IMSLP Forums

Just in time for Halloween, I suggest we compile a list of Vampire Music. Of the classical persuasion, of course (there are lot's of heavy metal and Goth songs about vampires and sucking blood.) Scary pieces, such as Night on Bald Mountain and Bach's Toccata in D minor, don't make the cut (so to speak.) I suggest only pieces with some connection to vampires (even indirect connections, such as Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata.)

BTW, about a week or so, a piece about vampires came into IMSLPF's new scans -- but I don't remember what it was.

MS

Was it Der Vampyr? Search it and you shall find...

No, it doesn't appear in Search. Perhaps it is too new. It was an African song about vampires.

However, Search does come up with a highly intriguing entry. Evidently Tchaikowski wrote a song for voice and piano entitled The Vampire. He composed it in 1893. Unfortunately, the sheet music for this song does not appear to be archived in IMSLP.

I surprised that no one has mentioned Marschner's 3-act opera 1828, Der Vampyr -- which was a big hit in 19th Century Germany. Equally surprising is that IMSLP's copy of the vocal score for this opera is blocked, evidently because it is still protected in the EU and the US, ostensibly because it was edited in 1925 by Hans Pfitzner, who died in 1949. Considering Pfitzner's involvement in, and his active support of, Nazism, it seems to me entirely appropriate that he edited this opera. At least in the EU, it should become PD soon.

In my book, the best music about vampires is the extraordinary film score that John Williams wrote for Francis Ford Coppola's version of Dracula. Dark, passionate, symphonic, complex and very English, this is, I think, the best film score that Williams has ever produced. I wonder if he ever made a suite.

Other works indirectly related to vampires come to mind. How about Wiener Blut, by Johann Strauss, Jr. Or Bela Bartok's Transylvania Dances. Debussy's Claire de Lune. Even Puccini's Nessun dorma seems appropriate. Or any work by Wolf.

MS

MS