Thread: Warnings please

Be aware of the volume level you have your player set at if you decide to listen to the very start of either Prokofiev's 3rd or Khachaturian's 2nd symphony

There's a moment in the first movement of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony that almost killed my ears.

Aside from the Mahler and Tchaikovsky examples mentioned, another one that made me jump on first listen was the sudden crash that begins the middle section of the 2nd movement of Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2.

Them Russians....

A REALLY great example I have of a composer playing a prank on the audience (just like Haydn's practical joke in the Surprise Symphony) is below. Just listen all the way through, a soothing waltz... and it won't matter too much how you're listening to it, headphones or speakers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRvlKZ4bXnM

I recently played Ton Koopman's Six Trio Sonatas by Bach on organ and wasn't prepared for the intense bass vibrations at moderate volume that nearly shook a mirror off the listening room wall!

Here's some warnings:

The opening of Haydn's Creation has an ear splitting moment with the chorus and full orchestra - "And there was light" - it can really catch you out the first time you hear the piece.

Well, in Mahler's first symphony there is this all-decisive moment where the whole orchestra clashes in. For me it is the part I look up, when listening to a new interpretation: do the shivers go down the spine or am I left alone in the cold? Up till now I cling unto Haitink's Concertgebouw & Berlin Philharmonic rendering of Mahler's first, because he is there (with me).

You have picked probably the most wonderfully extreme example. I first heard it in probably tenth grade, high up in the second balcony of Symphony Hall in Boston. It was an exhausting work (this was the mid-1960s and it was not widely known), and by the time of the quiet brass chorale at the end, my friend was facing away from the stage and seemed half asleep. I, on the other hand, was watching the orchestra and saw the percussionists tensing up and one raising the cymbals -- so I knew what was coming. Watching my friend propelled toward the ceiling was a priceless moment.