Happy Hallowe’en, everyone!

As you prepare the little monsters for Trick-or-Treat, I hope you’ll make us your macabre and amusing soundtrack this afternoon, as I’ll be weaving a spooky and sometimes silly tapestry of music evocative of ghosts, vampires, demons and haunted landscapes.

Sir John Gielgud will recite eerie poems of Aloysius Betrand as pianist Gina Bachauer performs Maurice Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit.” Composer of British light music Frederic Curzon will give us the playful “Dance of an Ostracised Imp.” We’ll hear the original version of “Danse macabre,” conceived as a song by Camille Saint-Saens. We’ll also have the tongue-in-cheek “Dracula’s House-and-Court Music” by Kurt Schwertsik. In addition, we’ll enjoy selections from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” “Psycho,” and “The Bride of Frankenstein.”

In short, we’ll be up to our elbows in French horns, gore, and candy corn, this All Hallows’ Eve from 4 to 7:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

Cartoon (below) by Jeffrey Curnow, associate principal trumpet of the Philadelphia Orchestra