Pink Floyd, Sysyphus (parts I thru IV) from Ummagumma.
YouTube link (typical annoying ad of the Skip in 3 secs variety)
ETA: I know you’re thinking orchestral / classical. And probably thinking Pink Floyd isn’t. You’d be wrong about that. Give it a listen.
Altered State by Mike Oldfield, from Tubular Bells II. I didn’t listen to the YouTube video since I’m at work, but know it well. It has two female voices, one a child, saying nonsense, a male voice shouting incoherently, and is reasonably disordered. It also has a nice guitar solo.
Anything by Midnight Syndicate
Their stuff is used in a lot of haunted attractions including some in asylums.
WB’s Merrie Melodies use “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down”.
In’ Daffy’s first appearance, he sings this - in an even more extreme rendition than was used for the intro of later MM’s.
No, I’m too lazy to find it.
Mike Patton has done a BUNCH of this.
Adult Themes for Voice (probably the most appropriate for your description)
Pranzo Oltranzista (largely just wild noises)
Solitude of Prime Numbers (more musical, still scary)
Patton/Kaada - Romances (very musical, also spooky)
Fantomas - Suspended Animation (metal with much of the same mania as the above)
Mr Bungle - just really fun music. more structured songs than most of the above. Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz
Zorn/Patton/Mori - Hemophiliac
Honorable mention for Aphex Twin cuz it sometimes makes me feel crazy. But probably not what you’re after.
Bernard Herrmann’s string orchestra music for Hitchcock’s Psycho.
I happen to be listening to some Anton Webern at the moment. Things like Six Pieces for Orchestra op. 6 and Symphony op. 21 could be heard as expressions of a disjointed mind. Lots of thunks and twitters.
Probably too obvious bit Hans Zimmer’s Joker Theme is good.
With the extension to non-English vocals, some parts of this sounds pretty disturbed. Another segment. Orff’s De Temporum Fine Comedia. Or at least I can see how you could be driven a bit insane from hearing that continuously.
Night of the Electric Insects, from the thoroughly insane Kronos Quartet Album Black Angels. If you want vocals, how about Doom. A Sigh, Hungarian peasant women lamenting the dead, from the same album.
Two tracks on Rick Wakeman’s Criminal Record qualify. “Chamber of Horrors” starts out rational enough, but becomes progressively more insane. “Judas Iscariot” sounds like the work of a p;sychotic organist. I was planning at one point to use it for my own music dub for the silent Phantom of the Opera, because it’s so perfect.
Chamber of Horrors:
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AgMLWWDZqp0NZ6Qap8ZLSC6bvZx4?p=Rick+Wakeman+Criminal+Record&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-317&fp=1
Judas Iscariot:
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AgMLWWDZqp0NZ6Qap8ZLSC6bvZx4?p=Rick+Wakeman+Criminal+Record&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-317&fp=1
Great suggestions.
Yes the Penderecki was what I was thinking of. (got it in 1 SD!)
DooWha, Don’t worry, I can use snippets under ‘fair use’. Even if it was written before '24 the recording would (probably) be later then that so still copyrighted.
Which reminds me that when Johnny Carson had an expert on bugs (the insect kind) on as a guest, that is what the band played as an introduction.
Parts of 21st Century Schizoid Man might do, but again it might be too well known.
True.
Aventures is more crazy than creepy (although it’s a bit creepy as well). But quite fun actually once the initial surprise wears off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVkMydVPTUw. As the title suggests Nouvelles Aventures is in a similar vein. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhLV68whca0. The last time I listened to these pieces, my youngest daughter opened the door, stood motionless for a couple of seconds then ran away shouting: “Mummy! Dad’s listening to music that goes: WhAAAAAaa uh-uh-uh KKKkkkkKK!”.
By the way Ligeti also wrote a cello concerto in two movements. The first is static and hypnotic, the second is… like an overpacked suitcase i.e. a mess but a fun, compelling one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6JTX-jiY1A
How about a piece that is literally meant to invoke a deteriorating mental condition? John Adams’s Gnarly Buttons, last movement, “Put Your Loving Arms Around Me,” written as a reaction to the death of his father to Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a very gentle and thoughtful piece on the whole, but does express the mental deterioration in a very interesting way.
And there’s John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, written in the 1980s in response to the rise of AIDS. The second movement, “Tarentella,” was written about a friend of Corigliano’s decent into AIDS-related dementia. Unlike the gentle Adams, this movement is pretty ferocious.
VERY IMPORTANT: Whatever you chose, do get permission from the copyright owner to use the music. Do not be like those immoral leaches on YouTube and elsewhere and try to make money on the back of someone else’s creativity without that person being properly compensated for said use.
Lots of good suggestions here (especially Ligeti and Penderecki) but you might want to check out Arcana by Edgard Varèse, an orchestral work that is over-the-top nuts.
I’m pretty far from a connoisseur of orchestral music but is there something by Charles Ives that fits?
How about Secret Chiefs 3?
I’ve long felt that Danny Elfman’s music is what David Byrne would have written if he’d been forced to spend his childhood in a closet. Secret Chiefs 3 is what Danny Elfman would write had he been forced to spend his childhood in a closet.