The opening 3 minutes are both playful, and delightfully creepy; and are meant to invoke images of the devil playing a fiddle to riase the dead of the graveyard to dance for him on Halloween night. The piece then transitions into a carnival atmosphere, but there is always a faint undercurrent of menace to it.
I dunno about y'all, but listening to it, I can see it. The pieces makes the little hairs on the back of my neck rise when it's played right.
The piece has also been used in countless movies and TV shows as background music for wel... the macabre. Most recently I remember it being used in the background of the Buffy episode "Hush", where all the peoples voices were silenced. It was PERFECT.
You can get a free copy of the piece from wikipedia, but that particular version doesnt quite have the impact of some others I've heard. I think the best recording of it is from the Royal Philharmonic, as conducted by Charles DuToit (the 1991 re-release is technically far better than the 1980 recording).
Next up on the playlist, Carl Orffs Carmina Burana, followed by a full set of Queen favs to get me through the rest of the day (not in this order):
- Seven Seas of Rhye
- Hammer to fall
- Tie Your Mother Down
- Somebody to Love
- Show Must Go On
- I Can't Live With You
- Headlong
- I'm going slightly mad
- Play the Game
- Bicycle Race
- Fat Bottomed Girls
- One Vision
- A Kind of Magic
- Who Wants to Live Forever
- Gimme the Prize
- Princes of the Universe
- Sheer Heart Attack
- We Are the Champions
- We Will Rock You
- Bohemian Rhapsody
- Keep yourself alive
- Stone Cold Crazy
- Now I'm Here
- Killer Queen
Nothing like a little Queen to get my energy up; ESPECIALLY the highlander suite from "a kind of magic.
