Necrophillia Guy's Erotic Guide to Depressing Classical Music by Thomas Roche
Or: Music to Fuck to, Andante
It’s no surprise that a person using the moniker Necrophillia Guy has, um, esoteric tastes, or “special needs” as they are sometimes called. My taste in tunes, as in most other things, leans toward the macabre. No big shock there either, I suppose. After all, how appropriate would it be to set the stage for a necrophilliac encounter by playing Barry Manilow or Bad Company at top volume?
However, in this age of digital sound, there’s more to carnal soundtracks than Only Theatre of Pain and The Litanies of Satan (believe it or not). Sometimes we morbid types like to experience a little culture — that is, we like to get horizontal (or , in rare circumstances, vertical) to something that was recorded before 1977. This helps us to pretend that we’re occupying a long-ago, and infinitely cooler, era. So here’s a list of Necrophillia Guy’s five favorite composers who wrote really depressi ng stuff that you can still fuck to.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Bach is always a favorite. Put on the Mass in B Minor or the St. John Passion — or, if you’ve scored a date with a particularly well-preserved guest, Bach’s solo organ works (quit giggling!!). Playing the Tocatta and Fugue in D-Minor whilst reciting Byron will doubtless bring an “Ooooh, baby” from the most listless vampboy or ghoulgirl’s lips. If you’re like me, that’s not really the goal, but just thought I’d mention it. Bach’s sonatas and paritas for solo violin may also h elp you get in touch with that inner despondence, to mourn the passing of Western culture if you’re in to that sort of thing. Bach has the added advantage that his harpsichord concertos can help cheer you up once you’ve hit rock bottom.
Henryk Miroslav Gorecki: His Symphony No. 3 is subtitled the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. And he’s got a string quartet called Already it is Dusk. A symphony entitled Miserere. The first three minutes or so of Symphony No. 3 are played entirely on a string bass. Need I say more?
Sergey Rachmaninov: This man occupies a crypt only below Gorecki and Bach in my personal graveyard of musickal delights. His solo piano works are beautiful and his piano concertos quite affecting. But Rachmaninov’s true masterpiece is a little ditty called Isle of the Dead. It is a symphonic poem based on a truly disturbing painting by Swiss-German artist Arnold Boecklin. Isle of the Dead incorporates fragments of the Dies Irae, a hymn from the Catholic Requiem Mass. The title alone gives me a ha rd-on. Play this one if you’re lucky enough to pick up an actual dead person at Death Guild.
Carl Orff;: Orff’s masterpiece Carmina Burana has been abused by second-rate filmmakers in recent years, and may therefore evoke images of battle scenes in movies made for fifty-year-old straight guys to beat off to (eg Waterworld, Excalibur), but if y ou can get past that association, the piece is really quite phenomenally depressing. The lyrics are in Latin, so of course I can’t be sure, but it’s been hinted to me by one of my musically inclined friends that one of the segments in Carmina Burana is s upposed to be sung by a goose roasting on a spit. I think that pretty much spells it out, nest-ce-pas?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, or “Wolfie” as some affectionately refer to him: He died young. Extra points. Most of the time, this Austrian’s music is annoyingly perky. But his Requiem is, predictably enough, spooksville. Young Wolfie left the Requiem uncompleted at his death — It was completed by a man named Sussmayr, but you do not have to pronounce the guy’s name in order to enjoy the CD. Sweet Wolfie passed away — at a tragically young age — while composing this very requiem, which is why Sussm ayr got his chance at it. Stay far away from Mozart’s other works — particularly Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (don’t be fooled by the title!) — unless you’re trying to sell your sexual partner a German automobile or a gift-basket of California wine and impor ted goat cheese (not beyond the realm of possibility, I suppose, but . . . .).
Other notes: Anyone who’s seen The Hunger knows that the aria is the perfect accompaniment to the sharing of bodily fluids. Piano sonatas by Beethoven can really create a spooky atmosphere. And Chopin’s Nocturnes can be played any time of day, parti cularly if you turn out the lights, close the curtains and light a bunch of candles.
I have avoided an extended discussion of medieval music, because that goddamn Chant CD is on the shelves in every yuppie home in the Western hemisphere, and the lovely and talented Hildegard von Bingen has been equally colonized. But sacred music from the middle ages can be pretty hot to those of us who suffered through Catholic school. Another note to the clever: anyone who’s worked at a Renaissance Faire may have automatic sexual associations with lute or dulcimer music played after midnight, if y ou’re willing to put up with some person trying to tell you about their last Dungeons & Dragons adventure. And those of us with Celtic blood have been known to grow curiously aroused by the sound of bagpipes in the morning.
A final note to you SM weirdos out there: Not to give you any ideas, but it is not acceptable behavior for a devious top to handcuff and blindfold her/his bottom and then commence the playing of Wagner’s Charge of the Valkries at top volume. That so rt of torture is reserved for captive Republicans and classical-radio DJs who play songs from Broadway musicals.
Postscript: Don’t compose your own Requiem, OK? Take a moment post-Andante and pre-Allegro to protect yerself and yer partner. Please. Necrophilia Guy thanks you.
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Posted by Thomas Roche
on Saturday, October 1st, 2005. Filed under Uncategorized.
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