# What is your favorite chord - the best single instance- in Classical Music?



## Iaeda (Jan 16, 2018)

What is your favorite chord - the best single instance- in Classical Music?


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

The Ghost Chord! It still creeps people out!


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## Iaeda (Jan 16, 2018)

For me it has to be the penultimate choral cadence of Mahler's 8th. The harmony is perfect - even sublime, preparing us for the triumphal coda.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Without a score this may not mean much: 8 bars before rehearsal mark 78 in Franz Schmidt's 4th symphony. Luminous, gorgeously scored, and a dazzling display of the composer's unique skill at harmony. Notes: e, c#, e#, g#, f. Stunning and the ear yearns for the resolution.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

The one that ends the 2nd movement of Cage's 4'33". Its sublime.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Impossible to choose just one, of course, but here's one of the first that came to mind: the second chord of Gesualdo's _Moro lasso_.






That's a 1st-inversion A minor triad following a C# major triad. It is almost the same chord progression as the one that begins the Sanctus of Schubert's Mass No. 6 in Eb: a B minor triad following an Eb major triad.






In its dynamics and orchestration, Schubert's chord is far more searing and dramatic, but Gesualdo's is more impressive for having been composed two centuries earlier.


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

There's an amazing and famous chord right near the end of Richard Strauss' opera _Salome_, right after Salome's long monologue and before Herod sings his order to have her killed - I've always found it to be one of the most striking music sounds ever written.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Olias said:


> The one that ends the 2nd movement of Cage's 4'33". Its sublime.


Olias's ears are certainly more astute than mine. In a work _full_ of sublimity (or, with at least 4 minutes and 33 seconds worth!) how does one single out a single chord for merit? I think I need visit an Audiologist.

Then again, perhaps the performer accidently banged his elbow on the keyboard right at the end. _That_ might do it!


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Simple: Dominant 7+9 preferably in the key of B - the ambiguity simply begs to be resolved - in which case E9 will do nicely.

Oh, the best _single instance _in classical music...(I just re-read the OP again). Sorry.


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## Ras (Oct 6, 2017)

The one that starts Beethoven's Emperor Concerto of course! What else?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

"The Lost Chord" by Sir Arthur Sullivan.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

This should prove an intriguing thread. So many wonderful chord moments out there. I'll be interested in hearing about them, and relistening to those moments.

There are so many great chord moments in music, but my initial thought latched onto one from Brahms's Second Symphony, about 2 minutes forty seconds into the final movement, at measure 141, a rather simple chord of b-d-f#, yet one with an effect that always makes me both cringe and smile. Twice. Because the chord repeats later on in the movement at measure 344, now an e-g-b manifestation.

Which goes to show, it's not so much the_ complexity _of the chord that excites the ears (and the sensibilities) as it is how the chord is _used_ in a particular context.

I will return to this thread with great interest.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ras said:


> The one that starts Beethoven's Emperor Concerto of course! What else?


Beethoven copied it! Listen to the first chord (also in E-flat) here.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Opening of Don Giovanni.


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## Ras (Oct 6, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven copied it! Listen to the first chord (also in E-flat) here.


Ludwig you have been naughty again! - But Ken caught you didn't he... :devil:


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

The first chord of the Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Ras said:


> The one that starts Beethoven's Emperor Concerto of course! What else?


The one that starts Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto? Simple, but the preface to something wonderful.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

The chord that comes after the solo violin intro in Ginastera's _Concerto for Strings_.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

One of my current favorites is that chord in the first movement of Bruckner's 9th, which serves as a sort of culmination before it goes quiet and the coda begins. Anyone know what I mean? What kind of chord is that? Just curious.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

The open G major that's the first chord in the Vaughan-Williams Tallis Fantasia (and, strangely, the first chord in Ives' The Unanswered Question; and Hindemith's Matis der Maler).


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

One of the dissonant chords in the Eroica's 1st movement development section. It's about 6:01 in


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## Ras (Oct 6, 2017)

Pat Fairlea said:


> The one that starts Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto? Simple, but the preface to something wonderful.


Yes, that one is good too - that opening really draws one in. 
It's the first time in the history of music that the first movement of a piano concerto begins with a solo piano part.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Jacck said:


> The first chord of the Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima


I actually prefer the _final_ chord of the work -- that microtonal block chord consisting of all 52 strings playing a span of two octaves from C to c, chromatically and including the microtones between notes. I suppose it's merely a glorified C Major 7th-9th-11th-13th chord with dims and augs and everything in between, but it sounds like much more!

There's a passage in Charles Ives's Concord Piano Sonata where the performer lays a board on the keyboard and slams it down. I suspect that had Ives thought of using two pianos, one tuned a microtone higher than the other, he could have achieved a similar sounding cluster chord with the use of two bars.

Or has Lou Harrison done that already?


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

My favorite chord is the pyramid chord at the beginning of Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe. It's an A Lydian scale in 5ths. (A E B F# C# G# D#) It's got an ethereal quality about it that I've always liked.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I don't have a favorite chord that I know of, but the thread title makes me think of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" (I heard there was a secret chord...).


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> "The Lost Chord" by Sir Arthur Sullivan.


Yeh man gota be the best many fine versions remem,ber Snoz Duranty.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

4: 58 - 5:06, any one of those subtle changes in that big fat brassy major-7th chord. Gives me shivers every time.






Also, right at the 22:17 mark here, the chords that come after it are glorious. It's very much down to the way they're orchestrated, I think:


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> One of the dissonant chords in the Eroica's 1st movement development section. It's about 6:01 in


Why didn't I think of that... Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner :lol:


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## Frances Metcalfe (Feb 12, 2017)

I agree with Sonnet CLV It's often about the wrong-footing, that makes a chord special, or the anticipation of one to come - as in that glorious C major sunburst, in the overture to Freischutz, after the music fades to nothing. And then repeating it with the E on top is just fabulous. gets me every time.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

A minor. My favourite chord to play on the guitar.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

The Tristan Chord. This single chord has been studied more than the collective works of most composers.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

It's not one chord, but how about that entire chord section in Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 32 No. 10 ?

Starts at 1:37


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

The Big Chord just before the quiet denouement of the last movement of the Mahler Tenth.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Olias said:


> The one that ends the 2nd movement of Cage's 4'33". Its sublime.


I prefer to remain silent about that one.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

The brutal, crashing, terrifying chord that unleashes Don Giovanni onto an unworthy world...


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

DeepR said:


> It's not one chord, but how about that entire chord section in Rachmaninoff's Prelude Op. 32 No. 10 ?
> 
> Starts at 1:37


Love this piece. Also the Ossia Cadenza from Rach 3. Rachmaninoff is great with chords.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I think mention should be made of Wagner's E flat chord at the beginning of Das Rheingold. He stretches out one chord for 135 measures. I think that's notable. He knew how to write fancy chords, but he also knew what to do with a triad.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Anyway I'll just go with the Poem of Ecstasy, you know which chord.....
Or Sibelius 7, also obvious.
Etc.


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