YourClassical

Learning to Listen: Spooky Sounds

Learning to Listen: Scary Music
the dance of death frans franken ii
Composer Camille Saint-Saens' piece Danse Macabre draws on the late-medieval allegory of "the Dance of Death" -- pictured here in a painting of the same name by Frans Francken II.
Getty Images / The Bridgeman Art Library

On this week's Learning to Listen, hear examples of some of the stranger sounding instruments and techniques in classical music.

You'll hear a technique called "Bartók pizzicato" and you'll learn what "prepared piano" sounds like. And you'll hear from instruments like the "Armonica", invented by Benjamin Franklin in the 1760s; and the ondes Martenot, invented by Maurice Martenot in 1928.

Plenty of instruments didn't make the list; an organ can sound spooky. So can the theremin. Other instrumental techniques, like col legno are designed to reference sounds of bones rattling:

Here's the col legno passage in the final movement of Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz:

Watch Stephen Drury prepare a piano so he can play John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes. It takes about three hours to fully prepare the piano.

Program Playlist

Charles Gounod
Funeral March of a Marionette
Eugene Ormandy
Philadelphia Orchestra
Sony 45530

Johann Schultz
Largo for Glass Armonica
Dennis James, Armonica
Sony 89047

Henry Cowell
The Banshee
Henry Cowell, piano
CRI 750

John Cage
Sonata #7
Herbert Henk, prepared piano
ECM 1842

Henryck Gorecki
Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra, 1st movement
Elzbieta Chojnacka, harpsichord
Markus Stenz, conductor
London Sinfonietta
Nonesuch 79362

Olivier Messaien
Feuillet inedit no. 4
Thomas Bloch, ondes Martenot
Bernard Wisson, piano
Naxos 555779

Giuseppe Tartini
The Devil's Trill
Gil Shaham, violin
Jonathan Feldman, piano
DG 463483

Bela Bartók
String Quartet no. 4, 4th movement
Belcea Quartet
EMI 94400

George Crumb
Black Angels, movements 1 & 2
Brodsky Quartet
Teldec 76260

Bernard Herrmann
Selections from Psycho
Erich Kunzel, cond
Cincinatti Pops
Telarc 80189

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