Music
Top 7 Pieces Of Classical Music That Sound Like Halloween
Long before film soundtracks gave us musical monsters, classical composers were conjuring witches, skeletons, demons and midnight nightmares. From a dance performed by Death himself to a terrifying ride through the night, these seven pieces prove that some of the most wonderfully spooky music ever written is centuries old.
At midnight, Death appears with a fiddle and summons the dead from their graves. Saint-Saëns turns the legend into a wonderfully macabre waltz, complete with a sinister solo violin and musical effects that suggest rattling skeletons. The piece draws on the medieval tradition of the Dance of Death, in which Death leads people from every walk of life in a dance that reminds them of their mortality. Its combination of theatrical menace and irresistible rhythm makes it one of classical music's great Halloween calling cards.
Witches, spirits and demons assemble on a mountain for a night of supernatural revelry. Mussorgsky's music surges from ominous murmurs into a ferocious orchestral frenzy, building towards a terrifying celebration before dawn brings the gathering to an end. The work is often heard in the orchestration by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which helped make it famous. Disney's Fantasia gave it an unforgettable visual life, but the music itself is vivid enough to conjure the entire nightmare.
An apprentice discovers a spell that makes a broom carry water, then finds he cannot stop it. His desperate attempt to solve the problem only makes things worse, until the sorcerer returns to restore order. Dukas captures the escalating chaos with extraordinary orchestral invention, giving the broom its own musical personality and turning a simple magical mishap into a miniature catastrophe. The piece became especially famous through Disney's Fantasia, starring Mickey Mouse as the hapless apprentice, but its musical storytelling is a delight in its own right.
Few pieces begin with such an instantly recognisable blast of musical menace. Written for organ, Bach's dramatic opening gives way to twisting runs, thunderous chords and an intricate fugue, creating an atmosphere made for cobwebbed corridors and gothic architecture. Its association with horror films and haunted houses is now so strong that even people who have never heard the whole work recognise its opening. There is an intriguing footnote: musicologists have debated whether Bach really composed it, so even its authorship carries a little mystery.
The final movement of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique takes us into the feverish imagination of an artist who dreams of his own funeral, surrounded by grotesque figures and supernatural creatures. Familiar musical ideas return in distorted forms, church bells ring and the ancient Dies irae melody emerges as a chilling reminder of death. The witches' gathering becomes increasingly grotesque, with a wild dance built around the transformation of a solemn religious melody into something demonic. It is less a pretty ghost story than a full-blown musical nightmare.
Written for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, this music accompanies Peer as he enters the realm of the Mountain King and encounters a world of trolls and other supernatural beings. It starts quietly, almost mischievously, before repeating its main theme at ever-increasing speed and volume. The mounting tension makes it feel as though an entire army of creatures is closing in. By the end, the music has become a wonderfully chaotic chase, and one of the most recognisable pieces in the orchestral repertoire.
Schubert's extraordinary song tells the story of a father riding through the darkness with his sick child, who believes a supernatural figure known as the Erlking is trying to lure him away. The pianist's relentless galloping rhythm evokes the horse's movement, while the singer must distinguish between the narrator, the frightened boy, the father and the seductive, sinister Erlking. The music builds towards a devastating conclusion in just a few minutes. This is horror through storytelling rather than spectacle—and arguably the most psychologically disturbing piece on the list.
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