This is the time of year when chains rattle, doors creak, and skeletons dance — it's Halloween, when even the classics dress up in a monster costume.

The American composer Libby Larsen composed a 1987 concert suite titled "What the Monster Saw," inspired by Mary Shelley's novel, "Frankenstein." Says Larsen, "What the Monster Saw is a musical exploration of the second part of the novel. In it, the monster confronts Frankenstein, his creator." In 1990, Larsen's confronted the same monster at greater length, in a full-length opera titled "Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus," again based on Shelley's classic tale.

Speaking of monster music, connoisseurs of horror films consider "The Bride of Frankenstein," released by Universal Studios in 1935, to be one of the best ever made. It featured Boris Karloff as the monster, Elsa Lancaster as his bride, and a classic film score by Franz Waxman.

Waxman originally composed his Frankenstein music on a pipe organ. His score was then orchestrated for the film by one Clifford Vaughan, who translated many of the organ's spookiest effects into eerie and effective symphonic colors. So successfully, in fact, that their creations refused to die: chunks of their film score were transplanted into dozens of subsequent Universal Studios thrillers and movie serials.

Dr. Frankenstein would have been proud!