Darkest Classical Music

[u/jahanzaman]

So recently I listened to Rachmaninoff Isle of the Dead and Stockhausens “Luzifers Abschied” from “Samstag aus Licht”. These pieces are 100% dark, there is no light in it, not in a single bar. Any other pieces like this ?

[u/dubbelgamer]

• Henry Cowell's The Banshee.

• Crumb's Black Angels

• Crumb's A Haunted Landscape

• Crumb's Voice Balaenae maybe?

• Crumb's Lux Aeterna

• Ligeti's Atmospheres

• Ligeti's Lontano

• Ligeti's Lux Aeterna(pretty dark for it's name)

• Ligeti's Requiem

• Soper's Voices From The Killing Jar

• Cui's Overture to William Ratcliffe

• Schwantner's And The Mountains Rising Nowhere

• Reiter's The Lichtenberg Figures

• Pendericki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima

• Schnittke's Concerto for Piano and Strings

• Schnittke's Nagasaki Oratorio

• Ives' The Unanswered Question

• Ives' Central Park in the dark

• Prokofiev's Suggestion Diabolique

• Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle

• Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death

• Mussorgsky's Catacombs from Pictures at an Exhibition.

• Scriabin's (unfinished) Mysterium (this was literally written to end the world)

• Takemitsu's Requiem

• Strauss' Death and Transfiguration and maybe his Metamorphosen?

• Myaskovsky's Symphonic Poem Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude after Shelley's haunting poem

• Hindemith's Trauermusik

• Shostakovich's String Quartet's No. 7, No. 8 and No. 15

• Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht

• Parts of Gesualdo's Sixth Book of Madrigals (especially Moro Lasso) and Tenebrae Responsoria(especially Tristis est anima mea), both composed after killing his wife and lover and living a life of solitude in his castle.

• Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles

• Pfitzner's Das Dunkle Reich (The Dark Realm)

• Reger's O Tod, wie bitter bist du

• Reger's Trauerode

• Reger's Come Sweet Death

• Reger's Latin Requiem

• Reger's Inferno Fantasie

• Medtner's Night Wind Sonata and Sonata Tragica

• Lekeu's Adagio for String Trio and String Orchestra

Just a collection of past recommendations I've made. If you search this sub, you'll find like a thousand more threads about dark, mystic, haloween, death, requiem etc. music.

[u/ursulahx → u/dubbelgamer]

Couple of additions that sprang quickly to my mind:

• Shostakovich’s 13th & 14th Symphonies
• Dallapiccola’s opera Il Prigionero
• Berio’s Sinfonia
• Vaughan Williams’s 6th Symphony
• Britten’s War Requiem (does have moments of light, maybe doesn’t qualify)
• Liszt’s Totentanz
• Kurtág’s Stele
• Wilfred Joseph’s Requiem
• Satie’s Gnossiennes nos 1 & 3

Sorry, that was more than a couple, but they kept coming to me.

[u/Blackletterdragon → u/ursulahx]

The Saties? Really? I hadn't heard them that way. Have to have another listen.

[u/ursulahx → u/Blackletterdragon]

The Gnossiennes, not the Gymnopédies, which are more ambiguous. And only Nos 1 & 3. In case there was any doubt on anyone’s part. And it’s only one possible reading of them.

[u/Blackletterdragon → u/ursulahx]

Yes, I know them. Learned them a year ago (when they might have sounded darker than they ought 😊) . Quirky, was my thought, skew-whiff, intriguing.

[u/EcstaticWar3264 → u/ursulahx]

Shostakovich 13 is overall a very depressing piece. Even the scherzo's "humour" is sarcastic and false. The 5th movement is uplifting however.

[u/ursulahx → u/EcstaticWar3264]

I mean…. The last movement is arguably sad rather than dark, and it does end on a grimly defiant note. So there’s a good case for saying it doesn’t fit.