# The one work that says "home" to you



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

What is the one work that you feel most at home with? You may use other words, too. For example, what work resonates with your personality the most? What is the work with which you feel like you´re looking yourself in the mirror the most? The work that gives you comfort, saying: you´re here again, welcome!

This work does not need to be the best piece of music ever and you do not need to value it above other music -- but it has to mean to you something related to things mentioned above.

I shall begin:

*Sibelius 3rd Symphony*

My home symphony. Not much fuss. No world class, large scale grandeur. No glittering orchestral colours. Utterly Finnish. Just honest.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I'll go with Schumann's Kinderszenen.


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

Haydn’s 83rd symphony. That was the first classical piece that I ever heard and ever liked. My grandparents would pick me up from primary school every other week and they had a disc of Haydn’s 83rd and 84th symphonies and they would play them. I also think 83 is severely underrated compared to his other symphonies. For example I prefer 83 to the much beloved 82 (the first movement is debatable)


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Janacek's 2nd String Quartet. I have numerous recordings of it and it always gives me a warm glow when I hear new recordings of it (there are some excellent performances of it). I fell in love with it, many years ago, after hearing it and never tire of it. An emotional gut-wrench.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

EvaBaron said:


> Haydn's 83rd symphony. I also think 83 is severely underrated compared to his other symphonies. For example I prefer 83 to the much beloved 82 (the first movement is debatable)


That one's ok, but there is this thing 



 (the "surprise" from 83rd/ii)
Have you listened to 80th/ii?


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Bulldog said:


> I'll go with Schumann's Kinderszenen.


Should be renamed Taichoff mai Schumann.


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

Brahms - Violin Sonata no. 2


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Not sure how to answer this. If it's works that evoke particular nostalgia, it'd be probably Dvorak's 9th symphony and Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto because they were the first major works that sparked enthusiasm for classical music when I was a teenager. I hardly listen to them anymore but if I do, they still manage to evoke that feeling.
And when I once got the really weird idea that one could BE a piece of classical music (not that it described my personality but rather be something one liked to be), that piece would be Beethoven's op.135.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> Not sure how to answer this. If it's works that evoke particular nostalgia, it'd be probably Dvorak's 9th symphony and Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto because they were the first major works that sparked enthusiasm for classical music when I was a teenager. I hardly listen to them anymore but if I do, they still manage to evoke that feeling.
> And when I once got the really weird idea that one could BE a piece of classical music (not that it described my personality but rather be something one liked to be), that piece would be Beethoven's op.135.


Op. 135 is very special indeed! Scary, almost.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

Listening to Bach's Mass in B minor is like coming home for me.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

The Well Tempered Clavier I.


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

Sibelius 5.

Does (for so many reasons) feel like some kind of home......


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## marlow (11 mo ago)




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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Schumann 4 .......


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## FrankinUsa (Aug 3, 2021)

I have trouble believing that anyone can mention any single one work that is @home”. Too many great works out there. I have no answer.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Tchaikovsky's Manfred. It was one of the first works I ever got to know - even before the 4th, 5th or 6th. The score was the first pocket score I ever purchased. I used to listen to the two LPs I had of it (Toscanini and Goosens) until they wore out and had to get a new one (Maazel - finally, a complete version!) There are several works that have special meaning, but Manfred is like musical comfort food to me. Runner-up: Rachmaninoff 2nd.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

No hard choice:


Beethoven - Triple Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Cello in C major, Op. 56

On of Beethoven most beautiful works ( for me that is)


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Brahms Violin Concerto, the first movement in particular. Overall my favourite composer is Mozart but this is the one work in the repertoire which has been on my desert island list longer than any other.


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

FrankinUsa said:


> I have trouble believing that anyone can mention any single one work that is @home". Too many great works out there. I have no answer.


Fair enough.....but it is an interesting and stimulating question and do ( for so many reasons!) regard Sibelius 5 as 'home'......

In another musical context I would identify Van Morrisons 1974 live double 'Its too late to stop now'......

Both the examples above represent so much to me it is difficult to explain.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Around 1998 my choice would definitely have been Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. That time was the culmination of everything going wrong in my life, both in my private life and at work. Dunkel ist das Leben ist der Tod, indeed. It is still my favourite piece of music, but that special emotional connection is fortunately no longer there as I'm currently very happy with my life.

Perhaps best fitting to OP's description is Brahms' clarinet quintet, autumnal (well, I'm in my sixties), but positive.


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## advokat (Aug 16, 2020)

Three, actually - for various reasons - 
1. Tchaikovsky - Seasons
2. Tchaikovsky - Iolanta
2. Rossini - Overture to the Barber of Seville. 

Those were the companions of my childhood. 

If I have to choose one, it would be the first - Seasons, especially then first piece.


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

Dvórak - Serenade for Strings
Schumann - Symphony no. 3
Schubert - D.960 Sonata

Those are the first ones I think of...


