Just my nerdy thought of the day, which is that classical music, not often associated with horror or the shivers, can be downright terrifying sometimes. Top 3 scariest pieces I've encountered thus far are:
1) Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin--not the orchestral suite, which I think is a kind of lame abridged version (sorry, Bartok!) since it ends halfway before the story is through and leaves out some of the best/scariest parts, but the entire work. Even if you don't know that the piece is about a prostitute who lures three men, the last of which stares at her with green glowing eyes and is unable to be killed (despite being stabbed and beaten and hung from a chandelier) until she has sex with him, it's enough to scare the pants off any listener with proper senses. Especially the end, when his wounds begin to bleed and he finally dies...holy crap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyvFDdYM-rU (27:00-end is the worst.)
2) Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. The first time I heard this piece, I had to leave the concert hall, it was that upsetting...and that was before I read the poems it's based on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veUJxETj7-c
3) Berg's Wozzeck. The WORST! Induces fright that would make The Exorcist proud...I refuse to listen to the last scene of this opera alone. Wozzeck has killed his wife with a knife...a bunch of little children including his son find out and run off to see the body...the son is oblivious.
No link, because I'm too scared to find a video of it online and listen to make sure it's a good version. Search for it on your own, if you dare...seriously...it gives me the heebie-jeebies.
