3 Creepy Selections of Halloween Music

Dear Muse,

Every year around Halloween, you can expect to hear these familiar favorites: Danse Macabre, Night on Bald Mountain, Nightmare Before Christmas songs, Michael Jackson's Thriller, etc. They're all fitting choices for the holiday, and anything with a Vincent Price monologue is good for a few shivers here and there.

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But, these pieces have become pretty routine. There are three others that I don't hear often enough at this time of year, even though I think they're just as good - or better - at making people jittery after dark. (At least, that's how they affect me.) Thus, here are my three ideas for additional Halloween music to listen to. (And if it turns out that these are actually quite common Halloween tunes, or are nothing new and exciting for your ears, I still would highlight them because they creep me out the most.... or make me want to creep under the bed.)

3 Creepy Selections of Halloween Music 

1. "Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat" (Tchaikovsky)

Yeah, I know what you're probably thinking: "Classical cat music?!? I mean, if it was about black cats, that would be one thing - but what's scary about Puss-in-Boots?!?"

Well... do you remember the scene in Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent bewitches Princess Aurora to touch the spinning wheel? The animation was creepy enough, but as a kid I was far more freaked out by the music accompanying it. That music was "Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat," from Act III of Tchaikovsky's 1889 ballet The Sleeping Beauty.  

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Coincidentally, this piece was not part of any scary scene in Tchaikovsky's ballet; it actually was part of the happy ending. At the wedding of Princess Aurora and Prince Désiré, fairytale characters perform dances - Pas de caractère/Pas de quatre - to celebrate the royal union. While the dance of Puss-in-Boots and the White Cat was not intended to be frightening in Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty adaptation, Disney used it to great effect in the Scary Spindle scene. Its haunting strains still echo in my memory today. 

2.  Any of the Harry Potter soundtracks (from the first two movies) involving Voldemort, the Forbidden Forest, the Chamber of Secrets, wandering the halls at night, or anything else ominous (Williams). 

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OK, I know this is kind of cheating, since it isn't one specific piece of music. But these soundtracks combined represent "Eerie Harry Potter music." They're all hair-raising in different ways, mainly because they all serve as buildup to the reveal of something scary. 

What do I mean by this? Think of the library scene in the first movie: the buildup of ghostly chamber music enhances the ominous atmosphere and creepy imagery (like Harry's disembodied hand carrying a lantern through the dark) and adds to viewers' unease before the actual shock of the screaming book happens. It is scenes like this one where Williams' music excels in stimulating deep-seated fear.  

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Sorceror's Stone and Chamber of Secrets have many more scary scenes than the other movies in the series do, simply because the music adds to their overall suspense and mystery. Scenes with Voldemort/Quirrel in the Forbidden Forest, Knockturn Alley, bloody messages etched on the walls, spiders scuttling through the passages, or Harry's journey to the Chamber of Secrets are frightening mainly because the music creates such good suspense. It makes the viewer that much more receptive - and the payoff much more striking - when the scary whatever-it-is materializes on screen. It's why I could be more afraid of Voldemort in Sorceror's Stone and Chamber of Secrets than of the later Voldemort or even the dementors; more than any other Harry Potter soundtrack, the first two movies' soundtracks foreshadowed Voldemort as a terrifying and ghastly figure before I even saw his face. For that reason, when he finally revealed himself to Harry, he was just as awful as the music suggested.  

Thus, I say kudos to Williams: more than any other composer, he knew how to make Harry Potter legitimately unnerving.  

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3.  Fifth Movement of Symphonie Fantastique, Op. 14: "Songe d'une nuit de sabbat"/ "Dreams of a Witches' Sabbath" (Berlioz)

This piece I saved for last, because it is the closing movement of Berlioz' dramatic Symphonie Fantastique. According to Michael Austin's translation, the 1855 version of the symphony can be summarized as follows: 

 A young musician of morbid sensitivity and ardent imagination poisons himself with opium in a moment of despair caused by frustrated love. The dose of narcotic, while too weak to cause his death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by the strangest of visions, in which his experiences, feelings and memories are translated in his feverish brain into musical thoughts and images. His beloved becomes for him a melody and like an idée fixe which he meets and hears everywhere. (see Programme of the symphony)

Over the course of the symphony's five movements, the young musician has five different dreams (see translation for further detail). After being beheaded in the Fourth Movement, he awakens in the Fifth Movement at a witches' sabbath - or in the underworld - to behold a score of demons who have amassed for his funeral. As the music builds to its climax, his beloved is revealed to be at the head of the procession.... and then he awakens from his nightmare.  

