"Angry" Classical Music?

[Sqube]

I don't know much about classical music, but I know a song can make you feel differently based on instruments used, etc etc etc. So I was just wondering: could somebody give some examples of classical music that would make you feel angry?

[Johanna]

Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) caused a riot in the audience at its premiere performance in 1913.

[RedDawgEsq]

I could be wrong but I believe the emotion engendered by "The Rite of Spring" was not so much anger as it was astonishment at its blatant evocation of visceral and sexual instincts.

[Satisfying Andy Licious]

"Mars, God of War" from Holtz' "The Planets" has a kind of angry feel to it, but I don't know if it would necessarily make a listener feel angry.

[jovan]

A lot of avant-garde, or semi-avant-garde music from the first half of the twentieth century has strong "angry" colours. I would say more "violent" than "angry" per se, though.

Other than Rite of Spring, there is also Stravinsky's Firebird, but like I said, that's more violent than angry. Edgar Varese also wrote fairly violent music, such as Amériques.

You might also say that there is some anger in Beethoven's Appasionata sonata, though there's a whole bunch of other emotions in there as well.

[captainQwark]

the opening of Mozart's 39th symphony has been called angry, but I don't think Mozart had that in mind. The first movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony, which just about everyone has heard, is thought to be full of rage.

[Kamino Neko]

The right arrangement of Greig's In The Hall of The Mountain King can have the desired effect, I think.

[squeegee]

Do you mean 'angry' in the sense of "impassioned, revved up", e.g. Queen's "we will, we will rock you!" -- a piece that makes you feel stirred/energized -- "yo! Fuckin' A!" ?

Or a piece that literally pisses you off?

If the former, there's quite a few. For example, try Bach's Toccatta and Fugue in Dm, preferably on the largest pipe organ in the universe, stereo cranked to 11. Remove small animals and breakables beforehand, please.

If the latter, I'm at a loss. The only classical pieces that pissed me off were because I hated them so badly I threw the CD on the floor and stomped on it vigorously.

[klockwerk]

Orff's Carmina Burana has some 'angry' moments. I'll guarentee that you've heard the introduction "O Fortuna" somewhere before.

It's hard to tell what your talking about when you say 'angry' music, but if I'm thinking what I think your thinking, then here's some other titles:

Holst - Mars: The Bringer of War
Berlioz - Symphony Fantastique, Mvt. 5: Songe d'une Nuit de Sabbat
Mozart's Requiem (arious parts)
Berlioz' Requiem (arious parts
Wagner - Ride of the Valkyries

Many of Beethoven's Symphonies were quite 'angry' and powerful in nature. Check out the stuff listed above and tell me if that's what you're looking for.

[klockwerk]

That's "various parts" inside those brackets. Don't ask my why they didn't show up in my OP.

[TheFunkySpaceCowboy]

O Fortuna from Carl Orff's Carmena Barana is a pretty angry piece, read the translation to the Latin poem it's based on, the author is angrilly cursing Fate and her mistreatment of him. Prokokiev's Montagues and Capulets from his ballet of Romeo and Juliet certianlly has an angry and confrontational feel to it.

I would also suggest Arnold Shoenburg's string quartets, particularly the 3rd and 4th if you're looking for a powerfully emotional sound. Not quite an angry sound, more of a disjointed, schizoid feeling, but quite violent sounding at times. Good stuff. He also has a piece, the name of which escapes me, which is part symphonic, part spoken word that describes an attempted Jewish escape from the Gestapo in a Polsih ghetto. It has all of the anger and fear you would expect, given the subject.

[DrMatrix]

Off to Cafe Society.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator

[Johanna]

Try Allegro Barbaro by Béla Bartók. The loudest, most furious, violent, headbanging piano piece ever composed. I used to wail this on the piano a lot; very effective for releasing your frustrations and blind rage.

[jackelope]

I'll second TheFunkySpaceCowboy on the Schoenberg quartets; it's fabulous, angry stuff, and the first thing that leapt to mind when I saw the thread title.

Also, there's a classical guitar piece called "Capricho Arabe" by Tarrega that's got some serious boiling going on if played correctly--look for Christopher Parkening's recording if possible; it's on his album In the Spanish Style.

