The following is the second part of a two-part guest post by Kevin Lavine, Senior Music Specialist.
The vampire made its musical début on this side of the Atlantic in a slight piece for piano solo titled “Vampire Polka” (Boston, 1850), of unknown authorship (its composer is identified as “Four Eyes”), a work undoubtedly intended for performance by amateur pianists in genteel parlors.
While vampire-related musical works appeared sporadically throughout the nineteenth century, the creature arose with renewed life at the turn of the twentieth century with the publication of the immensely popular Gothic novel Dracula (1897), by Irish writer Bram Stoker. Stoker’s novel in turn inspired German director F. W. Murnau’s film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1921), widely considered a masterpiece of German Expressionism. American composer Aaron Copland saw Nosferatu while a young student in Paris, and was inspired to create his first large scale orchestral work, Grogh (1922-25), a ballet featuring vampire characters and even featuring on-stage coffins. While the work was soon withdrawn by the composer, and its musical material recycled into oth