Nightmares, severed heads and shrieks of agony: Chamber musicians embrace the macabre for weekend concerts

Oct. 19—Halloween is right around the corner, and while some folks get into the spirit by partaking in zombie paintball, others may crave a more layered spooky experience with a compelling soundtrack.

"Twilight Zone," an eerie offering by Colorado Chamber Players, spotlights the dark, dramatic, stirring and gory works of the Baroque period.

"Halloween is by far my favorite holiday, and autumn itself is an incredible inspiration," said Barbara Hamilton, CCP's artistic director and violist d'amore. "While there is much wonderful Baroque music that is cheerful and motoric, even chirpy — think Vivaldi or Corelli — there is plenty of darker Baroque music."

Performances will take place at 6 p.m. on Friday at Epiphany Lutheran in Denver, Saturday at 2 p.m. at Montclair Civic Center in Denver and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at Broomfield Auditorium.

Tickets are $10-$22. There are also options to livestream Friday and Sunday's performances.

"I'm most looking forward to performing the repertoire CCP has chosen," said musician Sarah Biber, who will play the viola da gamba at the upcoming shows. "It spans the Renaissance and high Baroque. It's a wild ride."

There's a narrative quality to many of the arrangements — stories that may just prompt audience members to sleep with the lights on.

"I'm playing Marin Marais' 'Le Tableau de l'Operation de la Taille,' a narration of a gallbladder surgery," Biber said. "The gamba depicts the descent to the operating theater, the screams of agony and a recovery in E major. It's creepy and hilarious."

The intriguing piece is inspired by the real-life trauma the composer — who was a member of Louis XIV's royal court orchestra of Versailles — experienced going under the knife in 1720.

"Marais underwent the operation without anesthetic when he was 64 and lived to tell the tale," Hamilton said. "He set the operation to music and wrote a narration to the piece. His musical depiction makes the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. You can hear the shrieks of the patient in the gamba part."

During the song, Hamilton reads the detailed narration as the music captures the anxiety and pain of the experience note for note.

Biber's eloquent and zealous playing only adds to the titillating piece of music. She was drawn to the gamba because it has the range of a cello, but it also has the ability to play all parts — acting as the melodic lead or bass accompaniment.

"Its repertoire is vast — you can continent-hop from the U.K., Spain, France, Germany — and all composers of the time wrote for it," Biber said. "It was a favorite of J.S. Bach's, who used it for special spooky effects in both the 'St. John' and 'St. Matthew Passions.' It is fretted and more chordal than the cello and presents a fun challenge and puzzle for cellists."

One of the pieces in "Twilight Zone" was inspired by a chilling nightmare a composer had in 1713.

"We often have contact with the supernatural world through our dreams," Hamilton said. "Tartini's 'Devil's Trill Sonata' is the most supernatural piece on the program. Tartini was already a prolific composer for the violin when he dreamt that the devil came to him."

While in the throes of slumber, in the dream, Tartini gave into Lucifer's demands.

"In his dream, the devil offered Tartini an extraordinary sonata in exchange for Tartini's soul, and he accepted," Hamilton said. "When Tartini awoke, he notated what he could remember, which became the fiendishly difficult virtuosic work now known as the 'Devil's Trill Sonata.'"

While some think Tartini's dream is simply a nightmare that served as fodder for his best-known song, others speculate that perhaps he initially made a real pact with the dark lord in exchange for fame and fortune. Was he simply relaying a dream or was the piece of music a heavy confession?

Attendees can also revel in "Suite 19" from the Gottweig music archive.

"The suite evolves with some spooky dance movements and finishes with a ciaccona that sounds like a fight with a demon," Hamilton said

Hamilton's favorite piece of the program is Henry Purcell's "Fantasia," part of a set of 15 Fantasias for viol consort that he wrote during a two-month period of manic creativity in the summer of 1680.

"The 'Fantasias' have been compared to Bach's 'Art of the Fugue' in their complexity," Hamilton said. "The E minor 'Fantasia' is richly contrapuntal, so gorgeous, chocolatey and full of shadows."

Hamilton is hoping attendees will revel in the historic compositions and witness the power and depth this music holds.

