by Joanna Wulfsberg
Ask the average man (or woman) on the street to describe classical music, and you will probably hear that it’s soothing and peaceful. As any listener knows, however, classical music can be not only calming but also invigorating or even terrifying. Since Halloween is coming up, we’re going to look at some of the spookiest classical music out there.
Compared to such Christian holidays as Christmas or Easter, very little classical music was actually written with Halloween in mind. Part of the reason is that the holiday (which originated as the pagan feast Samhain) was celebrated primarily in Ireland and Scotland until the nineteenth century. Then it spread to other English-speaking countries, reaching mainland Europe only in the late twentieth century. Since almost all of the classical composers we know best today came from continental Europe and lived before the twentieth century, there is little Halloween music as such in the classical repertoire.
What we do have are some disturbing pieces of music associated with death, demons, ghosts, and the like. Probably the oldest piece of scary music around is the Dies Irae chant, part of the Catholic mass for the dead. Not only is the Dies Irae frightening on its own, but many composers who wanted to evoke terror also used it as part of other works. Prime examples are the hair-raising fifth movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (which depicts a witches’ Sabbath), Saint-Saens’s Danse macabre, and Liszt’s Totentanz (Dance of the Dead).
Other classical works with the power to terrify include the many musical versions of the Faust legend. This timeless tale, which revolves around the age-old idea of selling one’s soul to the devil, was popularized by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and set by several composers, including Berlioz (La damnation de Faust, 1846), Gounod (Faust, 1859), and Arrigo Boito (Mefistofele, 1868). It’s not a coincidence that these works all come from the nineteenth century, as Romantic composers and artists were obsessed with death and the supernatural. Perhaps the most frightening setting of the story, however, comes from the twentieth century: Alfred Schnittke’s Faust Cantata “Seid nüchtern und wachet” will petrify any listener.
Two other popular operatic subjects, the Orpheus myth and the story of Don Juan, also offer some Halloween-appropriate moments. Orpheus has to descend to the underworld to rescue his beloved Eurydice, and Don Juan gets dragged off to hell when he refuses to repent of his womanizing ways. As far as spine-tingling music goes, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice stands out on account of the opening of Act II and the Dance of the Furies (cannibalized by Gluck from his balletic version of the Don Juan story). And one of opera’s most frightening scenes occurs at the end of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Make sure to pick up a recording with a baritone who isn’t afraid to scream! (I recommend Thomas Allen in the 1984 EMI recording conducted by Bernard Haitink.)
Of course, there are other scary classical works unconnected to any of these stories. The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, long attributed to Bach, is a perennial haunted-house favorite. Other contenders include the Wolf’s Glen scene from Weber’s opera Der Freischütz and “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. In the realm of song, Schubert’s “Der Erlkönig” (The Erlking) and “Tod und das Mädchen” (Death and the Maiden) are unmatched for their fright potential.
Thanks to B-grade horror flicks of the 1950s and 1960s, atonal and twelve-tone music has become synonymous with terror in the minds of many listeners. With such pieces as the one-act drama Erwartung and the song cycle Pierrot Lunaire, Schoenberg shows how the association came about. Not to be outdone, his pupil Berg wrote the supremely disturbing operas Wozzeck and Lulu. More recently, George Crumb’s quartet Black Angels would undoubtedly make a perfect horror-film soundtrack. (Listen for the reference to Schubert’s “Tod und das Mädchen.”) So turn off the lights, turn on the CD player, and give yourself a scare.
