Top Ten Dark Classics

I am enchanted by the darker, more somber side of classical music. Not because it's depressing, upsetting, or unsettling. In my opinion, the minor mode unleashes certain complexities, feelings, depths, and emotions not possible with the major mode. And let's face it- life is complex. We face battles, uncertainties, dead-ends, agitation, and sadness. We have gloomy days, rainy days, and days we wish had never existed. Consider the battles between good and evil, between the physical and spiritual, and between selfishness and redemptive love.

Dark music conveys and channels the complexities and struggles of life with all its complicated components.

This is my personal choice of the 10 darkest, haunting classics of music.  

(and believe me, it was hard to pick only 10)

 10.Sonata no.2 in B-flat minor op.35 'Funeral March' (Chopin)

The 3rd movement from this melancholy piece by Frederick Chopin is a different side of dark- a more reflective, meditative, sad side. With the constant drumming of the minor bass chords, and the silent, slowly moving melody, this can easily be visualized in a funeral procession.

9. Swan Lake - Ballet Suite, Op. 20 (Tchaikovsky)

This beautiful scene from Swan Lake facillates between major and minor a little too much to be considered "dark" per se. However, the motif is certainly dark enough...and the scene follows the curse of the evil sorcerer upon Odette.

8.Adagio for Strings (Barber)

I really have few words for this heartwrenching piece by Samuel Barber. It is so silently poignant, so piercingly convicting in its delivery. Quiet, somber, reflective, and sad. Take a listen.

7. The Erl King (Schubert)

As the poem goes, The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He holds in his arms the shuddering child;
He reaches his farmstead with toil and dread,—
The child in his arms lies motionless, dead.

The music by Schubert, with it's pounding bass and rapid melody, is no less dark.

6. Moonlight Sonata, movements 1 and 3 (Beethoven)

From the tranquil moon-over-water first movement, to the fiery and vicious "presto agitato", Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig Van Beethoven still stands as one of history's darkest classics. 

5. The Ride of the Valkyries (Wagner)

This famous composition is from Der Ring des Nibelungen, (The Ring of the Nibelung), a cycle of four epic music dramas by the German composer Richard Wagner.

 The Ride begins in the prelude to the Act, building up successive layers of accompaniment until the curtain rises to reveal a mountain peak where four of the eight Valkyrie sisters of Brünnhilde have gathered in preparation for the transportation of fallen heroes to Valhalla.

4. Tocatta and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 (Bach)

"Haunting" is the only word to describe this composition. Very intense and thrilling organ piece.

3. Lacrimosa from Requiem Mass in D minor (Mozart)

The Requiem mass was composed in 1791, and left uncompleted at the composer's death.

The popular movement "Lacrimosa", includes such phrases as "Guilty man to be judged", and "Lord have mercy on him". The music is rich, dark, and the harmonies are bone-chilling. This places Lacrimosa in number 3 of the top ten dark classics.

2. O Fortuna (Carmina Burana)

Orff's Carmina Burana opens with the stunning and famous O Fortuna. Its text is a medieval resigned acceptance of the Wheel of Fortune as the determiner of one's fate. According to this wheel, all of man's petty feelings and endevours are in the fickle hands of Fate. The text, sung with dramatic and chilling harmonies, easily puts this in the list of dark classics.

1. The Fifth Symphony (Beethoven)

The music begins with Fate knocking on Death's door.  And according to Hector Berlioz, the Fifth, more than the previous four symphonies, "emanates directly and solely from the genius of Beethoven. It is his own intimate thought that is developed; and his secret sorrows, his pent-up rage, his dreams so full of melancholy oppression, his nocturnal visions and his bursts of enthusiasm furnish its entire subject, while the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and orchestral forms are there delineated with essential novelty and individuality, endowing them also with considerable power and nobility."

Truly worthy of the number 1 spot of the Top Ten Dark Classics. 

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