Listeners scare up a creepy classical music countdown for Halloween

We asked listeners for their go-to creepy classical music choices to add a little spirit to a Halloween playlist. We count down their favorites:

10. Funeral March of a Marionette (Charles Gounod) Can’t you just hear Alfred Hitchcock’s sonorous “Good evening”? Most well-known as the theme for the suspense master’s TV anthology, it evokes shadowy puppets creeping into your room at night. The iconic melody begins at 0:33:

9. Hedwig’s Theme (John Williams) The main theme from the Harry Potter film series, which runs through all eight films, is appropriately spooky for this Gothic-lite tale of kid wizards and their evil nemeses.

8. Funeral March (Frederic Chopin) You’ve heard this dirge, a movement from Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 that was played at his own funeral, countless times as a harbinger of death. You can even sing along with it: “Pray for the dead, and the dead will pray for you.”

7. Psycho (Bernard Herrmann) C’mon, Marion, do you really need to take a shower? The story goes that Hitchcock originally didn’t want this scene to contain any music but was won over by Herrmann’s shrieking violins, which ratchet up the tension to 11.

6. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Paul Dukas) Composed in 1897, this work is most famously associated with the 1940 film Fantasia, whose eerie animated visuals are perfectly married to the music. Disney’s movie introduced a multitude of Mickey Mouse fans to classical music (including the top two pieces on this list), with The Sorcerer’s Apprentice one of the most memorable.

5. “March to the Scaffold” from Symphonie Fantastique (Hector Berlioz) The drumbeat of dread suffuses this movement, in which the representation of the guillotine’s fatal blow (4:27) is followed by a perversely uplifting ending.

4. “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt (Edvard Grieg) This piece, sampled extensively in film, TV shows and video games, starts slow and ploddingly, then gathers terrifying momentum. Who knew trolls could be so scary?

3. Danse Macabre (Camille Saint-Saens) The harp strikes 12 times, and then it’s time for the dead to dance. Once you get past the screeching strings, listen for the rattling bones of the xylophone (starting at 1:45).

2. Toccata and Fugue (Johann Sebastian Bach) Very Phantom of the Opera-like, it conjures a mad organist in a tower and is alternately ponderous and frenetic. The piece’s use during the silent-film era solidified its status as a sinister staple.

1. Night on Bald Mountain (Modest Mussorgsky) Another Fantasia favorite, Mussorgsky’s piece is based on the lore of a witches’ Sabbath ritual, using swirling strings and thundering brass to put us right on that accursed mountaintop.