Dark Classical Reccomendations

[md655321]

I know this have been done a few times, and I read some of the previous threads, but I'll still ask.

I've never really gotten into any classical music, mainly because of the pompousness of much of it (or atleast of the listeners.) For the most part, happy or major classical just isnt doing it for me. So I was wondering if you guys had any reccomendations for dark sounding works by major (but in minor key, if you will) composers. My jazz tastes tend towards the out (not totally free, but stuff like late period trane, sam rivers, ornette etc...) if that helps.

Thanks.

[Guy Berger]

Works by Bartok (String quartets might be up your alley) and Stravinsky (Rite of Spring, other major ballets) are the most obvious recommendations. You might also like Beethoven and Haydn's minor key works.

Guy

[Mr. Gone]

Hmmm.

[Mr. Gone]

[gdogus]

SHostakovich - String Quartets, especially.

[Chuck Nessa]

Webern, Schoenberg and Berg quartets. Carter - almost anything.

[Claude]

I don't know about the major/minor key, but I consider these "dark sounding":

Prokofiev's Second symphony (unlike his First).

Scriabin's piano sonatas

Mahler's 10th symphony (as completed by verious musicologists)

Edited October 16, 2005 by Claude

[ejp626]

I have a few recommendations of "not happy" composers, all from the past century actually (one of the less happy, generally speaking).

These have been covered by the Kronos Quartet:

Black Angels by George Crumb

String Quartets 1 and 2 by Henryk Gorecki

Ghost Opera by Tan Dun

This CD is harder to find but definitely on two dark subjects:

Krzysztof Penderecki: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima / Viola Concerto / Nancy van de Vate: Chernobyl / Concerto No. 1 for Violin & Orchestra

Finally, I really like Quartet for the End of Time by Messaien. I have three versions of it. I find this a bit unusual because 1) I'm not quite as entranced by his other material and 2) I generally don't like music with overt religious significance, such as masses. (Even Ellington's Sacred Music leaves me a bit cold.)But this is fascinating stuff with an ending that is intentionally "celestial." So Messaien may fail on the grounds he is too religious to be truly unhappy, but it's definitely worth one listen.

Here's a review that I'm stealing from Amazon with some of the back story:

Messaien wrote "Quartet for the End of Time" in a Nazi prison camp. This work was first performed by half-starved prisoners on broken instruments, to an audience of arrogant Nazi prison camp guards and officials, and the people they had enslaved in the name of the Third Reich.

The work that Messaien composed in the face of this titanic evil was not a work of anger or bitterness. It was not a work of resignation to an inevitable fate or a hymn to depression. Messaien chose to represent, musically, the end of all things, as described in the Book of Revelations in the Bible ... which he interpreted not in the fashion of modern day "born again" fundamentalists, but in a mystical way, as a spiritual event that had resonance in his time.

Musically, Messaien was forced to write the Quartet for the instruments he had available to him. He also had to take into account that the instruments were half-broken; for example, the piano that was used in the original performance was missing strings and therefore there were notes that it could not play. Messaien wrote with all this in mind, and with his subject matter in mind.

The Quartet is definitely a 20th Century work. Messaien had been writing works outside of the accepted "classical" form for some time, but here he abandons time signatures, uses extreme chromaticism and wide tonal variations, sweeps of dynamic range, and unexpected, perhaps unprecedented, tonalities and atonalities.

But he did all this with focus. So many 20th Century composers made music that seemed an academic exercise. Messaien, here, uses every musical expression in his power, every type of music that he knows how to write, every sound that he hears in his head, to write the Quartet for the End of Time, in the service of God and Man and Freedom.

[Guy Berger]

Scriabin's piano sonatas

Hmmm, good recommendation, though it applies to sonatas 5-10 (especially #9 "Black Mass") and less so to the first 4.

Guy

[mikeweil]

Charles Ives' piano sonatas

Paul Hindemith's early piano pieces (especially "In einer Nacht")

[J.A.W.]

Try Mahler's 9th - now there's a dark, brooding piece for you... It has its pompous moments, but it's one of the darkest pieces I've ever heard.

Edited October 17, 2005 by J.A.W.

[jazzbo]

Not really dark or brooding, but I think you might really enjoy Satie's piano pieces. I find them fascinating.

[Chuck Nessa]

Not really dark or brooding, but I think you might really enjoy Satie's piano pieces.  I find them fascinating.