"Songe d'une nuit de sabbat" is truly unique in its eeriness. Its sweeping crescendoes and crashing notes make me jump with their suddenness, its bell dirges pierce the movement with gloom, and its skittering strings and sonorous brass animate every ghoulish and batlike beast that can be conjured by the imagination. Berlioz' Fifth Movement masters the art of interchanging grand with grotesque; funereal with demonic; lugubrious with gleeful. It sums up all the best musical elements of the supernatural, leaving a deeper impact on my memory than any other piece of Halloween music ever composed. In my personal opinion, this makes it the creepiest selection of Halloween music I have ever heard. 

The Best Kind of Song

Dear Muse,

Do you know what the best kind of song is? I'll tell you: the BEST kind of song is a song with an ABA pattern that echoes another song in its B section. This type of song is typically found near the end of a musical. (I know, go figure. But I'm on a roll with showtunes stuff for the moment, so I might as well keep it rolling.)

The reason I like this type of song is because it's like a bonus deal: you get two songs for the price of one. Often the tune that's echoed in the B section of the best kind of song is (on its own) too monotonous, too brassy or too-something for you to want to listen to the whole thing. But when it's a snippet inside another song, the too-something song comes across as a refresher rather than a headache. The snippet-song is brief enough to enjoy, but not so long as to distract you from the song that encompasses it.

The best kind of song can represent many things, depending on what its B section echoes and what role it plays in the musical's plot. It can be an angry, bitter mockery of a character's earlier, more optimistic song (as in "See What It Gets You" from Anyone Can Whistle).

It can be an extra note of hope, reminding the audience of the characters' promising future and rounding out a blossomy love song (as in "Yesterday I Loved You" from Once Upon a Mattress).

 It can be an ironic indication of waning romance as a character moves beyond their relationship (as in "An Orthodox Fool" from No Strings).

Or it can be a recollection of an antagonized character's battle cry, reminding them why they fight against injustice and hardening their resolve (as in "When I Grow Up" from Matilda). Whatever the case may be, the B section of the best kind of song makes the entire thing more profound, more mellifluous, and more captivating.

To get a better idea of what I mean, listen to some of the songs I mentioned (attachments below). Then see if you can guess the name of the tune echoed in each B section!

                                                                                   'Till next time,
                                                                                                 Ariel

The Interracial Romance We Forgot

Dear Muse,

From childhood on, we've been exposed to some pretty big musical duos: Gilbert & Sullivan, Simon & Garfunkel, Lennon & McCartney... and of course, Rodgers & Hart / Rodgers & Hammerstein. Anyone who knows "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" or "The Lady is a Tramp" knows Rodgers & Hart. And due to our culture's influx of songs from The Sound of Music, Oklahoma! and The King and I, even more people have had Rodgers & Hammerstein ingrained into their subconscious.

But what do we know of Richard Rodgers alone? Not much, that's for sure. Most of what we know about him involves his collaboration with either Lorenz Hart or Oscar Hammerstein II. Still, Rodgers did create a musical - his only solo project after Hammerstein's death in 1960 - with no collaborators whatsoever. That musical? No Strings. 

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No Strings is a 1962 musical about fashion model Barbara Woodruff and expatriate novelist David Jordan who have a love affair in Paris. Woodruff and Jordan were played by Diahann Carroll (of Julia and Dynasty fame) and Richard Kiley (the original Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha), respectively.

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The plot plays into the double meaning of the show's title, which  is called "No Strings" because:

1. the couple parts ways at the end with "no strings attached," and
2. the orchestration is done completely without stringed instruments.

