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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!).
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.
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.
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.
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