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Savoring The Sounds of Halloween
5 Jul 2011, 5:14 am
It’s not only during Christmas that music takes center stage in your stereo system at home. Admittedly, Christmas is the time of year when composers and musicians over the years have come out with music that gets played every year in December. Lenten music is also aplenty. But Halloween? Do you bother to compile music for this one day, or night, of the year? Some people do. There are just so many musical materials that bring out the scary, frightful juice out on this one night of the year. There are movie themes, classical tone poems and even jazz and rock music that can wake the demons on Halloween. And your sound system blasting the frightening music of the night, so to speak, can scare the trick or treaters from knocking on your door. That is, if you can still hear them knocking. From the Movies Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is memorable not just for the cinematic hallmark it has created in the suspense and horror genre at that time, but it has the famous John William’s score with the foreboding 2-note melody that on its own has brought chills up and down the spine of listeners. There have been many orchestral interpretations of the score from various artists, but the original John William’s rendering either from the film soundtrack or from his Best Of compilation CDs remains a staple in anyone’s Halloween musical night with a fully turned up stereo sound system. A choir consisting of baritones and sopranos belting a melodic monotone in the minor keys can be a great sonic extravaganza on Halloween night. The Matrix Revolution soundtrack has a rock-classical blend like the Navras track. The same genre gives the frightening Sephiroth theme from the Seventh Final Fantasy a remarkable sonic feast for a truly scary Halloween ambiance. From the Classics There are two classical pieces that never fail to conjure images of demons, goblins and a host of horrible creatures fit for Halloween. Mussorgsky’s tone poem Night On Bald Mountain is one. It has been used in some cheap grade B horror movies and continues to make the rounds as being an apt music for any frightening occasion. Then there’s Prokofiev’s March of the Capulet in his massive Romeo and Juliet ballet. Nothing beats the opening orchestral caterwaul only beasts and demons can dance to. It aptly opened Playboy’s production of the sex and gore movie Caligula. Anyone who has seen the first Omen with Gregory Peck won’t easily forget the awesome fright from a little boy about to be the anti-Christ. An orchestra and choir belting O Fortuna in Carl Orff’s opera Carmina Burana take top place in eliciting all the goosebumps your body can produce. It’s just a short piece lasting no more than 4 minutes, but the frightening Halloween punch is unmistakable. The music was used by Michael Jackson in one of his music videos. From Michael Jackson Talk about Michael Jackson, you have to be a real hermit not to be moved by his collection of discomfited arrangements in the number one album of all time, his Thriller. You’ll even hear horror movie icon Vincent Price do a soliloquy in the title music’s intermission lull. This has got to be the Halloween pop music of all time. Not entirely frightening, but it’s the most danceable one for sure. The first time the music video came out, it was frightening all right. Getting it to play on your multichannel sound system somehow loses the horrific impact it had. But get a load of it this Halloween as a personal tribute to the late King of Pop. GP | 
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