spooky pieces?!?

[just_me]

Happy Halloween Pianists! Always around this time of year, I like to play some spooky performance-ish stuff.  Any suggestions that are just great Halloween (fun or scary or spooky) that would be great for a performance, stuff a bit off the beaten path?  Sorabji has a set of program pieces involving some stories in a haunted castle...but that's as off the beaten path as i've gotten thus far.  I like Schumann's In Der Nacht for it's ~"haunted horseman" qualities...any other suggestions???
Boo!   

[pies]

4'33" Hee hee I'm clever

[lau]

i found rach etude op.39 or something to be spooky. the one valentina plays in her black dress.

[opus10no2]

Prokorief piano concerto no2, a real Halloween vibe.

R. Strauss' burlesque too, somewhat Tim Burton stylee.

[jre58591]

these may not be piano, but they can certainly scare people. check out ligeti's requiem and xenakis's pithoprakta. i read somewhere that some guy actually used this as haunted house music, with many great results.

[jakev2.0]

The etudes of Moszkowski are haunting.

[thierry13]

i found rach etude op.39 or something to be spooky. the one valentina plays in her black dress.

op.39 no.6 ... yay spooky, amazing piece 

[thierry13]

There is allways the classic Bach toccata and fugue for organ in D minor.

[presto agitato]

Alkan - Morte

Liszt - Thoughts of Dead

Many pieces by Scriabin

[mikey6]

Wouldn't gaspard de la nuit or night on bald mountain be the obvious?

[jre58591]

you do have a point there, although gaspard is more virtuosic than scary. any late scriabin piece, particularly his black mass and white mass sonatas, would be scary.

[nanabush]

-If I were to compare Gaspard de la Nuit to music from a horror movie, it'd go like so:
Ondine sounds like something from a sci-fi horror movie, like some crazy supernatural thing
Le Gibet would accompany someone walking through a deserted hospital w/ no lights on
Scarbo is the kinda music you'd hear when there's a killer chasing ppl around a house 

Night on Bald Mountain is a good idea too...

Rach etudes:  Op 33 Eb minor, and 39 A minor (the latter was mentioned earlier)

Chopin:  Preludes: Eb minor, D minor

Tausig:  Ghostship

[gymnopedist]

first movt. of Prok 7th sonata is so chilling. Parts of Pierrot Lunaire really are as well.

[sevencircles]

xenakis's pithoprakta

Jonchaies is better in this respect.

Gubaidulina Offertorium or Symphony are propably even better.

[ahinton]

Sorabji has a set of program pieces involving some stories in a haunted castle...but that's as off the beaten path as i've gotten thus far.

Not so much a "set" as just two, each from the early 1940s and each based on a "story of the supernatural by English author Montague Rhodes James (see the list of his works for piano solo at
https://www.sorabji-archive.co.uk/compositions/compositions.php#9

Both appear (with some other shortish works) on an all-Sorabji CD on the Altarus label (AIR-CD-9025) spanning a creative period of more than half a century, played by American pianist Donna Amato.

Best,

Alistair

[iumonito]

C'mon, ye people:

Saint-Saens/Liszt Danse Macabre,

Liszt Totentanz and Czardas Macabre https://www.classiccat.net/liszt_f/224.htm
And while we are at it, the end of Berlioz/Liszt Symphonie Fantastique is specific halloween music.


[after the fact edit: duh, you want off the beaten path.  these must be too obvious].

[timland]

Witches' Dance (A.K.A. Hexentanse)  op17 by MacDowell.

[iumonito]

Easier:

Grieg's lyric pieces (troll march, kobold, elfin dance, etc.)

More popular, Moussorgsky's Baba-yaga.

[tickingcounterparts]

I know that halloween is over but I wanna put in my two cents... I think Chopin's Nocturne Post Humous is quite haunting...  I don't know if scary is the right word for it but HAUNTING is good. It's stayed with me ever since I heard it in the movie "The Pianist."  Not difficult neither (learned it on my own decently except for the runs at the end which are difficult for me). It's my #1 favorite piece.

[henrah]

How many post humous nocturns are there ticking? If there are more than one, which one are you referring to?

[jre58591]

Jonchaies is better in this respect.

Gubaidulina Offertorium or Symphony are propably even better.

you do have a point with jonchaies. it reminds me of something out of psycho (the movie) haha. i have yet to hear those two gubaidulina pieces, but i know what to expect i think, judging from the solo piano rep.

[dnephi]

I scared away the trickertreaters with:

 Night on Bald Mountain

Scriabin Op. 42 No. 5

Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique- witch's dance, dies Irae, and the two of the together.

JK, they came and took candy anyway

[tickingcounterparts]

How many post humous nocturns are there ticking? If there are more than one, which one are you referring to?

HONESTLY, I don't know... My knowledge on classical pieces is lacking..... which is why I sit dumbfounded sometimes reading through the forum. All I can say is that the main character in "The Pianist" plays it at the very beginning in the radio station before it is bombed. It's pretty easy to find in my opinion. I guess it's more recognizable.

[jre58591]

there are two posthumous noctures that chopin wrote. wladislaw szpilman played the one in c sharp minor, or the first posthumous nocture. the other is in c minor.

[houseofblackleaves]

Parts of Prokofiev's 2nd concerto are spooky-ish.  Take the theme from the first movement... it's uplifting and beautiful, but is has this underlying eeriness to it.  It was dedicated to somone who committed suicide, after all I guess.  There's also that one passage in the fourth movement after the orchestra hits that loud D and then the piano breaks off into a short candenza, peneroso or somthing?  Then it goes into that CREEPY moonlit thing.

I also agree with the late Scriabin white and black mass sonatas, I randomly bought the music of them a couple months ago.

Rachmaninoff can also be considered "spooky."  His etudes are by far my favorite etude set, and my favorite of the op.33 WOULD be second to last (Opus numbers all screwy... GAH) if it wasn't for the fast part...  op. 39 no. 2/8 are haunting(-ly beautiful)

One more... Shubert/Liszt Die Staht, I found this over a month ago and finally a video of Lisitsa playing it has been posted. 

Her piano rocks.

[klick]

Well not for piano, but that song from Shindler's List, you know...where the girl in red comes out. My religion teacher and his father played it for violin duet. Very very spooky. There might be a piano transcription or something out there....never really too sure these days.

Klick

[tompilk]

ginastera piano concertos are spooky... seriously... i cant listen to them for more than 20secs then i turn them off...
argh...
Tom

[bflatminor24]

Rach etude 39/6 in A minor is a good choice.

Chopin Sonata 2: Presto (winds over the graves).

Ravel Scarbo

Chopin Preludes 14, 16, 24

Chopin Winter Wind etude

Liszt Funerailles

Carter Night Fantasies

Scriabin White Mass Sonata No. 7

Prokofiev Toccata in D minor, Op. 11

Max

[jre58591]

ginastera piano concertos are spooky... seriously... i cant listen to them for more than 20secs then i turn them off...

haha they cant be that bad to you. i love the dissonance. the clusters are quite tasty (bad pun). but yes, they can be quite spooky at times, especially the 4th movt of the 1st. oooh yeah.

[quantum]

Ginastera 2nd mvt from 1st sonata.  Kinda like spiders crawling all over.  Your hands also feel like that when you play it. 


Definitely late Scriabin.   Op 73 Poemes or Op. 74 Preludes for stuff not as difficult as the sonatas. 

Ligeti - Etude No 13.  I like the Greg Anderson vid on Youtube. 

[kelly_kelly]

The melody of Rach op. 16-1 is haunting (imo).