Darkest Classical
 

Some people are always saying that 'heavier' types of music cause aggressive or violent thoughts. I know that for me, it can happen with any music at any time. There is definitely some classical out there that strikes a cord with my adrenal glands. Anyone else?

I don't know about aggressive or violent thoughts ... but how about:
Beethoven: Symphony #5
Rossini: William Tell Overture
Mozart: Turkish March
Shostakovich: Leningrad (there's a part about 17 min into it)
Grieg: In the hall of the Mountain King
And I dunno if this qualifies into "Classical" but Main Theme song from "The Rock"

The first canto from "Carmina Burana" SOUNDS scary; it's been used in a number of horror films; judging by the name of the canto ("O Fortuna"), I'm not sure it is intended to be scary, though. The last movement of Berlioz' "Symphonie Fantastique" IS a truly scary piece of music; it uses "Dies Irae" as a main theme, and THAT deals with the apocalypse.

The darkest classical music i know is also my favourite single piece of music in existance.

Henryk Gorecki- Symphony #3

But, if you mean "dark" as in "frightening and angry" check out any of the Omen soundtracks, composed by Jerry Goldsmith, preferably the first one. This is, hands down, the scariest music ever composed, and it's nice and "old" (unlike all the new movie scores now-a-days that all sound exactly alike. this music is truely unique)

Adagio for Strings gets my vote.

Which one of the two most familiar; Tomaso Albenoni or Samuel Barber?

Samuel Barber, definitely

I guess if you saw the film "Platoon", it could be considered scary; I always felt that it was more melancholy; it got a great deal of play after 9/11, but the first real noteriety was when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945, after that it was used regularly for sad national occasions; it's strange, I don't remember hearing it after the Kennedy assassination though.

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony 2nd and 3rd movements can scare up some confused/angry vibes. Its pretty intense.

Don't know the name of the piece off the top of my head, but when I read the title of this thread I thought of it right away. It was a Rachmaninoff piece.

Can't forget Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain...Not to be confused with David Shire's Night on Disco Mountain...:D LOL

I first heard this in high school when my music director gave me his CD featuring Dawn Upshaw. Incredible is about the only word I can use to describe it.

i know what you mean, it actually is usually classical that makes me think violent thoughts. heh. violent, hard music usually works as an outlet for them.