Recordings of Witches, Goblins, Ghouls and Ghosts

Online streaming audio and requires RealAudio or MS Media Player plugins.  The Phantom of the Opera (CD-263) was always partial to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.  Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust  (lots of singing devils there) has some frighteningly good music. Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, Night on Bald Mountain, and Pictures at an Exhibition (near the end is the movement about Baba Yaga), and Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin have all been associated with spirits, witches, and other scary things that go bump in the night.

JMU-owned music.  A list of recordings in the JMU music library based witches, ghosts, or anything that frights.  This list is not about scary music, but about music with topics related to HalloweenHalloween by Charles Ives (CD-1422) heads off our musical fright page.  Sleepy Hollow (B17 1S) by Walter Mourant is another frightfully good selection.

Witches.  The most obvious choice here is the "Dream of the Witches' Sabbath" from Symphonie Fantastique of Hector Berlioz (1803-1869).  The fifth movement, the Witches' Sabbath uses both ecclesiastical music (Dies irae) and the idee fixe to reveal a cackling lewd travesty of traditional religion.  CD-328Another interesting piece is The Noon Witch, a symphonic poem by Antonin Dvorak.  It tells, in music, a sad tale of a mother becoming irritated with her child's noise-making, threatening to send for the Noon Witch, a familiar scary figure in Bohemian folklore.  Only this time the noon witch actually materializes.  Ooh, I'm getting jittery just thinking of it.  CD-2364Of course Mussorgsky's famous Pictures from an Exhibition includes the "Hut on fowl's legs", upon which squats the witch Baba-Yaga.  CD-192Edward MacDowell has given us the short, but brilliant piano piece, Witches' Dance.  CD-2454For those who don't mind a singing witch, Henry Purcell composed a sacred piece for All Hallow's Eve based on the story where Saul asks the Witch of Endor to conjure up the ghost of Samuel.  It is very chromatic and eerie.  Look for In Guilty Night.  CD-1480 v. 9  There is also a couple of scenes of "furies" or witches in Dido and Aeneas.  CD-1335Also, we musn't forget Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel with a pretty nasty hexe.  CD-1348
and Verdi's Macbeth with a trio of nasties framing a pretty grim story.  And Robert Ward's Crucible (W26.2 2S) is based on Arthur Millers play of the same name...excellent opera and a Pulitzer Prize winner!For a witch with some moves try the Bill Evan's trio of Witchcraft on CD-714, or John Coltrane's Witches Pit on CD-992Additional witch recordings can be located here

Ghosts.  How can you miss with the "Largo" from Beethoven's "Ghost" trio (CD-1288).  The nickname, by the way, was given the trio some years after its composition based on the haunting Largo movement.   Enrique Grenados' "Epilogo: la serenada del espectro" (Serenade of the specter) from Goyescas for Piano (CD-2477), and L98.1 1S includes Anatol Liadov's Kikimora and Baba Yaga (the witch)The Purcell work In Guilty Night, mentioned above, has a ghostly character as wellAlso consider Christoph Willibald Gluck's "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" and "Dance of the Furies" from Orfeo ed Euridice (CD-1498).  The "Wolf's Glen" Scene from Weber's Der Freischutz depicts a haunted forest (CD-1083),  and Wagner's Flying Dutchman depict a ghost ship and captain (CD-2400).

The Devil has inspired numerous works.  Operatically we have The Devil and Daniel Webster by Douglas Moore (CD-1461), Gounod's Faust (CD-1395), Mephistopheles by Boito (B68.5 1M).

We can add to that the Mephisto Waltz (CD-1186) by Franz Liszt and his "Mephistopheles" from his Faust Symphony (L77 30S).  Add to this list Gunther Schuller's "Little Blue Devil" (S91.3 7S) from Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee, "The Devils Dance" and "Triumphal March of the Devil" from Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat (CD-1322), and Tartini's Sonata in G minor The Devil's Trill (T19.5 2M) for violin and you have a devilishly good evening of music.