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"Not really dark or brooding" in the friggin' extreme.

[jazzbo]

Okay. . . I implied the "in the friggin' extreme" part.

But I think that he might dig them considering the music he does dig.

[gslade]

Lutoslawski, Dutilleux: Cello Concertos /Rostropovich

Love Lutoslawski's aleatory counterpoint

[Peter Johnson]

Actually, most Lutoslawski should fit the bill.

Interesting, the trend toward Russian/Eastern Block composers in this thread (except Satie, of course )

Lutoslawski, Dutilleux: Cello Concertos /Rostropovich

Love Lutoslawski's aleatory counterpoint

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[Epithet]

Scriabin's piano sonatas

Hmmm, good recommendation, though it applies to sonatas 5-10 (especially #9 "Black Mass") and less so to the first 4.

Guy

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What? The first even has a funeral march in it.

[J Larsen]

Does Morton Feldman count as a "major composer"? How about Gorecki?

[Chuck Nessa]

Does Morton Feldman count as a "major composer"? How about Gorecki?

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Feldman - possibly, Gorecki - no. -_-

[Kalo]

Much of the 20th Century fits this bill

Works by Bartok (String quartets might be up your alley) and Stravinsky (Rite of Spring, other major ballets) are the most obvious recommendations.  You might also like Beethoven and Haydn's minor key works.

        Guy

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Bartok was the first composer that came to mind for me. The string quartets are astringent, bracing, and essential, in my opinion.

Oh, yeah, and dark too. Think of that Balkan temperament.

Hmmm.

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Not really dark or brooding, but I think you might really enjoy Satie's piano pieces.  I find them fascinating.

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"Not really dark or brooding" in the friggin' extreme.

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I love Satie, but he's picnic music compared to Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, etc.

Damn, Try Bach, Beethoven, etc. Stick to the more austere forms -- solo instruments, string quartets -- and they should at least approximate your cup of tea. Just skip the romantics and you'll be pretty much assured of astringent angst, rectilinear rigor, and depressing dolor.

[Kalo]

Does Morton Feldman count as a "major composer"? How about Gorecki?

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Feldman - possibly, Gorecki - no. -_-

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Love Feldman.

He's dark, in a way.

[Kalo]

A...

Very....

Sparse.......

extremely...........

punctuated..................

Way.

[J Larsen]

Kalo gave a good description. The reason I brought up Feldman wasn't exactly that I find him dark (though he's hardly bright and bubbly), but because I've spun Music for Rothko Chapel for a couple of different avant-jazz freaks at my place and they both bought it afterwards.

Regardless of what you think of Gorecki, he can certainly be dark and brooding!

Come to think of it, Bach's Mass in B Minor is pretty dark in spots. I have the Klemperer version. I rarely listen to it, but every time I do I'm blown away. But then, I know even less about classical than I do about jazz, so I'm probably not one to be handing out advice...

Edited October 17, 2005 by J Larsen

[Kalo]

I think that I'll suggest to the Boston Symphony Orchestra that they program a "Dark Classical" night for the heavy metal fans...

Could be a good marketing gimmick!

[Kalo]

Kalo gave a good description. The reason I brought up Feldman wasn't exactly that I find him dark (though he's hardly bright and bubbly), but because I've spun Music for Rothko Chapel for a couple of different avant-jazz freaks at my place and they both bought it afterwards.

Regardless of what you think of Gorecki, he can certainly be dark and brooding!

Come to think of it, Bach's Mass in B Minor is pretty dark in spots. I have the Klemperer version. I rarely listen to it, but every time I do I'm blown away. But then, I know even less about classical than I do about jazz, so I'm probably not one to be handing out advice...

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Anyone who really wants to expand their musical horizons should listen to late Feldman.

His stuff is meditative, but hardly "New Age."

It's thorny, but in slow.... SLOW.... motion.

I class him with the other composers who I consider to have written "etudes for listeners," akin to Charles Ives and Conlon Nancarrow (I'd include John Cage, as well, but he's more interesting to think about than to listen to).

As an aside, I don't think that I understood Ives as well as I do until I heard Conlon Nancarrow's pieces, which taught me how to really hear Ives properly, in all his glory...

I guess what I'm trying to say is, just jump right on in: you'll sort it out eventually. I look forward to reading YOUR take on all of this. The history of this music is still being written and you just may have some input.

Edited October 17, 2005 by Kalo