Music to Die

What scares you? Ghosts? Bats? Dancing Skeletons? How about

something lurking under the bed? Let’s face it, there’s plenty of scary stuff out there to make us jump. And what better time to face fear than at Halloween?

That includes music. Because while it might not go bump in the night, music can still get downright spooky.

Starting with the classical repertoire, there’s no shortage of somber, even outright scary musical moods. The “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” by J.S. Bach is quintessential haunted-house music. Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” depicts a gathering of witches. The “Funeral March of a Marionette” opened every episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Paul Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” tells the story of bewitched brooms. And Saint-Saens’ “Danse Macabre” evokes the aforementioned dancing skeletons.

Opera adds stories and visuals to the mix. “Faust” by Gounod, took Goethe’s story of a man who sells his soul to the devil to a new level. Benjamin Britten’s “A Turn of the

Screw” shows just how scary children can be, and “Bluebeard’s Castle

by Bartok tells a tale of marital horrors.

So, what makes music, despite its abstract essence, feel so ominous? Melodies? Rhythms? The instruments themselves? The answer is, all of them.

Certain chords strike a dark mood. The most obvious example is minor chords, which tend to feel moodier. But it’s not just the chords. It’s the way they interact with one another in progressions. For example, when you sustain a dominant chord for an extended period and then resolve it, finally, to a minor chord, it conjures a dreadful (and final) conclusion (gulp).

Melodies and rhythms work in tandem to provide the desired effect. Saint-Saens “Danse Macabre” starts with a solo violin playing tritones (very dissonant intervals) back and forth, which all but summon the devil himself fiddling. Adding to the effect is Saint-Saens’s jaunty 3/4 time signature. When combined and contrasted with those macabre melodies, the piece becomes even more forebodingly supernatural — not unlike an evil but wise-cracking horror villain.

Speaking of horror films, they take the art of fright to the next level. And music plays a key role. Movies are more or less cinematic versions of operas. And film composers use many different devices to compliment the action on the screen and inspire vast ranges of emotion — fear being right up there with romance, comedy, and drama.

In “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963), one of the most famous scenes is a

sword fight with skeletons. And Bernard Hermann’s choice of xylophone

to depict the skeletons vividly brings them to life. That film scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. But I later discovered another horror classic scored by Hermann. In “Psycho” (1960), he famously uses the high register of the violins to enhance the sheer horror of the shower scene. In “Jaws” (1975), John Williams goes to the opposite end of the string section, the basses, to warn of the terror lurking beneath the waves. And in Star Wars (1977), Darth Vader and the Imperial Forces have the entire low brass section announcing them as they march into the Death Star. Conversely, a single French horn plays Luke Skywalker’s heroic theme while he gazes onto the horizon.

Even pop music gets into the act. I doubt “Monster Mash” (1962) ever sparked so much as a single tremble. But Black Sabbath sure did. The eponymous opening song to their 1970 debut kicked off with a timeless, doom-laded riff based on another tritone, the so-called Devil’s Interval. It still gives even the toughest heavy-metal fans chills.

It took Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (1982) to put it all together. The video combines just about every element of a good horror flick, starting with an innocent-seeming couple running out of gas in a dark forest. All seems fine, at least until villains, werewolves, and the undead show up. Accompanying the action are a pounding, dark bass line, Quincy Jones’ mysterious score, dancing zombies, and one of the most sinister horror-movie voices of all-time: Vincent Price.

If that doesn’t scare you, nothing will

Rich Shemaria

October 11, 2026