By David Hennessee
Halloween is fast approaching, with all its attendant ghouls, goblins, witches, demons,
and other creatures of the night-bump. We all know about holiday music around Christmas-time (cheerful and somber carols, silly pop songs, ubiquitous Messiahs…), but what about Halloween holiday music?
I got to thinking about classical music that evokes the spirit of this gruesome season, and actually there is quite a bit going back a few hundred years. These days, I’d venture to say that most people regularly hear symphonic music in film scores. Just the other day, for a friend I was playing a recording of the finale from Sibelius Symphony #5 (which we’re playing in November), and he said “You know how I can tell this is 20th century? It sounds like movie music!” That’s probably a compliment to Sibelius, as it means his idiom still speaks to listeners deeply enough to inspire film composers to imitate it.
For horror movies, music is absolutely necessary for setting the mood and giving the audience all the chills they crave. Consider how in the following example, the wrong music transforms Hithcock’s chilling “The Birds” into farce.
Of course, most Hitchcock movies are scored to the eerie and intense music of Bernard Herrmann. Without the music, “Psycho” would just be a story of a boy and his mother.
Vertigo, while not exactly horror, is certainly moody, creepy, and suspenseful, due in no small part to the score.
Music that conveys fear really got going in the Romantic period, though you see earlier examples in opera; for example the finale of Don Giovanni, when the statue of the Commedatore comes to life to accuse Don Giovanni and cast him into hell. To me, the fact that in this production, the Commendatore looks a like a life-size Monopoly piece only makes the scene creepier. Go directly to hell! Do not pass GO or collect $200!
Romantic-era composers pioneered music that evoked specific scenes, such as Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, as well as music that tells stories, which we call program music. One of the best examples of program music is Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fanatastique.” Here is a visualization of its “Witches’ Sabbath” movement.
The Russian nationalist composers were masters of vivid and colorful program music, as we see in Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain.”
Sacred music also uses some of these spooky techqniues. The Requiem Mass, for example, contains a Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”) movement. Verdi’s Dies Irae is probably the scariest; you can almost hear the lost souls crying out in terror at God’s wrath. Playing it is a little scary too… it’s fast!
Whenever I think of Halloween, this little bon-bon comes to mind: Charles Ives’ piece for strings and piano entitled “Halloween.” In college, my string quartet was asked to perform for a Halloween program, and someone suggested this piece. We performed in costume… the first violinist was a police officer, the second was a cowboy, the cellist was a cat, and I was a ghost. It’s not easy to play the viola covered in a sheet with eyeholes cut out. I’m not sure I played all the correct notes, but as you will hear, it probably didn’t matter.
Happy Halloween!
