Scary music

[BBMmk2]

Many Pettersson symphonies, especially #9.

Must be pretty good then!

[Sir Velo]

Looks like this one from Sony might be right up your street LMcD.
Some utterly bizarre choices - Mozart anyone? - but , at age 5, the Grieg did have me scurrying to a place of safety behind the sofa.

[Sir Velo]

I tend to subscribe to ferney's viewpoint, but if there is one piece that might just have me cacking myself, to use the vernacular, this would be it.

[vinteuil]

Some utterly bizarre choices - Mozart anyone?

... I think Mozart was identified as someone scary to perform. Isn't our pastoralguy a string player?

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[cloughie]

The end of the Pilgrim's March from Harold in Italy is quite eerie. The oo oo bit at the beginning of the Stones 'Sympathy for the Devil' is quite supernatural.

[silvestrione]

the 'Dirge' from Britten's Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. The combination of the text and the scoring for the strings creates a genuinely terrifying experience, especially as sung by Robert Tear.

You mention the strings, but the really frightening bit for me is when the horn comes in with its whooping.

Years ago I played this very recording (Tear) to a class of 13-14 year-olds, after we'd been looking at the poem, and I asked them what they thought, and one girl said, of the last part when the horn comes in, 'it was really scary!'

[LMcD]

You mention the strings, but the really frightening bit for me is when the horn comes in with its whooping.

Years ago I played this very recording (Tear) to a class of 13-14 year-olds, after we'd been looking at the poem, and I asked them what they thought, and one girl said, of the last part when the horn comes in, 'it was really scary!'

You're right - that horn entry is quite something....

[Serial_Apologist]

You're right - that horn entry is quite something....

I'm dying to hear it...

[pastoralguy]

... I think Mozart was identified as someone scary to perform. Isn't our pastoralguy a string player?

.

Actually, it just occurred to me re. Mozart. I played in the stage band for Don Giovanni and was only involved in a small part of the production. On the last night, I stayed in the audience for the final act. I knew nothing about the opera and, when the Commandetori came to life and intoned DON GIOVANNI , I nearly disgraced myself!

Now THAT is truly scary for the uninitiated!

[MickyD]

I always get frissons hearing Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead...it manages to sound so menacing but with moments of such beauty as well.

[Lat-Literal]

That's reminded me of Tristram Cary's setting for chamber ensemble and pre-recorded tape of Mervyn Peake's The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb - unavailable in any recording, it remains in all senses, not just literal, shattering in impact, at any rate on this listener, lucky as I am to have rescued a 1967 reel-to-reel of a Radio 3 documentary on the composer with Alan Rawsthorne interviewing him! Cary was around the BBC at the time of Delia Derbyshire. and had done the synth setting of Ron Grainer's Dr Who theme with its remarkable anticipation of the early 70s Krautrock soundworld, for which I think Cary arguably deserves greater renown than as the versatile composer of the score of The Ladykillers, some eight years earlier. Cary was another pioneer of musique concrète in this country; various sources from the increasingly dim and distant past suggest he composed enough varied material in various cross-genres as we call them to make him the subject for renewed interest and maybe another composer portrait?

Interesting - thank you.

[arancie33]

There was a time a while back when R3 seemed to play Dvorak’s “Noonday Witch” frequently and insisted on retelling the legend before playing the music. I could not listen to it. In a similar vein, I CAN listen to Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder” but only if I kid myself I cannot understand the words. Very difficult. I think both ‘problems’ are to do with being a father of four and grandfather of eight.

[pastoralguy]

There was a time a while back when R3 seemed to play Dvorak’s “Noonday Witch” frequently and insisted on retelling the legend before playing the music. I could not listen to it. In a similar vein, I CAN listen to Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder” but only if I kid myself I cannot understand the words. Very difficult. I think both ‘problems’ are to do with being a father of four and grandfather of eight.

Oddly enough, I was listening to the new(ish) recording of Alice Coote singing Mahler Song Cycles yesterday afternoon. Mrs. PG was out shopping with her oldest school friend and Ms. Coote was in full flow when they returned. Mrs. PG's friend was appalled that anyone could write music on such a sensitive topic. However, she was so overcome with the music that I sent her home with the cd.