I read this the other day and thought it was good. It's not really about finding the most beautiful melody, but more a rumination on melody and music. I've always thought Swafford writes well.

"Mack the Knife," was a hit in the '50s for Bobby Darin. I'm kind of flummoxed by my own affection for this song, because there's practically nothing to it: two simple little phrases mainly designed to project a long and nasty lyric. My favorite version of it is the scraggly and vital rendition, with equally scraggly pit band, by Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife, for whom the song was written. The words are a narrative of rapine and murder, set with bitter irony to a sweet pop tune-that being Brecht and Weill in a nutshell.

 

I always thought it was the opening to Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto. So good. Too good in fact - the rest of the concerto can't help but be one big anticlimax.

 

For me, something similar happens in the last movement of Saint-Saens' Organ symphony: such a glorious melody could have withstood a few repeats through the movement, and then he robs us of it.

Not sure whether Borodin has been mentioned on this thread yet: surely came up with some of the most ravishing melodies ever. Almost intoxicating stuff here and there.

Seems to me one should also mention folk music. Folk music melodies become so popular precisely because they are memorable. Greensleeves comes to mind. Some time ago I discovered a bloke named Arany Zoltan on YouTube: he plays a lot of medieval and folk music from all over the world, and much of it is quite thoroughly seductive.

Hey, wait a minute, why hasn't anyone mentioned Schoenberg yet!? Surely one of the most inventive melodists of our age! :angel:

 

Most tunes by Mozart - the ultimate tunesmith.

 

Some ideas:
- Wagner: Rienzi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC87_tX9738#t=0m3s
- Wagner: Götterdämmerung: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTvmDq65REw#t=3m57s
- Wagner: Tannhäuser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHqr-mszLIs#t=0m33s
- Rimski-Korsakov: Scheherazade: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNymNaTr-Y#t=1m01s
- Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 Adagio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krsFA53ZlhM#t=31m44s
- Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 Adagio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBT4WrJl85M#t=2m46s
- Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 Adagio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4Jh2mvLass#t=2m27s
- Tschaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 Adagio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAotb3P4VPg#t=20m19s
- Furtwängler: Symphony No. 2 Finale:

- Beethoven: Symphony No. 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0_yQQN54Gg#t=0m13s
- Puccini: Turandot: Nessun Dorma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0Sx5lbVlQA#t=2m17s
- Holst: The Planets: Jupiter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz0b4STz1lo#t=2m54s
- Grieg: Peer Gynt Suite No. 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2gDFJWhXp8#t=28m19s

 

Elgar's 1st Symphony. This part kills me everytime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am4gJYezMeI#t=6m16 until around 7:23

- Holst: The Planets: Jupiter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz0b4STz1lo#t=2m54s

Yup, one of my favorites too.

 

Every time I think I have heard the most beautiful melody ever, I hear a new one. I like the list in the preceding post. I would add a few, if I may.
Faure, Pavan (you gotta have the chorus for that to really work)
Leoncavallo, Vesti la giuba from Pagliacci
Tchaikovsky Andante Cantabile from the string quartet. Andante Cantabile from Sym #5, Pretty much every melody from Sym#6, Romeo and Juliet theme, Main theme (opening theme of Act 2) Swan Lake,
Dowland, Flow my Tears.
Bach, Komm Susser Tod, Air from the third orchestral suite
Irish folk songs Carrickfergus, Aileen Aroon, The Dear Irish Boy, Oro ma Bhaidin
Welsh folk songs All through the Night (Ar Hyd y Nos), Myfanwy, Mountain Stream (Nant y Mynydd), National Anthem
American folk songs Shennendoah, Deep River, I am a Poor, Wayfaring Stranger
Foster, Beautiful Dreamer
Schubert, second theme from Mvt 1, Unfinished Symphony
Beethoven, 7th Sym, mvt 2
Wagner, Tristan und Isolde Prelude and Liebestod (you gotta have the vocal in that too), Prelude to Parsifal
Mozart, Lacrimosa from Requiem, Clarinet concerto 2nd Mvt,
Moody Blues, Knights in White Satin
Sacred Harp, Evening Shade
Simon and Garfunkle, Bridge over Troubled Waters.

Well, that should suffice for the nonce.

 

Every time I think I have heard the most beautiful melody ever, I hear a new one. I like the list in the preceding post. I would add a few, if I may.
Faure, Pavan (you gotta have the chorus for that to really work)

The chorus in the Faure Pavane is a gratuitous after the fact add-on, some patron requesting it be performed with a choir and text... Gaby had to eat, like everyone else.

 

An interesting article by Jan Swafford:

In other words, a succession of notes that sounds to you like a tune is a tune.

I'll be the pedant purist in this thread. With that above description / definition, I immediately think of a completely unaccompanied line, and nothing else. Barring Gregorian chants, there are very few unaccompanied lines in classical music.

