Spooktacular 2024
Programme
Welcome to our special concert of spooky music! With witches and wizards, goblins, trolls and even dancing skeletons, we have everything for a perfect musical Halloween! So hold on to your pumpkins and let’s get started!
In the Hall of the Mountain King
This piece was written by a Norwegian composer called Grieg
It is part of a story about a boy called Peer Gynt who falls in love with a girl but is not allowed to marry her
He is upset and runs away from home to the mountains, where he is captured by trolls and taken to their king
He tries to escape but the trolls chase after him and he even runs into the troll king himself, but manages to get away in the end
It has a famous spooky tune at the beginning, starting low in the orchestra
Listen out for the sound of footsteps as Peer creeps through the hall. The orchestra plays the tune with short quiet notes like walking on tiptoe
Now he’s running to escape.
Peer comes face to face with the troll king!
Don’t worry, he gets away in the end!
Tam o’Shanter Overture
This piece was written by Malcolm Arnold, an English composer
It is based on a poem by a famous Scottish poet called Robert Burns and tells the story of a Scottish farmer named Tam o’Shanter
See if you can hear some Scottish sounding music in the piece
Tam has a night out with his mates at the pub and has a bit too much to drink!
Listen out for the funny bassoon at the start of the piece playing the part of drunk Tam who can’t walk in a straight line! (It’s ok to laugh!)
He tries to walk home and stumbles into a church full of goblins and witches dancing
Tam is very scared so gets on his horse to escape, chased by evil spirits
Hear how the music sounds like a chase with lots of fast notes going up and down
Danse Macabre
Dance Macabre is a piece for orchestra written by a French composer called Camille Saint-Saens
This piece tells the story of a scary Halloween night when skeletons come out of their graves to dance!
They appear at midnight and dance until the rooster crows in the morning, then they have to disappear back into their graves until next year!
Listen for how the music sounds like a scary dance
The oboe plays the part of the rooster
When the piece was first performed nearly 150 years ago the audience hated it!
We hope you enjoyed it better today!
Night on a Bare Mountain
This piece was written by Modest Mussorgsky, a Russian composer, but never performed in his lifetime
His teacher hated the music, and said it wasn’t good enough to perform. We think it is!
It was arranged by another Russian composer, his friend Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and that is the famous version that is performed today
The piece became very famous from the popular Disney animated film Fantasia
It tells the story of a night when witches gather on a mountain, chatting and playing tricks while waiting for their boss, the devil, to arrive
The witches have a wild and scary party lasting all night with lots of wild witchy dancing!
Listen to how the orchestra all plays together, creating a loud and chaotic soundtrack to the party!
When the church bell strikes 6 in the morning and the sun comes up, the witches disappear
You can hear the instruments fall silent at this point as the party ends suddenly and the witches go back home
Finnegan’s Wake
This fun piece was written by an Irish composer called Archibald Potter, (no relation to Harry Potter!)
It tells the story of a naughty but nice Irish man, Tom Finnegan
Tom, who liked whisky a bit too much, falls off a ladder at work and everyone thinks he is dead
While Tom is stretched out waiting for his funeral, some of his naughty friends start fighting
They accidentally break a bottle of whisky, and the drink falls on to Tom’s body
The whisky magically brings Tom back to life!
He suddenly stands up and starts swearing at the people at the funeral party!
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
This piece was written by another French composer, Paul Dukas
It is his most famous piece of music
A sorcerer is like a wizard and an apprentice is a trainee
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was made very famous by the popular Disney animated film Fantasia
If you haven’t seen Fantasia, check it out soon. You’re in for a treat!
The film stars Mickey Mouse as the apprentice who is keen to learn how to be a sorcerer
The slow spooky music at the start represents the sorcerer making magic spells
When the sorcerer goes to bed, Mickey borrows his magic hat and makes his own spell
Using magic, Mickey gets a broomstick to help him carry buckets of water to fill a big cauldron!
Mickey falls asleep and dreams that he is in up in the sky, controlling the stars with magic
Making the clouds rain, and creating thunder
He wakes up and sees lots and lots of brooms, all carrying water and flooding the room!
He looks for the spell to stop the brooms, but almost drowns in the water!
The sorcerer wakes up and uses magic to make the water disappear
Mickey returns the magic hat and broom, and sheepishly sets off to fill the buckets himself
The piece ends with the sorcerer giving Mickey a kick on the backside!
