Thursday, October 31, 2013

Boo Review

Two years ago, I posted a set of creepy videos (many mine) for Halloween, and it's coming back from the dead here. So, my work for today is mostly done, but I'll just begin by adding this (from last month) to the mix.



...and now, let's revisit the past:


Boo (originally posted, 10/31/11)

I'm giving myself only five minutes to write this Halloween post, relying as it does on already existing multimedia:

For quietly scary fun, there's this mashup I created a couple of years ago, combining the final two movements of Chopin's Piano Sonata No.2. It features the most famous funeral march ever with the terrifying ghostly echoes of the whirlwind finale:



So, that's to set the mood.

Then there are these two videos which I regret to say I didn't create. But they're frightening visual companions to Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire. First...



The companion video is no longer on YouTube, but you can still view it on Facebook here.

So, no, I didn't make those, but they did inspire me to make this, which is pretty unsettling: (Check out the look on the sun's face.)



Now, let's pause for an ad from J. Peterman.


Here's my own little take on Pierrot lunaire, combined with some Stravinsky. Creepy clown!



And if you like Stravinsky jabbing at you unexpectedly, you might give this a try. [Click on image below.]



Finally, in light of the surprising intersection of wintry snow cover and October we're having here in the Northeast [remember, this was 2011], you can find all manner of creepiness in these various versions of Schubert's "Der Leiermann," from his song-cycle Winterreise. (None of these are mine: this is just a little playlist I put together for Twitter-based reasons a couple of days ago.) I'll embed one here, but you can find the others by following the link just above:



Enjoy the day!

2 comments:

mishmashmusic said...

That Chopin mash-up was unexpectedly creepy, indeed. That would fit into just about any manic scene in a horror film without a problem. I just listened to it with headphones. Heebie jeebies.

How did you stumble into that one and get that idea? It's such a natural (or perhaps unnatural) fit, in a most peculiar way.

It would be interesting to hear someone arrange this for a live performance, just for fun. Perhaps next Halloween?

http://pianosheetmusiconline.com/

MICHAEL MONROE said...

Thanks for the great comment! I stumbled on that connection via the classic "having two separate tabs start playing separate YouTube videos at once" accident. I would love to perform it live - perhaps a bit slower for whoever is running the last movement. I recently did a live recital of mashup experiments, but didn't have time to prepare this one. That and this are the mashups I'd most like to try out live - the latter with three violinists, of course.