Angband Music

I'm trying to compile a list of "fitting" music to play while running around in the dungeons of Angband. The current list shows MY favorite songs. If you want to add to it then send me an e-mail and I'll probably include it.

[Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle-Earth cover]
Blind Guardian - "Nightfall in Middle-Earth"
An melodic heavy metal album based on the story "The Silmarillion" by J.R.R.Tolkien, and dedicated to him. The four bards from Krefeld (Germany) are big Tolkien fans. The album debuted on the German CD charts at number 7, the highest entry for a metal band in the charts for ages. There is nothing like listening to the tale of Fingolfin's fight with Morgoth while avenging the death of the High-King of Noldor.

[Enya - Paint the Sky with Stars cover]
Enya - "Paint the Sky with Stars"
Enya's Celtic ambient, New Age style music fits very well with Angband, that's why I've included midis from her songs with some of my Angband DOS versions. Paint the Sky with Stars is a "best of" album, give it a try and then run to your record store and buy her other CDs (The Celts, Watermark, Shepherd Moons, and The Memory of Trees).

[Ludwig van Beethoven]
Ludwig van Beethoven
His works, especially "Appassionata" and the nine symphonies, are simply breathtaking.

Carl Orff - "Carmina Burana"

The "Fortuna Imperatix Mundi" is simply beautiful, I like to listen to it over and over again. The other parts are not as good in my opinion.

Gustav Holst - "The Planets"

Many of the modern movie-soundtracks seem to be just remakes of these classical songs. Mars, the Bringer of War is my personal favorite of the tracks.

Subway To Sally

A German band playing folk-metal (metal with medival instruments like bagpipes and fiddles) with German lyrics (the name of the band is misleading). STS is one of the best live-bands and touring through Germany almost all the time. They still had time to create five albums (1994, MCMXCV, Foppt den Dämon, Bannkreis, and Hochzeit) and a new live-album called Schrei! will be released on the 27th March 2000.

Patrice Deceuninck

Patrice Deceuninck fell in love with "The Lord of the Rings" and composed a lot of music inspired by this wonderful story. MP3 files with his beautiful songs as well as Tolkien inspired songs of other musicians can be found at Patrice Deceuninck's homepage and http://www.mi.uib.no/~respl/tolkien/Botr/music.html.

Suggestions by Pablo Martinez:

The Pixies' first two albums, "Come on Pilgrim" and "Surfer Rosa" are quite amazing, if you are feeling on a varied, not too serious mood. Songs like "Caribou" and "Brick is Red" really are astounding to play to.
I have always found Schubert's music, especially his late quartets and piano sonatas, to be much deeper, subtler and richer than any of Beethoven's fine music. I have yet to meet someone who isn't absolutely terrified by his C-minor sonata (D.958; although any of the three last sonatas is great). Also, if you don't mind the voice, his songs are also wonderful. "Erlkönig" is the scariest song in history, but it will probably be found on an album with other not so dark songs, so it will be somewhat irregular. I would recommend the song-cycle "Winterreise". It was written in 1827, and I don't think such sad songs were written afterwards until maybe Mahler's cycles ("Kindertotenlieder"!) and the Smith's albums (but then again, Morrisey oscillates between self-piteous and clownish, so his impact may be a little attenuated by that).
Ligeti's "Three pieces for two pianos" and "Sonata for solo viola" are among his best works; almost all of his other compositions are wonderful (notably the piano "Etudes" and the piano and violin concertos), but perhaps they are too humourful/bright for Angband. His "Requiem", however, would be interesting.
Alban Berg is not my favorite 20th century composer (Stravinsky, Ligeti, Boulez, Webern, Kurtag and Carter take up too much space in my preferences to allow it), but I am convinced that he is, along with Mozart, one of the two greatest opera composers of all times, by far (yes, far superior even to Wagner, Britten and Rameau, IMHO). His "Lulu Suite" takes fragments from one of his two operas and has a great dark and tragic mood.
Yes, Wagner is not the best in my book, but he is astounding, especially for something like this. I would not recommend an opera, however, as recitatives would tend to be intrusive. It is better to find some orchestral music taken from The Ring (Siegfried's funeral march, for instance), or even Tristan's Prelude and Liebestod. Sony had an album by Georg Szell which was very good; and you can also find Otto Klemperer's legendary recordings on EMI. There is also an album by Lorin Maazel on Telarc called "The Ring without Words" ("Der Ring ohne Wörter"), which is a very well crafted suite, but Maazel's interpretation is sometimes not taut enough for my taste.
Anything from the Red House Painters, though their self-titled big album (the one that begins with "Grace Cathedral Park") is the most beautiful of all. Amazing, melodic, sad, sad, sad songs.

