Need Halloween Violin Music

October 18, 2005 at 06:09 PM · Bazzini's Dance of the Goblins!! It's PERFECT for Halloween.

October 18, 2005 at 06:13 PM · Bazzini... "not too difficult"????? Less than a week?????

October 19, 2005 at 06:53 AM · only if I were good enough to put Bazzini together in less than a week...

October 19, 2005 at 08:35 AM · What about Bolcom's Graceful Ghost rag? It's not really "ghostly", instead quite peaceful, but at least it has the word "ghost" in the title.

October 19, 2005 at 11:33 AM · I was picturing a simple violin arrangement of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, but I don't know if it exists. Just thought it sounded like a Halloween piece.

October 19, 2005 at 05:14 PM · First movement of Tartini's "Devil's Trill" Sonata is always nice.

October 19, 2005 at 05:55 PM · There is a violin and piano arrangement of Danse Macabre, and it's by Saint-Saens himself. It's not too difficult. There's a recording of it (with other "devil-music" by Rachel Barton)...Ooops, just realized you didn't want to hear about that again. Sorry.

Come to think of it. You know what has alway struck me as an eeriely atmospheric piece? The 1st movement of the Shostakovitch Concerto #1.

October 19, 2005 at 07:17 PM · I just picked up a cd by Rosamunde Quartett called Tigran Mansuraian - String Quartets.

No idea who the composer is/was nor the people playing it. But this is some pretty evil sounding music and would defintely be suitable for Halloween.

October 20, 2005 at 09:28 PM · It is not a good idea to play Schostakovich...

Choose something like Witches's Sabbath By Berlioz, or "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Grieg (1st suite), or some fragment from "The Firebird" by Stravinsky, or some Capricco by Paganini, or "Pieter and the Wolf" or fragments from "Cinderella" by Prokofieff(there are an excellent arrangements for violin and piano), or you can take lots from operas by Rimsky-Korsakov...

October 21, 2005 at 12:28 AM · THE GRACEFUL GHOST! I WAS JUST GOING TO RECCOMEND THAT - SOMEONE HAS EXCELLENT TASTE! LOVELY PIECE!. You'll sure to please everyone with the Graceful Ghost.

Jim W. Miller

October 21, 2005 at 03:45 AM · All of Balcom's ghost rags are great. But I wasn't crazy about the vln/piano arrangement I heard of Graceful though. I'd like to hear Lelia Josefowicz playing a John Novacek arrangement. Gotta hear Bolcom's violin concerto sometime too. I believe the ghost rags are dedicated to his late father.

Less than a week...edit yourself an easy version of Devil's Trill?

October 23, 2005 at 05:13 PM · Well what I ended up playing was a medley of pieces. I started off with a bit of Danse Macabre made a few changes here and there since I was doing it unaccompanied. I then went into Phantom of the Opera which led into a rousing rendition of the Adams Family Theme...filled with a bit of singing on my part. The crowd loved it!

October 23, 2005 at 10:42 PM · Great improvisation. That was a good decision on your part. It was a great idea to pick songs that people would recognize and like.