I perused the thread on Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and that inspired me to make up a playlist of “spooky” classical music, since it’s getting on Halloween and all…
Trouble is, I have no idea what I should get… any suggestions?
Glenoled
A night on Bald Mountain, Modest Mussorgsky
[yes, I’m a Fantasia fan]
This isn’t really a general question, so I’ll move the thread. Probably Cafe Society is the best place.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Penderecki De Natura Sonoris 2*
Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King”.
Do movie soundtracks count? 'Cause I was thinking of some of Danny Elfman’s work, specifically his work from Beetlejuice.
I also think Mozart’s Requiem K (Requiem Mass) is pretty spooky.
Danse macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns
or Carmina Burana by Carl Orff – it was used in The Omen
or Die Valkerie by Richard Wagner (or pretty much anything from his Ring Cycle).
There’s at least a couple collections I know of, with many of the pieces already mentioned.
Here’s one at amazon.com:
“The Fossils” from “Carnival of the Animals” By Saint-Saens.
I have a CD called “Classics from the Crypt” that includes:
Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
Saint-Saens: Danse macabre
Gounod: Fureral march of a Marionette
Mussorgsky: Night On Bald Mountain
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique - March to the Scaffold
Grieg: “Perr Gynt” Suite No 1 - In the Hall of the Mountain King
Liszt: Mephisto Waltz
Dukas: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique - Dream of a Witches Sabbath
I also use some tracks from “Nightmare Before Christmas”, mainly “This is Halloween”.
If you want a good spooky soundtrack, grab the non-melodic trippy central portion of Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” [Meddle] and play it in a loop at 2x speed.
Serious banshee-screeches, oohing ghosts, and howling wind effects!
a friend once sent me a work by harry partch called ‘the wind’. it’s poetry recited in a melodic and eeire voice by the author to strange music and i thought it pretty halloweeny creepy. i haven’t listened to his other stuff but the composer’s site has a recording guide with links to the collection that has ‘the wind’ on amazon (The Harry Partch Collection: Volume 1).
The Firebird Suite by Stravinsky.
György Ligeti - Lux Aeterna
It scares the living daylights out of you.
Well known from the soundtrack of 2001 - a space odyssey
Or: from the same composer:
György Ligeti - Requiem
Also from the soundtrack of 2001 - a space odyssey…
No sleep guaranteed … 
Where? I haven’t seen the film in a while, but I thought all of the score was by Jerry Goldsmith. (Great score, BTW, and if you are interested in soundtracks, an excellent choice for “spooky” music.)
I like the Bach’s Passacaglia and Fuge in C Minor. BWV 582
I don’t know if I’d quite call it “classical” (although it’s closer to that than anything else) but Midnight Syndicate has three very nice albums of spooky/gothy/atmospheric-type music out: Born of the Night (the first and best of the three), Realm of Shadows, and Gates of Delirium. http://www.midnightsyndicate.com has clips from all three albums if you want to get an idea what they’re like.
I have no connection to these folks - I discovered their music at the local haunted house attraction and liked it a lot.
Marche Slave–Tchaikofsky
There’s a “happy” part in it, but it soon gets mauled by the eerieness.
Elegie by Massenet is also rather creepy.