"Although we won't be playing any music from the 'Twilight Zone' TV show, we want to share some unusual music from the Baroque era that will stimulate the imagination," Hamilton said. "The program is very much in the Halloween spirit and re-creates the mood that we so often experience in the autumn. The light starts to go away, we have more twilight and darkness, nature is transforming around us. We go from the brilliant colors we've seen these past few weeks, to more muted colors — the world of twilight."

While no fog and flickering candles will be a part of the production, The Colorado Chamber Players have invited Shakespearean actor Chris Kendall to read the dark work of The Bard himself, Emily Dickinson, Moya Cannon and Robert Herrick.

"The music and the poems are plenty atmospheric on their own," Hamilton said. "Chris (Kendall) is an incredible orator. We worked together for the CCP production of 'Incessant Hum' three years ago. I am most looking forward to sharing music with audiences that expresses the autumnal spirit — and that they may not be familiar with."

"I hope audiences are thoroughly entertained," Biber added.

Arapahoe Phil embracing the macabre

For years, chamber music played by passionate orchestras has been used in film to bring about jumps and gasps. Nothing like the swell of a violin or cello paired with the right scene to make viewers' hearts speed up.

Arapahoe Philharmonic, led by Devin Patrick Hughes — who also serves as the conductor for Boulder Symphony — is embracing the macabre mood with "The Haunting Concert Hall."

The show — that will feature songs from iconic movies, such as Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" from "The Exorcist" — will take place Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Lone Tree Arts Center, south of Denver.

Tickets are $12-$37. There is also an option to livestream the show.

"I love showcasing the orchestra with all different kinds of genres and music," Hughes said. "The show was created around the idea of music that scares us and concepts that are on the darker side of things. This can be found both in the standard classical repertoire, like Rachmaninoff and Berlioz, and, naturally, also in the horror film genre."

Danny Elfman is a name fans of the unusual are used to seeing when movie credits roll. He's composed songs for many of Tim Burton's cinematic gems including "The Corpse Bride," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Edward Scissorhands."

"Any time we get to play Danny Elfman is an immense joy and thrill not only to put together in rehearsal, but to share with our audience," Hughes said. "Elfman always seems to throw everything but the kitchen sink into his music, and 'Beetlejuice' is no different. For example, our pianist Jessica Kressin will be playing on three different keyboards to perform choral patches, synthesizer, organ and piano. The music flies by, connecting the spirit world to our own."

When Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" came out in the summer of 1975, it had beachgoers steering clear of the water and staying safe sunbathing on shore.

Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" had folks religiously locking bathroom doors and sometimes making a family member keep watch on the other side.

"'Jaws' and 'Psycho' are two films that would not be able to strike fear into their audiences without the music," Hughes said. "When John Williams composed the two note — E and F— theme to complement the shark's point of view as it seeks its next victim, he used the lowest possible note on the contrabass and in the orchestra."

For Hughes, getting to invite attendees to hear these songs without the visual component of film is extra special.

"Bernard Herrmann's score using only the strings to 'Psycho' holds us all in suspense for the entire film, and his string strikes during the shower scene, on the highest notes of the violin, are one of most iconic musical representations of horror in film and music history," Hughes said. "Experiencing this music without the film brings new dimensions to music's ability to move us as listeners and musicians."

Attendees are encouraged to get in on the Halloween action by donning their best imaginative get-ups.

"We are looking for originality and execution in the costume contest," Hughes said.

Best overall will receive a trophy and four tickets to Arapahoe Phil's December concert, "Holiday Classics." Runners-up will receive a trophy and an Arapahoe Philharmonic coffee mug.

Patrick Orr — winner of the International Keyboard Odyssiad and Festival's annual piano concerto competition — will play Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini."

"This also features the 'Dies Irae,' or day of reckoning, when judgment is cast upon all of us, and composers have used this musical idea for centuries to invoke the specter of mortality," Hughes said.

Other pieces include Hector Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique," a piece that aurally portrays a guillotine beheading with the orchestra simultaneously slamming a very loud chord, followed by by three plucked string notes — meant to mimic the sound of the severed head rolling down steps.

"This will be like trekking through a very scary haunted house, but instead the music allows us to imagine the story and create the different rooms with our imaginations," Hughes said.