Thread: Most Powerful, Epic, Angry, Intense Classical Recommendations

Originally Posted by david johnson

some of these replies are....er....interesting.
i fear some of my comrades here would find macdowell's 'to a wild rose' way too blood-thirsty!!!

dj

Yes, well, we all know Mahler's music is like ten or eleven PANSIES against Mozart's. Mozart is like the biggest bouquet ever made of roses with wicked long, sharp, barbed thorns everywhere. Mozart's first symphony? Most dangerous thing ever written. Nobody believes it, but even the cutest puppies have sharp teeth and claws...

And don't forget that heretic Handel and his blasphemous Messiah...a mordant, disgusting musical rant against Christianity and all that is holy and pure.

Metalheads would love this one...

It opens with an Orff-like chorus, singing in Hebrew, invoking the Lord of the Flies himself, Beelzebub. After that, military-style percussion and post horns herald the arrival of Medusa. Medusa, sung by mezzo-soprano, presides over a firece witch's sabbath scene in which she raises Chernabog from the dead and consignes the soul of Salome to the pit. Medusa then turns into a huge scarab beetle and this is represented by a tambourine being struck with the blunt side of a machete.

After several interludes of trombones and bass drums, all performed ffff, we now come to the famous "Hallelujah" section in which a chorus of daemons blasphemize the name of the Messiah by singing in dissontant, mocking tones. This segues to a crescendo in tutti, complete with organ and a recording of a dump truck driving into a brick wall.

The names Handel, Mozart and that lord of darkness Vivaldi will live on forever...as the most brutal musicians who ever lived...or died.

Thank God for the Second Vienesse School, who rejected these composers of ill-repute and restored beauty back to music.

A lot of the C19th symphonic repertoire can be described as "epic." Some examples, which I don't recall as having been mentioned:

Beethoven - in particular, Symphonies Nos. 3 "Eroica" & 9 "Choral"
Mendelssohn - The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture
Brahms - Symphony No. 4
Dvorak - Symphony No. 9 "From the new world"

And from the early C20th:

Sibelius - in particular The Oceanides, Pohjola's Daughter, Finlandia, The Swan of Tuonela, Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5

Much of Sibelius is certainly very epic and mythic.

Wagner is another good "epic" composer. Ride of the Valkyries...come on...how can you get more epic than that?

It doesn't get more powerful, epic, angry, intense than Mahler. I refer to him as Mr. Bi-Polar. One minute you're listening to Symphony No. 2 (awesome symphony) and it all starts off all nice and pretty and then 3 minutes goes by before BAM! You're in the next movement where the strings totally decapitate you. Pretty aggressive....quite scary music indeed.

In addition to Mahler, be sure to check out Shostakovich's symphonies as well. Prokofiev is also pretty intense.

Originally Posted by Tapkaara

By the way, also check out Carnival of the Animals by that famous musical sado-masochist Camille Saint-Saens. Though male, he was obsessed with being female, hence he gave himself the name Camille. (Sort of a Ed Gein figure in music, wouldn't you say?) Anyway, this music is no carnival...it's more of a freakshow of crushing tone clusters and savage rhythms. Trust me, when I say animals, I mean ANIMALS...the bloodthirsty kind.

So, imagine a musical freak-carnival of werwolfs and vultures...bats and tapeworms...where human flesh is eaten with sinister glissandi and horrifc, portent-laden pedal points.

This music should be in ANY metalhead's collection. Listen to it and I DARE you not to become enraged, depressed and angst-ridden.

Saint-Saens was a sado-masochist? Where did you get that information from?

Check out # 6 in Part II of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius "Disposessed, aside thrust" wherein the demons in hell conduct a vicious fugal rant against the angels and the whole concept of Heaven. Hell's fury is made up cast out angels -and the all hate it and scorn the "goodies" that were left behind.

Pretty intense choral & orchestral music on either side of the microphones!

Originally Posted by Tapkaara

Anything by Mozart is angry, pissed off music with a hard edge and huge, aggressive sound.

Check out Eine kleine Nactmusik. That means " a little night music" and it really is music of the night. Like a forboding Gothic cathedral lit by the evil light of a blood-red moon.

Crank this and let your fantasies of death and distruction take flight.

Eine kleine nachtmusik means, a small/little serenade fyi.

Beethoven's ninth symphony is epic, and intense, not angry though, but still. Also a more 'angry' piece of music, in my opinion, is the 3rd movement from his third piano trio, later rewritten as a string quintet I think. Though one of his early pieces, it clearly shows the power in his music and predicts what is yet to come.

Originally Posted by mueske

Eine kleine nachtmusik means, a small/little serenade fyi.

That was the joke.

Originally Posted by mueske

Eine kleine nachtmusik means, a small/little serenade fyi.

I guess I should retract my earlier statment that this thread had a sense of humor!

Tapkaara, your posts on this thread have been the funniest I've seen in a long time! I'm glad this forum gets a dose of humor now and then!

R-F, my friend, I'm glad to see that most of us, anyway, can enjoy a laugh every so often in this forum. I think "serious" music doens't always have to be so...serious.

I'd love to see what would happen in these fans of aggressive, "depressive" metal actually went out and bought Eine kleine Nactmusic, Carnival of the Animals or the Messiah expecting a sonic blockbuster of carnage and chaos. Would they be dissapointed? Hehehe...

Carnival of the Animals

expecting a sonic blockbuster of carnage and chaos

Hahaha))) Pieces like "Tortoises" and "Cuckoo" truly are carnage and chaos

Carnival of the Animals is blamed for more teen suicide than Marilyn Manson. The music is dark and brooding...and loud. It really gives me chills thinking of that morbid, death-themed Swan movement.

Originally Posted by Herzeleide

That was the joke.

Curse my headache, I haven't been able to think clear all day long!

Originally Posted by Tapkaara

I guess I should retract my earlier statment that this thread had a sense of humor!

No you shouldn't, it's my fault I'm not in the best of health today and it's influencing my ability to think clearly.