César Franck wasn’t born on Halloween, but his most dramatically frightening programmatic work was. Completed on October 31, 1882, The Accursed Hunter is a tone poem which tells the story of a nobleman who breaks one of the ten commandments by going hunting on the Sabbath.

The piece begins with obvious hunting calls, and church bells attempting to call the hero to Sunday worship. Ignoring the bells, he enters the deep woods where a demonic voice curses him: he is condemned to be pursued by demons for all eternity!

Something to think about, next time you feel like skipping church.

Nothing is quite as inspiring as a dirty piece of poetry.

Well, that’s how it all began. Stéphane Mallarmé wrote a sexy poem called “The Afternoon of a Faun“, in which a faun dreamily describes some intimate experiences he had with some nymphs that morning. The poem is highly effective at creating an erotic mood, and is considered one of the finest ever written in French. Enter Claude Debussy, who found the poem and set it to music as a “tone poem“. To be clear, he did not set the text of Mallarme’s poem to be sung by a singer or choir; instead, instruments alone were used to paint the evocative mood with erotic, chromatic melody and lush harmony that was truly groundbreaking when it was written. Mallarme at first was worried that the natural “music” of the poetry would be destroyed by a composer’s music. Debussy invited him to premiere; Mallarme’s fears were assuaged, and he wrote the composer a nice letter praising the piece. Later, one of the most influential ballet dancers of the 20th century, Vaslav Nijinsky, would create a ballet using the music.

This goes to show that when powerful minds are at work, even a lazy afternoon can change the world.

It’s easy to think of a composer writing a piece as a romantic gift to a potential lover. Wow, lucky guy/girl, we think. But what about when a composer writes a masterpiece as a friendly gift to a 6 & 7 year old girl & boy? Bah, ungrateful little brats!

I’m kidding, of course. But still, we can be sure that this young pair had no idea of the honor bestowed upon them when Maurice Ravel wrote his Mother Goose Suite as a present for them. Though the original composition was for piano, within a year Ravel had expanded the work into a full ballet and orchestrated it. It has since become a beloved classic of “children’s’ music” (that is to say, music for all ages). The suite includes tells some common fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, Little Ugly, and Beauty and the Beast. It ends with this gorgeous pastorale, The Fairy Garden, which doesn’t tell any specific story, but instead captures the simple rapture of children listening to a good tale.