Suggestions by other Angband players:

Type O Negative - "Bloody Kisses" (suggested by Troels F. Jensen)
Bruckner - "Symphony Number 2" (suggested by Julian Day)
Delibes - "Le Roi s'amuse: Airs de danse dans le style ancien" (suggested by Julian Day)
Rachmaninov - "Piano Concerto number 3" (suggested by Julian Day)
Jethro Tull - "Broadsword and the Beast", "Songs from Woods", "Heavy Horses", and "Aqualung" (suggested by Tom Larson)
Jethro Tull - "Thick as a Brick" (suggested by Yonatan Schreiber)
Sisters of Mercy - "A Slight Case of Overbombing" (suggested by Matthew Lovelace)
Hawkwind - "Warrior on the Edge of Time", or "The Chronicle of the Black Sword" (suggested by Matthew Lovelace)
Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Iron Maiden (suggested by Matthew Lovelace)
Nick Riff - "Cloak of Immortality" (suggested by Andrew F. Wilson)
Marcy Playground - "Cloaking Robe of Elvenkind" (suggested by Chris Rutledge)
Marilyn Manson - "Antichrist Superstar" (suggested by Jose Piquer Gómez)
Morgana Lefay - "Sanctified" (suggested by David Stillberg)
Summoning - "Dol Guldur" (suggested by Jochen Deyke, Reijo Rantala, and Tobias Tjärnbro)
Mozart - "Requiem in D-minor K626" (suggested by Matt Losch)
Vivaldi - "Gloria" (suggested by Matt Losch)
Hector Berlioz - "Damnation of Faust" (suggested by Andrew Holleman)
Marillion - "Script for a Jester's Tear" (suggested by Andrew Hill)
- yes - they did drop the Sil when they produced their album
Rush - "Rivendell" (suggested by Andrew Hill)
- from the Fly By Night album but it's not as dramatic as the Marillion song
Various Artists - "Lost Highway soundtrack" (suggested by Sandy Small)
Alice in Chains - "Nothing safe" (suggested by Sandy Small)
Orb - "Orblivion" (suggested by Sandy Small)
Aphex Twin - "On" (suggested by Sandy Small)
Marillion - "Grendel" (suggested by Matthias Kurzke)
Rhapsody - "Legendary Tales" (suggested by "Galadrim")
Pyjama Charm - "Beware Wolf" (suggested by Michael Barnes)
Amanda - "Beltane" (suggested by Michael Barnes)
Glass Hammer - "Journey of the Dunadan" (suggested by Jeff Bonham)
Verdi - "Requiem: Dies Irae" (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Wagner - "Tannhaeuser: Ouverture" (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Wagner - "Die Walkuere: Walkuerenritt" (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Wagner - "Goetterdaemmerung: Siegfrieds Trauermarsch" (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Beethoven - "Klaviersonate no.14, 3.mov." (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Prokofev - "Music for Eizenstein's Alexandr' Nevskij" (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Janacek - "Glagolitic Mass" (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Sibelius - "Finlandia" (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Sibelius - "The Swan of Tuonela" (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Grieg - "Peer Gynt: (Peer Gynt hunted by the Trolls)" (suggested by Marco Torricelli)
Seigmen - "Sort Disippel" (suggested by Oystein Tosse Larsen)
Danse Macabre - "Camille Saint Saens" (suggested by Brett Crowe)
Mozart - "Moonlight Sonata" (suggested by Brett Crowe)
"WhiteTower.mp3" from the Wheel of Time action/strategy game (in the download section) (suggested by Brett Crowe)
Led Zeppelins - "Immigrant Song" and "Battle of Evermore" (suggested by Brett Crowe)
"Vampire Killer" from the Castlevania game (suggested by Brett Crowe)
"Stones" - from the Ultima series (suggested by Brett Crowe)