. Scriabin...lots of works man!

What about the Liszt Faust Waltz (can't remember the proper title). that even has a 'demonic' trill in it, although that might be due to the difficulty rather than the tonality.

John, I think you mean Liszt, Mephisto Waltz No 1

I was wondering when someone would bring up Liszt. He's the most demonic of all. I think you may be talking about his "Mephisto Waltz". The Faust waltz is his transcription from Gounod's ballet but I've never really found it that satanic.

A good CD of Liszt's more fiendish works:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000023D2/103-3838424-2312642?v=glance&n=5174

Don
Kansas City

There is also Liszt's Dante Sonata.

Man, I love Saint-Saens', "Danse Macabre," and Liszt's recording of it later... A friend of mine is a harpsichordist, and I asked him what this would sound like on a harpsichord. He chuckled and said it would sound like two skeletons doing the horizontal mambo on a tin roof.

Yes... Rach falls easily falls in that category.

But one that comes to mind might be... I don't know... possibly the second section of the Raindrop Prelude. That's actually more... suspenseful than anything. Not too demonic or evil. Slightly evil, but there's more "evil" classical pieces out there than the Raindrop Prelude.

I don't think Rachmaninoff fits in the evil/satanic group. Rachmaninoff wrote realatively dark music, but it's more beautiful than evil.

I agree, his music often has a cold feel to it, it's often very angsty, but I don't think it ever portrays evil.

That's the chap. I once saw Steven Hough play this - I was sitting about 2m away from him in someone's house. I was completely blown away, and it really inspired me to continue learning the piano. Still can't play it though.

ive never heard it before, but scriabins "satanic poem" might fall into the group