Nowhere does this double meaning shine out more than in the opening (and closing) song, "The Sweetest Sounds." Here's how the No Strings blurb from Broadway: The American Musical describes it:

In this haunting opening number, Rodgers had the couple sitting on opposite sides of the stage, and the song appeared to conjure up a love affair between two lonely people (and, in a neat irony, its reprise at the final curtain suggested the whole story was simply a wistful daydream). (25)

Whenever I hear "The Sweetest Sounds," I imagine the opening scene roughly like this:

I'll admit that my picture doesn't do justice to this beautiful song. But I totally agree with whoever wrote that blurb - "The Sweetest Sounds" is haunting.

Although the irony of the story/ orchestration is all well and good, the interracial romance especially intrigues me. You don't see many musicals nowadays focused on interracial romances. (Except for West Side Story, Once On This Island, and Memphis... but that's still not a lot.)

It's interesting to note that neither Samuel A. Taylor's book nor Rodgers' score specifically mentioned race, and the only indication Woodruff provides of being African-American is her reference to growing up around Harlem (see Background in No Strings wikipedia article). The two leads could have been cast with same-race actors and it wouldn't affect the story at all. Nevertheless, Carroll's casting and the characters' reluctance to discuss race made the show "socially progressive" and pretty controversial. (That, and it took place around the start of the Civil Rights movement.)

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But with all this in mind, all I can think is, "why wasn't there a revival of this show?" It has good songs. It has an excellent cast. It has some really amusing social commentary. It has music by Richard Rodgers, for crying out loud!! Plus, it's different from most romantic musicals, because the two lovers don't end up together and live happily ever after. Wouldn't that make it unique enough to justify revival? WHY would it just run for over a year, and then sputter out of public consciousness? WHY haven't theater companies made an effort to bring it back?!? It wouldn't be that controversial by today's standards, so I think theater-goers could enjoy it.

In fact, reviving No Strings would be worthwhile just to see how differently people today would react to the interracial stuff, compared with audiences in 1962. Given how much progress we've made in the spheres of race, women's rights and LGBTQ rights, I think today's somewhat-more-tolerant American public would appreciate No Strings a lot more.

Until a No Strings revival graces the stage again, however, here are several songs you can enjoy. Some are beautiful, some are funny, some are wistful, and all are moving. Have a listen - you won't regret it.

                                                                        'Till next time,
                                                                                 Ariel

Promises, Promises: Take Two

Dear Muse,

Maybe I was too hasty when I said that Promises, Promises didn't give me much to write about. Due to a recent re-listening which opened my eyes (and ears) to some dazzling songs, I have had a change of heart. So, without further ado, here's "Promises, Promises: Take Two."

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To be honest, I make a lot of hasty judgments when I listen to music for the first time. If it doesn't immediately wow me, I decide there's not much to it and dismiss it from my mind. Sometimes, though, I wait a while and then give it a second chance to see if I missed something. In Promises, Promises' case, giving it a second chance proved that I had missed a LOT. About a third of the songs were real zingers. As to why, well... I'll get to that later.

Before we talk about Promises, Promises, however, we'll need to talk about what it's adapted from. Like Applause (see March posts), this show is a musical retelling of a classic film noir: Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960). 

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The Apartment is a complicated sort of How to Succeed in Business-tale, albeit sweeter, warmer, and funnier. A lonely office drudge named C.C. Baxter ("Chuck"in the musical) works at a national insurance corporation and lives in an apartment. In exchange for letting his managers borrow his apartment for their extramarital affairs, Baxter receives glowing recommendations from them, allowing him to climb the corporate ladder. Eventually, the director (Sheldrake) hears about it and convinces Baxter to let him use the apartment for himself so that he can continue an extramarital affair with an old fling, Fran Kubelik - who also happens to be Baxter's crush. (In the movie, she's an elevator operator; in the musical, she's a waitress at the company cafeteria.)

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Upon learning that Sheldrake has been lying to her, Ms. Kubelik attempts suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills at Baxter's apartment. Baxter rescues her from death and, while he nurses her back to health, the two fall in love. Eventually, his love for Ms. Kubelik enables him to grow a backbone and walk out on his corrupt supervisors once and for all.