No matter how strongly the melodic comes at you, if it has the minimum accompaniment, it is no longer "just the melody" that has gotten to you.

... point weakened to a point of disinterest.

 

Different tunes haunt me at different times. But currently:

Classical music - something by Lully; maybe the second Air des Espagnoles from the suite for Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme; or his Loure pour les Pecheurs.

Other - this one's easy; the strathspey 'Struan Robertson's Rant', from the country of my Scots-side ancestry. It's in my bones.

 

Once I listened to Beethoven String quartet in F major Op. 59 No. 1 3rd movement Adagio molto e mesto repeatedly for about one month, thinking Beethoven was exceptionally generous in allowing us to indulge in a beautiful tune for a longer duration. Usually, I feel he doesn't linger on beautiful tunes long enough.

If anyone is interested, try playing the 3rd movement of Appassionata Sonata very slowly. It takes away all the rage and frenzy, and becomes simply the most beautiful lament. Not that I want it that way all the time.

 

This is my current favourite melody

J C Bach

Also this

 

The most beautiful melody in the world is the one that you discover within yourself.

 

The most beautiful melody is yet to come.

 

While that is true, the chorus takes a beautiful piece and raises it to something metaphysically wondrous. Of course, that's just my humble opinion.

Patrons can be of great use to composers with their sometimes odd requests. There is, of course, Mozarts Man in Grey, but even Beethoven, bowing to a patrons request created something he would not otherwise had. One patron wanted something very loud from Beethoven. From that request came the 5th Symphony with it's addition of trombones, just for more noise.

 

While that is true, the chorus takes a beautiful piece and raises it to something metaphysically wondrous. Of course, that's just my humble opinion.

Patrons can be of great use to composers with their sometimes odd requests. There is, of course, Mozarts Man in Grey, but even Beethoven, bowing to a patrons request created something he would not otherwise had. One patron wanted something very loud from Beethoven. From that request came the 5th Symphony with it's addition of trombones, just for more noise.

It's interesting to argue in some contexts that autobiographical or historical information ought not make music more interesting, but then in other contexts to use autobiographical or historical information to suggest that some music ought to be less interesting.

I think I'm precisely the opposite: autobiographical or historical information can never make the music itself less interesting to me, and at least sometimes that kind of thing makes it more interesting.

 

Tchaikovsky's 'Pas de Deux' from the Nutcracker Suite?

 

...much beauty in this one

 

I don't know about in the world, but I am absolutely addicted to the first 4 minutes or so of the first movement of Paganini's 3rd violin concerto (before the violin comes in). It sounds like something out of bel canto opera. But maybe the reason the melody has been on my mind like no other is because it's really annoying

 

at the moment for me its Denn Alles Fleisch, Brahms requiem, and then that crescendo with the timps, and then bam tutti and choir come in at a forte, damn gets me going, but yes that violin melody is to die for

 

It is a crime that Händel hasn't been mentioned in a thread about beautiful melodies.

 

Indeed.. First one I can think of: concerti grossi op.6 number 2, movement 1.
I don't particularly like Tchaikovksy's melodies - too sweet, perhaps. My favorite tune-smiths are Haydn, Corelli, Mozart and Brahms. My favorite (for quite some time now):

(If it doesn't work: 6:48). Unfortunately, it's the initial appearance is not even 15 seconds long, and it is only repeated once! (The added orchestration there makes it for me the most beautiful moment in the symphony.) Amidst my other favorites is, strangely enough, the Sacrifical Dance from The Rite of Spring.. It always pops into my head!

 

Theres a nice melodie in here (not going to the great, greater, greatest place):
edit: the timestamp link doesn´t seem to work. Jump to 13m28s.

 

BWV 639 "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" is one of the most beautiful I can think of.

 

I'm afraid Swafford lost me with his link to Wildwood Flower.

 

Ravel wrote very beautiful melodies:

-Ma Mère l'Oye - VII. Petit Poucet:

-Le Tombeau de Couperin - III. Menuet:

And what about Ligeti :

,

(more a motif, but catchy)

 

I think the melody in the first of the Trois Nouvelles Etudes is gorgeous (performed here by Arthur, not Idil):

And the opening and closing melody here, especially as performed by the soprano for whom it was written. When Bidu goes from the penultimate to the last note I could swoon:

And here JCB tosses off a lovely little ditty that can bring me to tears unless I'm very, very stern with myself:

...and the list goes on...

 

Without question the evaluation of what is beautiful in music must be filtered though the necessarily subjective soul of the listener, nevertheless I believe that the slow movement of Mozart’s A major Clarinet Concerto would rank among the most sublimely beautiful pieces of music ever written.

 

I've been hooked on the melody from Chopin's Op. 10 No. 3 for a while now, it's so beautiful :angel:

 

And this, which I fell in love with whilst watching "Madame Sousatzka" - that Shirley can really tickle the ivories, eh?
I liked the film a lot, too.

 

At 1:51 has to be a contender