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hm, i think Prokofiev's Toccata Op. 11. I'm working on it now...it's pretty evil sounding. Sort of like a train ride to heck! :p

To tell you the truth, Pendereski's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima didn't even scare me. When I first heard it, it sounded too much like a bartok. No theme, no melody, just...sound effects and it didn't really grab me. Although, I'll have to admit that it was a genius to come up with something like that, I didn't really find it scary, nor did it hit or make my heart pound.

If you want something that is scary, I found the Sonata Appassionata scary, the first time I heard it. Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor is pretty creepy as well.

I would say, Rachmaninoff etudes-tableaux op.33 #8, op.39 #1 and op.39 #6.
And most definitely, Prokofiev's 'Diabolical suggestion'.

Agreed. That thing terrifies me haha

I loudly disagree with that. To me it's even romantic! I love it.

Oh OK. I see your point, and I agree with it because you're right about that.
In this thread though, I am pointing pieces that *SOUND* satanic/evil, not ones that contain such symbolism.

you want satanic/evil- try the Listz transcriptions of Wagner!

I disagree that Scriabin's Vers la Flamme is satanic... i would say it's just the opposite - very uplifting, in a natural, primal sort of way - like a moth being attracted to a flame or light.

On the other hand, Scriabin's 6th sonata is just downright evil. It's even more evil than the black mass (8th sonata) and satanic poem, IMO, and Scriabin's too, he said himself he was afraid of this sonata and refused to perform it.

ironic too how some of the most "evil" pieces in the repertory are also some of the most challenging! I wouldn't recommend 90% of these pieces to anyone except aspiring concert pianists!!!

Instead of posting the same question again, I'm just going to resurrect this old thread, and save forum space (yay for search functions). That is to say, I'd like to chime in with my opinion on this whole 'evil music' thing.

A lot of the pieces which have been mentioned so far don't strike me as particularly evil, at least not in the sense I would define the term. Plenty of composers have explored the darker sides of human emotion, but these pieces are usually involved with depression or despair, even the more 'aggressive' ones like the second movement of Shostakovich's 8th string quartet. Liszt's Totentanz is more grand and bombastic than it is malevolent, with plenty of more playful passages as well. The music of Penderecki or Crumb sounds merely frightnening to me.

There seems to have been little composed that truly 'revels' in evil. There's plenty to turn to for joy, or sadness, and a vast spectrum of emotions in between, but not much when I want fury, the diabolical, the sadistic, or the nightmarish and grotesque. I wonder if, in the past, this had to do with composers actually being afraid or reluctant to, well, glorify evil.

Therefore, I usually turn to filmmusic (but these are often short and unsatisfying) or other genres. Some personal recommendations in filmmusic:

*Wojciech Kilar - The Ninth Gate - Opening titles (not to be confused with the 'theme from the Ninth Gate', which is titled 'Vocalise)
*Danny Elfman - Sleepy Hollow - Main titles
*Danny Elfman - Batman Returns - The Cemetary
*Danny Elfman - Batman Returns - Selina Transforms
*Elliot Goldenthal - Batman Forever - Two-Face Three-Step
*Elliot Goldenthal - Interview with the Vampire - Santiago's Waltz
*Jerry Goldsmith - The Omen - Ave Satani
*Jerry Goldsmith - The Omen II - Main Titles
*Jerry Goldsmith - The Omen III - Main Title
*Jerry Goldsmith - The Omen III - The Ambassador

Then again, maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Further recommendations are welcome.

Ligeti Devil\'s Staircase

or

Scarbo

Good music. Real good music. It's quite underrated. You should check it out.

I wil say however, that some (if not all) of Scriabin's late sonatas are utterly phantasmagorical. But they have been mentioned

Fur Elise. Religion scholars believe that it is played on constant loop in the deepest recesses of heck.

I thought it was Pachelbel's Canon or The Beatles' Yesterday.

"The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of heck, a heck of Heav'n."

Paradise Lost, Book 1 254-255

Or, you say tomato I say tomato.

So let's call the whole thing off...