Chopin's Funeral March (with ghosts!)

Last night, while thinking about music I might use to frighten the trick-or-treaters, I posted on Twitter links to Horowitz playing the 3rd and 4th movements of Chopin's second piano sonata. The 3rd movement is perhaps the most famous funeral march ever written, but the ghostly 4th movement is even more harrowing - just frighteningly fast unison triplets played mostly at a deathly whisper, often described as "wind howling around the gravestones."

3rd mvt		4th mvt

So, naturally, I accidentally opened both videos at the same time and another mashup possibility was born. (You can easily experiment yourself by playing the above videos simultaneously.) I think this one works particularly well, hearing the funeral march in the foreground with the 4th mvt providing an eerie backdrop. I tweaked the tempi just a bit to make things end satisfactorily, so here you go. If you'd like to see the actual score, you can go here (pp.15-20), although the 4th movement notes aren't much easier to follow even when they're sitting still on the page.



Previous MMmashups: Canon a 2 Tempi ~ Campanella Canon ~ The Rite of Appalachian Spring ~ Webern in Mayberry ~ Four Roses