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Now for a few words on the adaptation, Promises, Promises. My liking for the musical is kind of weird, because it's divided between the original 1968 version (starring Jerry Orbach and Jill O'Hara) and the 2010-11 revival (starring Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth). While I vastly prefer Orbach as Chuck Baxter, I prefer Kristin Chenoweth as Fran. (Come on, it's Galinda from Wicked!! Who wouldn't love her as Fran?!?) Hayes can't hold a candle to Orbach's performance. As for O'Hara, she sounds like she's singing through laryngitis compared to Chenoweth. The reason I love songs like "Half as Big as Life" and "Knowing When to Leave" is because Orbach and Chenoweth (respectively) make those songs.

Fortunately, no one better understands my obsession with this sort of thing than my friend DivaStar. A fellow choir member and showtunes nerd, she's one of the only people I know with whom I can have meaningful discussions about various musicals in which neither person gets bored. (It probably helps that she's acted in several musicals herself.)

Also, since DivaStar likes a lot of "brightly-colored" musicals (e.g., musicals that are loud and showy, like How to Succeed in Business, Newsies, Phantom of the Opera, etc.), discussing the bombastic Promises, Promises with her was a lot of fun. Especially the parts we agreed on. For example, I introduced this idea to her the other day:

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Although she isn't as familiar with Promises, Promises as I am, we both agreed that Orbach + Chenoweth would make for a MUCH improved show overall.

But perhaps YOU should decide about Promises, Promises for yourself. Check out some of the songs I've attached in music players below, and see what you think. ("I'll Never Fall in Love Again" does involve Jill O'Hara from the original cast, but since it's the only song I think she sounds decent in, I've included it here.)

                                                                             'Till next time,
                                                                                           Ariel


P.S. Also, I was a bit hasty in judging Jerry Orbach before I heard this musical. I'll admit, I didn't like him in The Fantasticks. But now that I've experienced Promises, Promises, I think he's thrilling.

Where's the Love in "My Immortal"?

Dear Muse,

Maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe I'm making mountains out of molehills. Either way, the video for Evanescence's "My Immortal" frustrates me.





This was another component of the music mix Band3 sent me. Ironically, I've heard this song many times before, and always liked it. But I'd never seen the video for it before. And when I did, I found much to immediately dislike about it.

One problem with the video is how the imagery connects to the lyrics. The song is about a woman (played by Amy Lee) whose former lover left her, and now she can't get him out of her head. How does she show it?

• By hardly expressing any emotions. 

To be fair, some people who go through depression reach a point where they can't emote, because their emotions become numbed or deadened. (No one better expresses this emotionless-ness than Allie Brosh of hyperboleandahalf - just read her "Depression Part Two" post.) If this seemed like the case for Lee's character, then I could let the issue go. But her emotionless-ness doesn't seem like a depression issue - it's more like she's acting emotionless to make the video darker and edgier, and add more emo undertones to her character. Which is partly why the video doesn't work. Instead of making her character sympathetic, Lee's emotionless acting results in a performance that's both robotic and melodramatic.

In any case, whether a character overacts or underacts (and Lee seems to be doing both), they have to convey some sort of feeling I can identify with. If Lee was depressed and I could clearly sense that, the video might communicate its message of loss and lingering over the past successfully. But she doesn't communicate it clearly enough to me. Lee's failure to really emote here thus impairs the message she wants to get across.

• By NOT daydreaming about him, following him, glimpsing him in a cafe in passing, portraying montages of their past romance together, or doing anything that would better indicate Lee and her lover actually had any connection before this video. 

Throughout the video, the man and woman are in two different places, doing completely different things. Neither one looks particularly put out about being alone and doing his/her own thing. For that matter, since the two are so alienated, you could replace the man with any other guy and the lack of connection wouldn't be any different. Face it: there is no palpable connection between these two. (Which begs the question, how plausible is it that this guy is "your immortal" if you two are so distant?)

• By talking about how she wiped away his tears, fought all his fears, and held his hand over the years. 

I don't see any evidence in the video to suggest that the man was ever prone to crying, or that the woman was capable of providing such support. To provide that kind of support, you'd need to be a tough type or a matronly type; and either way, you'd need to be a strong woman. Given how Lee dresses, moves and acts, she doesn't communicate "strong woman." More like a fragile femme on the verge of collapse - that is, when she's not acting all emo.

I guess the bright side of this is that, even if I find Evanescence's music video egregious, there are plenty of good AMVs of "My Immortal" on Youtube to keep me liking the song.

                                                                                 -Ariel