spooky violin solos

May 9, 2007 at 09:51 AM · Hi Jennifer,

if it's a Halloween-fun-event, check out transcriptions for the Harry Potter Theme or music of these movies. My niece played it last year on Halloween, kids are crazy for it. There're dozens of several transcriptions, some are with music-minus-one-CD.

Oh - I just read you asked for an violin/orchestra piece, sorry... :/

May 9, 2007 at 01:08 PM · Saint-Saens made an arrangement, I believe, of Danse Macabre for violin and piano. Anyway, I know it's been published somewhere.

May 9, 2007 at 06:38 PM · Listening to the majority of Suzuki students play the Bach Double Concerto gives me the spooks :)--oh, and Congratulations. Your student certainly doesn't fit in that category. He's an excellent player and deserves to be heard.

May 9, 2007 at 07:39 PM · One word: Bartok

May 9, 2007 at 08:24 PM · Faust

May 10, 2007 at 02:28 AM · check out the selections on Gil Shaham's Devil's Dance.

- includes Devil's trill, Ysaye Obsession, etc

May 10, 2007 at 03:14 AM · It does need to be something with orchestra accompaniment.

What would you say about the level of difficulty of Danse Macabre? I think it'll be a challenge, but I think we can pull it off by October.

May 10, 2007 at 07:03 AM · also consider Bolcom's Graceful Ghost Rag - a fun piece. not sure if there is an orchestral accompaniment for that though (frankly, i'm not sure i'd want to hear an orchestral version.)

May 10, 2007 at 01:56 PM · my orchestra did danse macabre a few months ago. my friend did the solo part, and he said it was pretty easy, alot of open strings and such. but he was working on saint saens intro and rondo which might have made things easier for him to get used to the style of the composer or whatever. we probably worked on the piece for 3-4 months together.

May 10, 2007 at 02:14 PM · Go find a good pianist and have him/her play Liszt's "Totentanz." (just kidding...but it's the spookiest piece I can think of outside of Ligeti and Kurtág.)

Armand, Bartók did write some nice spooky music, but not so much for the violin. "Bluebeard's Castle" is really creepy, but it's an opera. Most of his violin stuff is the folk fiddle dragged into the concert hall. :)

May 10, 2007 at 03:00 PM · I don't know about you but I think Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances for Violin and Piano are pretty scary, especially the 3rd dance with the harmonics. It sounds like a ghost whistling on a dark and lonely night, if played the right way anyhow.

May 10, 2007 at 05:46 PM · Hmm...yes, the third one could be made to sound pretty spooky, what with the unfamiliar (to most) tonality, not to mention the cool harmonic effect. It's supposed to sound like a shepherd's flute, but I guess a whistling ghost is as good an interpretation as any... :)

May 11, 2007 at 02:23 PM · There are a few creepy type halloween songs at sheetmusic.com, if you type halloween in the other searches category, then in the narrow search box,violin there maybe a few good ones for you to choose from. Although for ome reason, they don't have a lot of their scores listed under that search, so you'll probably have to go through the tiresome task of searching through their entire violin scores section.