13 Fantastically Dark Pieces of Classical Music

It’s probably true to say that all Goths are music lovers, and most Goths are certainly not adverse to classical music. Below I’ve listed some well-known classical pieces that will no doubt make any goth smile a black-lipped smile of pleasure. As Alex from A Clockwork Orange says, “Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited.”

13. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring

If you’ve watched Disney’s Fantasia, it might be hard to listen to this without thinking of dinosaurs, but the fact is this ballet (considered outrageously shocking when it was first performed) actually tells the story of a girl forced to dance herself to death in ritual sacrifice. The music is exotic, wild and very dark; the dancing in the actual ballet is also really something else.

12. Holst’s Uranus, the Magician

Alright, when you’ve stopped sniggering over the title…

Part of Holst’s Planets sequence (which is all incredible, by the way), Uranus is a wonderfully eccentric piece with weird time signatures and plenty of rumbling drums. Before the movies were actually made, I always thought this would have made a brilliant theme for Harry Potter. I can just imagine wizards riding past Hogwarts on broomsticks to the string segment about a minute and a half in.

11. Vivaldi’s Winter (especially the opening)

This piece has so much drama and tension, I can just picture some cloaked Gothic heroine riding through snowstorms to this music. Plus the intro sounds a bit like the famous string sounds from the shower scene in “Psycho.” My favourite of the Four Seasons by far.

10. Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5

A rather playful number. Like the Addams Family of all these pieces. But still a favourite classical piece for Halloween, probably thanks to its gypsy-ish overtones.

9. Wagner’s Siegfried’s Funeral

I think most fans of the movie Excalibur end up falling in love with this piece. Especially that climactic “DUN DUN!” after the quiet build-up. If any piece could make a funeral epic, it’s this one.

8. Verdi’s Requiem

Speaking of epic! Anything you do with this music in the background (playing cards, doing housework, making tea) will be transformed into the most grandiose spectacle imaginable. Just listen to it and feel your heart leap.

7. Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King

If you’re from the UK you’ll almost certainly know this piece as “the music from the Alton Towers ads.” Still, that doesn’t detract from how madly fun it is. I wish most Goth nights at clubs would kick off the evening with this. It would be awesome.

6. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake

I think all of Tchaikovsky’s folk-inspired ballets have a gothic tinge to them, but especially the regal, eerie theme of Swan Lake. Darren Aronofsky has forever sealed Swan Lake into the realm of the gothic with his disturbing Black Swan movie, which represented the cold, haunting mood of the original ballet really well.

5. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (1st movement)

After all that drama, it’s good to wind down with a peaceful classic number. Moonlight Sonata is a gothic classic, evocative of lonely dark rooms, cool night air, and melancholy musings.

4. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor

Immortalised as “Horror music” forever more by Hollywood, this piece is in fact a lot more clinical, mathematical even, than the more emotional numbers listed here. But the fact that it’s traditionally played on a single church organ is what elevates it to epic status. Imagine being the solo listener of this piece in some old little church at midnight…it would send shivers down your spine.

3. Mussorgsky’s Night on the Bare Mountain

Another piece made famous by Fantasia, wonderfully visualised as the Devil torturing souls of the damned (in a Disney film, no less!). And as classical music goes, it is pretty creepy, with plenty of folky violins and French horns conjuring the image of a witches’ Sabbath.

2. Saint-Saëns’ Dance Macabre

Out of all the pieces mentioned here, I think this one tells the clearest story. A ghoulish ball attended by dancing ghosts and skeletons that flee at the cock’s crow of dawn. I’ve heard this piece more times than I can count, but every time I do, I “see” new things in the music I never noticed before. Just check it out, and maybe you’ll see what I mean.

1. Carl Orff’s O Fortuna

Perhaps the Gothic Classical Masterpiece. Omnious choir singing in Latin? Check. Barely audible hissed whispers? Check. Gongs? Check. Used in Goth-friendly movies? Check. Even the lyrics, from medieval poem, are wonderfully grim: “Fate – monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent, well-being is vain and always fades to nothing.” That could have been written by a modern Goth band only yesterday…