[Tusculan]

Perhaps the beginning of Mahler's 6th Symphony. It vaguely reminds me of Holst's Mars, which was already mentioned.

And what about Beethoven: Rondo a capriccio "die Wut uber den verlorenen Grosschen" Op.129 = "Rage over a lost penny"?

[Gyrate]

Originally posted by squeegee
Do you mean 'angry' in the sense of "impassioned, revved up", e.g. Queen's "we will, we will rock you!" -- a piece that makes you feel stirred/energized -- "yo! Fuckin' A!" ?

Or a piece that literally pisses you off?

If the former, there's quite a few. For example, try Bach's Toccatta and Fugue in Dm, preferably on the largest pipe organ in the universe, stereo cranked to 11. Remove small animals and breakables beforehand, please.

If the latter, I'm at a loss. The only classical pieces that pissed me off were because I hated them so badly I threw the CD on the floor and stomped on it vigorously.

I agree. There are heaps of works that fit into the former category; some well-known, some not. I personally recommend:
- "Battle on the Ice" from Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky
- various bits of Franz Schmidt's Das Buch mit Sieben Siegeln ("The Book of Seven Seals") -- some good raping and pillaging music there.
- "Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem

And I'm with squeegee on the latter category too: there have been classical works which have made me angry because they were generally awful, because they had clear potential to be much better and weren't, or because the works themselves were good and the performance was shit. None of which have anything to do with any inherent affect of the work.

[E-Sabbath]

Might I suggest http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...729900-1314342

Heavy Classix. Fun, until I realized I was driving a german car while Ride of the Valkyries played. I started looking for a used cop car nearby after that, and was very careful about the bridges and overpasses I drove on.

[karomon]

Well, Chopin's "Revolutionary Etude" makes me feel indignant.

[klockwerk]

Originally posted by jr8
"Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem

Oh, just about any piece out there which uses the famous chant (or the melody) of Dies Irae tends to be either end up being really spooky or really... angry. As I mentioned before, Berlioz' Symphony Fantastique uses this in it's 5th Movement. There's Verdi's arrangement of it, Mozart's Requiem Mass uses it (I think any Mass out there uses it?), Michael Daugherty uses it in his Metropolis Symphony (somewhere, I'm not sure because I haven't heard the piece for ages) and it comes up all the time in the background of many a musical work. I'm sure a quick Google could give some hints as to what Dies Irae is, and where and how many times it has been used.

[Exoskeleton]

Krzyzstof Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima .

Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet #8 .

[Labor]

I am a bit suprised that there have not been more mentions of Shostakovich.

The 4th movement of the 5th Symphony starts off with a very angry feeling. It is overcome at the end by triumph (whether his or the commies in charge is to be debated). The first movement also has some incredibly angry moments. Listen for the low trumpets belting out their first notes.

Ride of the Valkuries is not angry, those women are rejoicing over the great honor of transporting the bodies of slain heros. You think it is violent because of Apocolypse Now. Those ladies are having a wail of a time and singing about it.

Now, to get back to Wagner, Siefried's Funeral Music is a bit angry at times but it is overcome by triumph at the end.

Mahler's 5th Symphony has some angry moments in the second movement.

Karel Husa's Prague 1968 is quite angry, especially moving form the 3rd to the 4th movement.

I will say that I am a bit stumped by trying to come up with music expressing anger. Most of what i come up with ends with triumph, as you will notice above.

One that does come to mind is the John Cage Aria. This piece goes through every emotion I can imagine. Joy, pleasure, discomfort, anger, but the moments are so fleeting...

[RedDawgEsq]

Had you not said "classical" I would have said any piece of hip-hop/rap makes me angry, NOT because it doesn't require talent to perform. It certainly does, and it's not something I could do, but because somebody classified it as "music" in the first place. Go ahead, take your best shot, my mind is made up.

[hajario]

You need to watch Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

Haj

[5-HT]

A third vote for Beethoven. Can't go wrong with Ludwig Ludwig Ludwig Van*







*as Hajaro said, see A Clockwork Orange

[Moe]

OK, I must be missing it, so I'll just re-skim the thread for a mention of Mussorsky's Night on Bald Mountain really quickly.

