Dance of the Macabre
Danse Macabre (first performed in 1875) is the name of Opus 40
by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns.According to the ancient superstition, "Death" appears at
midnight on Halloween. Death has the power to call forth the dead from their graves to dance for him while he plays
his fiddle. Skeletons dance for him until the first break of dawn,
when they must return to their graves until the next year.
Music of the Night
The Music of the Night" is a song from the musical The Phantom of the Opera.
The music was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics by Charles Hart.
It is one of the show's most famous songs and one of the most famous songs in musical theatre.
Monster Mash
"Monster Mash" is a 1962 novelty song and the best-known song by Bobby "Boris" Pickett.
Pickett was an aspiring actor who sang with a band called The Cordials at night while going
to auditions during the day. One night, while performing with his band, Pickett
did a monologue in imitation of horror movie actor Boris Karloff while performing
The Diamonds' "Little Darlin'". The audience loved it and fellow band member,
Lenny Capizzi encouraged Pickett to do more with the Karloff imitation.
Toccata and Fugue in D minor
The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is a piece of organ music commonly attributed to
Johann Sebastian Bach, composed sometime between 1703 and 1707.
It is one of the most famous works in the organ repertoire, and has been used in a variety of
popular media ranging from film, to video games, to rock music,
to cellphone ringtones and used for the autumn holiday Halloween.
A Night on Bald Mountain
"A Night on the Bald Mountain"> usually refers to one of two compositions—either a seldom
performed early (1867) 'musical picture' by Modest Mussorgsky, "St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain" ), or a
later (1886) and very popular 'fantasy for orchestra' by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov,
"A Night on the Bare Mountain", based almost entirely on Mussorgsky's themes.
The Leopold Stowkowski arrangement in the Disney movie ""Fantasia" is one of the most famous.
It can also be heard in the movie "The Wizard of Oz" in the scene where Dorothy is rescued from the castle.
A rock version was popular in 1975.
Prelude and Fugue in A minor
"The Great" Prelude and Fugue in A minor", BWV 543 is a piece of organ music written by
Johann Sebastian Bach sometime around his years as court organist to the
Duke of Saxe-Weimar (1708-1717). It is the final incarnation of Bach's
in the harpsichord Fugue in A minor, BWV 944, written in 1708.
Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo
"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", (also called "The Magic Song") is a novelty song,
written in 1948 by Al Hoffman, Mack David, and Jerry Livingston.
It was introduced in the movie Cinderella in 1950. The lyrics of the song, as with the title,
are composed nearly entirely of nonsense, featuring the title of the song.
In the Hall of the Mountain King
"In the Hall of the Mountain King" is the fourth part of a set of musical pieces written
for the Grieg's Peer Gynt orchestral suite. In the story of Peer Gynt,
gnomes taunt and chase him after he has refused to marry the daughter of the Mountain King,
and this piece is designed to reflect this tumultuous chase. The music is built on a single
fragment of music that repeats and repeats, growing wilder and wilder until Peer Gynt
just can't take it any more! (Also known as "It's Halloween")
The Funeral March of a Marionette
The "Funeral March of a Marionette," has never lost its charm.
It was originally written as one of the movements of a Suite Burlesque, which was never completed.
The music in the beginning is supposed to tell the listener that two of the members of the
Marionette troupe have had a duel and one of them has been killed. It was most famously used as
the theme song for the TV show "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" .
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
The Sorcerer's Apprentice is the English name of Goethe's poem "Der Zauberlehrling" (1797).
Although Dukas's musical piece, first published in 1897, was already quite well known and popular,
it was made particularly famous by its inclusion in the 1940 Walt Disney animated film Fantasia,
in which Mickey Mouse plays the role of the apprentice.
The tale begins as an old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with chores to perform.
Tired of fetching water by pail, the apprentice enchants a broomstick to do the work for him -
using magic he is not yet fully trained in. The floor is soon awash with water, and the apprentice
realizes that he cannot stop the broom because he does not know how. Despairing,
he splits the broom in two with an axe, but each of the pieces transforms into a whole broomstick.
The broomsticks take up pails and resume their work, now faster than ever. When all seems lost in a
massive flood, the old sorcerer returns and quickly breaks the spell, saving the day.
Halloween Music
Adagio in G minor for strings and organ is a piece composed by Remo Giazotto and first published
in 1958. It was supposedly based on a fragment from a Sonata in G minor by Tomaso Albinoni purportedly found
amongst the ruins of the old Saxon State Library, Dresden, after it was firebombed by the Allies
during World War II. It is usually referred to as "Albinoni's Adagio", or
"Adagio in G minor by Albinoni, arranged by Giazotto", but it is Giazotto's original work,
and contains no Albinoni material
Now playing "The Haunted Waltz"
