A Collection of dark and moody pieces for Guitar. Easy to Advanced Level
1.
Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata
The first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 'Quasi una fantasia' in C sharp minor Op. 27 No. 2, 'Moonlight' is one of the most popular piano pieces ever written. The sonata got its name when poet Ludwig Rellstab described the music as being 'like moonlight shining on a lake' in 1832.
Like many classic folk ballads, the authorship of "The House of the Rising Sun" is uncertain. Musicologists say that it is based on the tradition of broadside ballads such as The Unfortunate Rake of the 18th century and that English emigrants took the song to America where it was adapted to its later New Orleans setting. Alan Price of The Animals has even claimed that the song was originally a sixteenth-century English folk song about a Soho brothel.
3.
Tchaikovsky - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is from the Nutcracker, one of the most famous ballets ever written. It evokes the twilight world of fairies and other magical creatures, as so vividly captured by Walt Disney in his Fantasia.
With more than a touch of graveyard lugubriousness, this piece is probably the most famous of all funeral marches. It has been used at the funerals of politicians such as John F Kennedy and Winston Churchill as well as appearing many times in popular culture.
The lilting, melancholic theme that opens this symphony is one of the composer's most well-known. The composition occupied an exceptionally productive period of Mozart's life of just a few weeks in 1788, during which time he also completed the 39th and 41st symphonies.
6.
Mozart - Lacrimosa dies illa from Requiem Mass K.626 as used in ...
Lacrimosa, meaning 'weeping' is the last section of the Dies Irae sequence from Mozart's Requiem. A Requiem or Requiem Mass, is a rite usually performed at a funeral. It contains some of the last bars of music penned by the composer and, appropriatelly, was used in the film 'Amadeus' to accompany the composer's burial.
Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" (original version 1875–77) is the love story of Prince Siegfried, who on a hunting trip encounters a flock of swans, falls in love with the Swan Queen, Odette, and swears his allegiance and undying love to her. The iconic 'Flight of the Swans' melody that begins the final scene to Tchaikovsky's ballet 'Swan Lake' is a fatalistic presence throughout the work. This movement begins with the same plaintive quality heard elsewhere, this time however building towards a more triumphant close.
8.
Berlioz - Dies Irae theme from Symphonie Fantastique (Theme from ...
A piece that might have you 'witching' you were somewhere else... It is the opening of the last movement of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, a depiction of a witches' sabbath though the medium of a fevered dream. If this horror is not enough, the main theme is an old melody used to set the words 'Dies Irae' ('Day of Wrath') used as part of a Requiem Mass (Mass for the Dead).
