On the afternoon my girlfriend and I first got together I was at home and waiting for her to arrive. Already feeling as high as a kite I put the Munch recording of Symphony No.3 by Saint-Saens in the CD player. By the time it came to the four handed piano part in the last movement I almost felt I was floating. Everything had resolved and life was almost perfect.
These bars from Copland's Appalachian Spring always remind me of the JFK years and Camelot; such a young, youthful family in the White House. That's when I first heard this music. The association has never left me.
Thank you for asking this question! I have so many. I'll list a few:
A moment in Brahms's 2nd piano concerto, 1st movement. The segment is so beautiful, otherworldly, moving etc. [10:43 - 11:11]:
The modulation in Schubert's D960 1st movement at 4:10 is completely magical, indescribably beautiful. (Listen from 3:52 for the build up):
The very end of Janacek's first string quartet [17:07] - the passion of the climax with its wildly conflicting rhythms is amazing:
The whole coda and transition into the coda of the last movement of Beethoven's op 132 quartet [4:47] is in my opinion the most heavenly and emotionally complex piece of music ever composed. In the coda, the moment from 5:28, with the violin and cello in high up octaves is ... can't describe it.
My favorite musical passage?
That's easy.
It occurs during the final pages of Mahler's Tenth Symphony, in the Finale, a little past midway through the movement (on page 9 of the final movement of the sketched out autograph score, about 19 and a half minutes in on the recording noted below) when the strings pick up what is possibly the most poignant, sublime melody ever written and render the passions of the dying composer with profound authority, beauty, and sheer magnificence.
It leads up to the anguished inscription on page 10 where Mahler wrote: für dich leben! für dich sterben! (to live for you! to die for you!) and Almschi, his affectionate name for his wife Alma.
Though I have several Mahler 10ths in my collection, I've never heard this passage rendered with more seering truth and poignancy than on the 1972 PHILIPS recording 6700 067 which features Wyn Morris leading the New Philharmonia Orchestra in the "Finally revised full-length performing version by Deryck Cooke" of the Symphony No. 10 by Gustav Mahler. It is music that leaves me breathless each time I hear it, and it remains the single passage of music that I can find nothing to follow which remotely matches it. Thus, to clear my aural palate after playing this particular disc, I generally follow up with some silly punk rock music to bring me back to reality so I can go on and enjoy all the "lesser" music of the world, for truly nothing matches this sublime moment in Mahler. Nothing.
It's next to impossible to choose just one passage, but here's a good one from Bruckner's 9th, 1st movement.
At 8:55 up until 10:00 give or take. I can't adequately explain how it makes me feel, it's almost too much sometimes.
Here's a section from Beethoven's 3rd that gives me chills in a different way, it makes me feel happy to be alive. It's very heroic, I wonder why. I would also choose the entire Funeral March, but that'd be cheating. 39:00 - 39:45
Beethoven's 9th, but there are too many moments to list from my favorite symphony, I could pick more than one passage from every movement.
But I'll choose the last minute or so from the 1st movement. 13:43 and onward... The entire first movement is some of the most mysteriously and frighteningly majestic music ever created
One of my favorite musical passages occurs in the first act of Die Walküre when Siegmund pulls the sword out of the tree.
The accompanying Wagner music is glorious.
Beethoven's 5th (Kleiber/VPO)
- The first 4 notes: 0:00 (duh)
- 2nd movement at 11:30, there's a moment of absolute beauty that is welcome after the hectic first movement.
- 22:00 The buildup from the 3rd movement Scherzo to the Finale is genius.
- 22:30 The first couple of minutes of the Finale, the most triumphant piece of music I've heard. Makes me happy every time I hear it.
Well, everybody has their own moments I guess. To me by far the greatest moment in this symphony is the finale of the first movement, in this video from 6:13 to 7:23.
It summons up the excitement, the tension, the promise and the anxiety of the forthcoming four hours in just a few repeated notes and a simple idee fixee.
I use it as the ringtone on my phone (I'm still waiting for the intelligent, refined, cultured perosn who admiringly says: "I recognise that!" ...... I'll even settle for someone to say;"Hey, that's interesting. What is it?)
Ahem... Well, in answer to the OP I do have another favorite passage, one that I often hear in my dreams. The opening chorale in Bach's St. John Passion, with it's absolutely wrenching woodwinds forming the image of the Cross in it's atypical Baroque image of chromatic descent. I can hardly think of a more striking example of this idiom in High German music. The beautiful words of the prayer in conjunction with the holy cycles and imagery embedded in the music, are just too vivid and I often have trouble continuing after the first chorale.
Herr, unser Herrscher, dessen Ruhm Lord, thou our master, whose glory In allen Landen herrlich ist! is everywhere magnificent! Zeig uns durch deine Passion, May we learn through your passion, Dass du, der wahre Gottessohn, how that you, the true Son of God Zu aller Zeit, at all times, Auch in der größten Niedrigkeit, even in the lowliest state, Verherrlicht worden bist! are glorified!
To narrow it down to ONE "favorite" is a difficult thing, however, the first one that comes to mind, (and for me, one of the most beautiful moments in all of music) is the Laudate Dominum from Mozart'sVesperae Solennes De Confessore, K 339
It never fails to bring tears to my eyes. Just when you think it couldn't get any more pure and beautiful, the entire chorus comes in and just engulfs you in a wave of emotion.
Sorry for the cheesy video that accompanies it, I have no control over that part.
V
PS: How does one get the actual video to display in the post as opposed to what I did which is just supply a link? Sorry, but I'm a computer idiot.
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