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Schubert's Symphony no. 9 "The Great". It's second movement - that's me!


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Waehnen said:


> What is the one work that you feel most at home with? You may use other words, too. For example, what work resonates with your personality the most? What is the work with which you feel like you´re looking yourself in the mirror the most? The work that gives you comfort, saying: you´re here again, welcome!
> 
> This work does not need to be the best piece of music ever and you do not need to value it above other music -- but it has to mean to you something related to things mentioned above.
> 
> ...


What a difficult question...


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I don't have one work that says "home" to me. And it is quite possible that if I tried to think of something that fit that description it in all likelihood would not be a Classical work.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> I don't have one work that says "home" to me. And it is quite possible that if I tried to think of something that fit that description it in all likelihood would not be a Classical work.


Great point! Strange I did not even consider some other genre than classical/modern concert music/art music.

Your point actually strengthens my recent thoughts that I should concentrate on the genre that says "home" to me. (Which is classical.)


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Well this being a classical forum I assumed that classical works were the reference point. If your "home" genre is another, that's fine too and I wouldn't have any problem with anyone sharing it. Personally I've found that Bach et al are "home" and pretty much everything else is a hotel. YMMV


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

FrankinUsa said:


> I have trouble believing that anyone can mention any single one work that is @home". Too many great works out there. I have no answer.


Well it all depends on what "home" means to you, and since there will be many interpretations of that concept, I guess some people will find it quite easy to identify a piece.

Having said that, "home" has a diffuse meaning for me, accumulating layers and echoes over the years. In fact, although my instinct is to say Sibelius 7th Symphony, I'd say it's more difficult to settle on what "home" means than it is to choose a piece of music.


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## Chilham (Jun 18, 2020)

For me, home is family. It's nice meals and playing cards around the table. It's chatter and recounting stories. It's binge-watching our favourite shows for the umpteenth time. The classical piece that reminds me most of that, and takes me in my mind to that place, is Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

I though about this some more. 

My first reaction when I saw this thread was to say Tchaikovsky Nutcracker. But then I though it was too entwined with Christmas. 

Then, last night contemplating this thread again I realized that home is Christmas to many. It certainly is to me. 

With this self realization it became obvious that my first inclination was correct. 

The Nutcracker is the one work that says home to me.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> I don't have one work that says "home" to me. And it is quite possible that if I tried to think of something that fit that description it in all likelihood would not be a Classical work.


Silly and trite as it is, I nearly said CSN&Y, Our House.

I would purposely play this in the home when my youngest was young so she would associate her home with warm peaceful images the song conjures.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Waehnen said:


> What is the one work that you feel most at home with? You may use other words, too. For example, what work resonates with your personality the most? What is the work with which you feel like you´re looking yourself in the mirror the most? The work that gives you comfort, saying: you´re here again, welcome!
> 
> This work does not need to be the best piece of music ever and you do not need to value it above other music -- but it has to mean to you something related to things mentioned above.
> 
> ...


I think I know what you mean, though I might not have been so locationally specific as 'home'.
Though I am not Finnish, my choice is close to yours: the opening of Sibelius' 6th Symphony. I hear those opening strings, soft and tenuous, and feel the reassurance that comes with something familiar and safe. It's like walking into my garden on the first mild day of Spring.
Any day now.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

These three works comfort me:

Overture to Hansel und Gretel I don't know why
Beethoven: Quartet Opus 127 -- no pathos, no angst, just a really good piece of music in my favorite key
Beethoven: G major piano concerto - always makes me feel good


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## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

Waehnen said:


> The one work that says "home" to you
> What is the one work that you feel most at home with? You may use other words, too. For example, what work resonates with your personality the most? What is the work with which you feel like you´re looking yourself in the mirror the most? The work that gives you comfort, saying: you´re here again, welcome!.


I find it quite fascinating that, after more than 30 responses discussing approximately two dozen works, not a single atonal work has been cited as the "home" musical composition that "resonates with your personality the most". Every work cited utilizes the system of composition based on tonality. Maybe it will take another hundred years for some music lovers to feel cozy enough with atonal works to cite them as "home"?

In any case, responding to the OP question: I can't possibly identify a single piece meeting this qualification, but instead a whole constellation of pieces. Some that come to mind, with vigorous cognitive squeezing: Copland's "Billy the Kid" Suite; Mozart's Sym #35, "Haffner"; Brahms's Sym #1; Rozsa's Theme, Variations & Finale; Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition"; Shostakovich's Sym #5; Rachmaninoff's Sym #2; Piston's Sym #4; Bizet's "L'Arlesienne" Suites 1 & 2; Tchaikovsky's Sym #6, "Pathetique"; Prokofiev's Sym #7

Those, and undoubtedly more, are among the compositions that galvanized my life and utterly reoriented its direction ...