Nope, didn't see it. Put that on top of your list.

Oh, just about any piece out there which uses the famous chant (or the melody) of Dies Irae tends to be either end up being really spooky or really... angry.

Agreed. I just recently heard a piece by (I believe) Liszt which uses it as its primary theme with very powerfully aggressive results. I absolutely love the 5th mov't of the Fantastic Symphony.

BTW re:The Rite of Spring, I think the riot was more about the fact that it was so unusual, both the music and choreography, that people had the paranoid feeling that they were being had. They didn't see it as art, but pretention. (They were of course, quite wrong). If you've ever seen the re-creation of the original ballet done in the 80's, you might be able to understand why. Whereas previously, dancers in a ballet most commonly were in these beautifully elegant poses on their toes or leaping around gracefully, in The ROS they are typically anything but graceful. Instead, there they typically hunch over attempting to look like what was at that time perceived to be primitive, almost vaguely like animals.

And as to the OP, I definitely recommend it, and almost anything else Stravinsky.

One of my favorite really aggressive, contemporary, but still accessible pieces is Fearful Symmetries by John Adams.

[Sqube]

Thanks for all the responses... I would have thought to put this in Cafe Society if I frequented this place more often. I don't think my musical muscles are developed enough for it though.

As far as what I meant by angry:
I meant more of that brooding, angry, misunderstood, teen-angst without being irritatingly puerile type of feeling. That dark near-vengeance feeling that you get when your entire village has been killed and you've been spending your entire life training so that you can get revenge on whoever did it. And when you DO get revenge, you leave an unimaginable swath of destruction in your wake, and walk off into the sunset. Not because it's the romantic thing to do, but simply because your mission has been fulfilled, leaving you with a gaping emptiness in your soul that you never imagined would have been there once you completed your mission; now that you have, you realize you have nothing left but the rest of your life to deal with.

I'd like to get that type of feeling when I listen to these songs. Thank you.

[5-HT]

Originally posted by Sqube
Thanks for all the responses... I would have thought to put this in Cafe Society if I frequented this place more often. I don't think my musical muscles are developed enough for it though.

As far as what I meant by angry:
I meant more of that brooding, angry, misunderstood, teen-angst without being irritatingly puerile type of feeling. That dark near-vengeance feeling that you get when your entire village has been killed and you've been spending your entire life training so that you can get revenge on whoever did it. And when you DO get revenge, you leave an unimaginable swath of destruction in your wake, and walk off into the sunset. Not because it's the romantic thing to do, but simply because your mission has been fulfilled, leaving you with a gaping emptiness in your soul that you never imagined would have been there once you completed your mission; now that you have, you realize you have nothing left but the rest of your life to deal with.

I'd like to get that type of feeling when I listen to these songs. Thank you.

that just makes me suggest Beethoven's 9th Symphony even more.

[Wolfian]

Who did the "Unfinished Symphony?" That has some anger and angst to it. Schumann? No, Schubert? I think it was Schubert.

"Dance of the New World." I'm not sure if it has been recorded and put on a record or anything, but we played it and symphonic band 4 years ago. It reminds me of a condensed Rite of Spring. Try googling it.

Mussorgsky's "Pictures at Exhibition" has a very broad range. "The Ox Cart" and "The Hut of Baga Yaga" should suit your purposes, but the entire thing is worth a listen.

[Moe]

Originally posted by Wolfian
Who did the "Unfinished Symphony?" That has some anger and angst to it. Schumann? No, Schubert? I think it was Schubert.

Yes, you are correct. (Though I'm sure he didn't call it that )
It was his 8th I believe, and it was featured in the movie Minority Report as well as a leitmotive for Gargamel on the adorable little Smurfs cartoon.

[squeegee]

And Tom and Jerry.

[AHunter3]

Of the "seriously intense" variety, as opposed to the "frustrating to listen to" sort:

The fourth movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade has a long intense buildup to the conclusion section, to the point that your blood pressure will skyrocket and you'll be clenching your teeth by the time the wave breaks.

