Independent of its musical quality; there is a fair bit of classical music since the later 19th century that communicates to me an atmosphere of evil.
Before this era, it seems either that music lacked the ability to communicate evil (due to its much greater formality and lesser subjectivity), or perhaps composers were not evil at the times when their music was actually being composed (because genius itself to some significant entails an alignment with divine creation).
Evil in classical music is an aspect of the phenomenon of 'the evil genius' which Ed Dutton and I discuss in our book The Genius Famine, and which Ed has gone-on to elaborate in his subsequent work.
Since classical music does not operate in the same way as prose, the way that evil comes-through is various - but I will list three of the best composers whose work I regard as evil in this musical way: Mahler, Stravinsky, Carl Orff.
As I say, this is substantially a different matter from aesthetic appreciation. With Mahler, however, I find the taint of rottenness too strong to allow me fully to enjoy anything of his. But I can appreciate Stravinsky's Rite of Spring; and Orff's Carmina Burana is one of my favourite 20th century pieces - to which I have listed scores of times.
But I was listening this morning to Orff's 'follow-up' cantatas - Catulli Carmina and Trionfo di Afrodite (which I have both known for over 40 years); and in them (despite thrilling musical moments) I rapidly become overwhelmed by the evil, to a Mahlerian degree. In the end they make me feel so dysphoric, that I cannot really enjoy them.
Evil 'in' music (not just 'verbally', in terms of the subject matter - as with Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier; nor in terms of the music's non-musical associations, eg. with youth cults or wicked regimes) is an interesting phenomenon that I have not seen discussed - probably because most people cannot recognize evil, and would not acknowledge it if they did).
I wonder whether readers have experienced anything similar?