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor is about as ominous and intense as piano music gets.

[Bryan Ekers]

Holst's Mars, Bringer of War is good for that slow pissed-off anger when you're plotting meticulous revenge and whatnot, but then decide to say "screw it" and just beat your enemy to death with a pick-axe.

[Gyrate]

I'll repeat the recommendation for Alexander Nevsky. The slow accelerando and ominous brass undertones in "The Battle on the Ice" always remind me of the battle scenes in Starship Troopers with the hordes of bugs charging forward -- guaranteed to get the adrenaline pumping, especially played at a suitably high volume.

[electric!sheep]

Originally posted by Exoskeleton
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet #8 .

Definitely. I'm surprised it took so long for someone to mention Shostakovich, because he's the essence of tense, anxious, or even angry classical music (if you can even call it classical!).

[jack@ss]

Tchiakovski's Marche Slav has some really intense, passionate moments in it that could be called angry.

[Israfel]

Vivaldi's Presto mvmt. of Winter from the Four Seasons

Mozart- 1st movement of his Piano Concerto No. 24, K491 in C minor

Corigliano - Concerto for Piano and Orchestra - his Symphony No. 1 can be pretty intense too.

Berg- Wozzeck - at times anyway. Schoenberg's Gurrelieder also has some angry parts.

Also- Purcell's Funeral March, in my opinion anyway.

There are alot of pieces with a sort of angry, intense sound, and what counts as "angry" is subjective, but those are just a few suggestions

[AHunter3]

In other other sense—classical music that is likely to simply make you tense and angry without expressing those emotions itself—Richard Strauss's Ein Heldenleben has that effect on me. The music of frustration.

[Sqube]

Thanks for all the responses everybody! Man, I'm glad that classical music wasn't just soothing and calming like I always thought. Consider my ignorance successfully fought.

[moodtobestewed]

Sqube, your description of a "swath of destruction" immeditately brought to mind the 4th movement of Mahler's 1st symphony ("The Titan"), which you can hear here.(the fourth track on CD#1).
It loses something of it's dynamic range being in a compressed file, but it's thunderous in person.

[Quasimodal]

Dies Irae from Verdi's Requiem

The end is nigh...

[The Bad Astronomer]

A lot of people have said Mars is angry, but I disagree. The piece is very martial sounding, and to me it is too disciplined to sound angry. The 5/4 time makes it even more military, for some reason.

However, I might cast my vote for Uranus in the same suite. It is perhaps more violent than angry, but the lask of the discipline in it is palpable to me. It's like a wizard run amok.

Infrenbal Dance in Firebird might count too, but again I hear violence more than anger. Hmmm... this is a tougher question than I supposed!

[klockwerk]

Originally posted by The Bad Astronomer
A lot of people have said Mars is angry, but I disagree. The piece is very martial sounding, and to me it is too disciplined to sound angry. The 5/4 time makes it even more military, for some reason.

However, I might cast my vote for Uranus in the same suite. It is perhaps more violent than angry, but the lask of the discipline in it is palpable to me. It's like a wizard run amok.

Infrenbal Dance in Firebird might count too, but again I hear violence more than anger. Hmmm... this is a tougher question than I supposed!

I always thought emotions of violence and war were somewhat accompanied or connected to anger. I must say I agree with you in saying that Uranus is another big firestarter concerning angry emotions (don't even start thinking about it in that way ). I'm quite ashamed to forgot mentioning "Night on Bald Mountain". Now that, my friends, is anger! If you've ever watched Fantasia, that should give you some big ideas.

[Gopher]

Someone already mentioned Shostakovich's String Quartet #8 but I just want to mention it again. It's dedicated to the victims of facism and war and the bitterness that Shostakovich really burns through. The quartet opens with slow brooding music that repeats the same basic line until BAM! some crazy clown bashes down the door and comes rushing at you with a knife. Or whatever other scary nightmare you have. That is some crazy angry stuff, especially after having played it.

[captainQwark]

how about Dvorak's ninth symphony?

[Quasimodal]

I always thought the Allegretto from Beethoven's 7th symphony was fairly angry