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Nawdry said:


> Maybe it will take another hundred years for some music lovers to feel cozy enough with atonal works to cite them as "home"?


Another hundred years? I've been cozy with atonal music since my teenaged years during the 1980s. I haven't replied in this thread until now because I truly don't have only one such opus; my 'home' base of composers includes Leonard Rosenman, Humphrey Searle, Benjamin Frankel, Luigi Dallapiccola, Roberto Gerhard, many others, etc.

I'll select Symphony No. 1 by Richard Rodney Bennett as a specimen representing the type of music that I listen to daily plus that which resonates with my aesthetics.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Mozart Clarinet Concerto.


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

Like others on this thread I reacted with the classical pieces that I linked to the family and being home with them. But I agree with those that say that just one piece can't "say home to them"... I don't have such a piece either.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Nawdry said:


> Maybe it will take another hundred years for some music lovers to feel cozy enough with atonal works to cite them as "home"?


Not likely. Certain sounds sooth, certain sounds stimulate, some sounds create apprehension...

This is hard coded in us. As "home" is for most of us soothing, I would expect atonal to be absent from the replies.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Nawdry said:


> I find it quite fascinating that, after more than 30 responses discussing approximately two dozen works, not a single atonal work has been cited as the "home" musical composition that "resonates with your personality the most". Every work cited utilizes the system of composition based on tonality. Maybe it will take another hundred years for some music lovers to feel cozy enough with atonal works to cite them as "home"?
> 
> In any case, responding to the OP question: I can't possibly identify a single piece meeting this qualification, but instead a whole constellation of pieces. Some that come to mind, with vigorous cognitive squeezing: Copland's "Billy the Kid" Suite; Mozart's Sym #35, "Haffner"; Brahms's Sym #1; Rozsa's Theme, Variations & Finale; Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition"; Shostakovich's Sym #5; Rachmaninoff's Sym #2; Piston's Sym #4; Bizet's "L'Arlesienne" Suites 1 & 2; Tchaikovsky's Sym #6, "Pathetique"; Prokofiev's Sym #7
> 
> Those, and undoubtedly more, are among the compositions that galvanized my life and utterly reoriented its direction ...


How funny: you complain that no one has mentioned an atonal work and then neither do you. :lol:

Physician heal thyself!


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

How was he complaining?


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## perempe (Feb 27, 2014)

Currently Brahms1 or Tchaikovsky5. I heard Brahms1 twice in a week, both concerts were in Liszt Academy.

If I had to add a chamber piece, it would be Franck's Violin sonata.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

The one work that says 'home to me'


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

For me, home is any one of a number of piano concertos: the Rach 2, because it was my first purchase of a classical music recording and I love it today. The Brahms 2nd because it is a complete meal with all the essential esthetic nutrients. The Prokofiev 3rd because it is both heartbreakingly beautiful and tremendously exciting. And last but hardly least, the Bach D minor keyboard concerto, which is almost indescribable. Home, for me, is music I never tire of, no matter how often I hear it. I could go on. But I won't.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

mbhaub said:


> Tchaikovsky's Manfred. It was one of the first works I ever got to know - even before the 4th, 5th or 6th. The score was the first pocket score I ever purchased. I used to listen to the two LPs I had of it (Toscanini and Goosens) until they wore out and had to get a new one (Maazel - finally, a complete version!) There are several works that have special meaning, but Manfred is like musical comfort food to me. Runner-up: Rachmaninoff 2nd.


Just letting you know I got myself a recording of the Manfred by Jurowski (who did well with Mahler/2) . Sounds very different from the symphonies. Kind of programmatic and epic. Very fascinating. A new side of Tchaikovsky to me, I think. Nice. Wonderful orchestral writing.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Waehnen said:


> Just letting you know I got myself a recording of the Manfred by Jurowski (who did well with Mahler/2) . Sounds very different from the symphonies. Kind of programmatic and epic. Very fascinating. A new side of Tchaikovsky to me, I think. Nice. Wonderful orchestral writing.


Oh my, what a work is this Symphony of a Manfred! Wow!


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## AaronSF (Sep 5, 2021)

Brahms Op. 117 piano pieces. I sat under the piano as a child and listened to my much older sister practice these pieces. They transported me then and still do.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Gotta be Dvorak's New World or Holst's Planets, only because I've had so much contact with these works throughout my childhood and professional career. I've played them, conducted them, arranged them, transcribed them, marched them, written papers on them, and still enjoy listening to them.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Le Sacre du Printemps


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

AaronSF said:


> Brahms Op. 117 piano pieces. I sat under the piano as a child and listened to my much older sister practice these pieces. They transported me then and still do.


Your post prompts a second thought on my part. Perhaps not 'home', but 'childhood': Dolly Suite - Berceuse, by Faure.


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## Holden4th (Jul 14, 2017)

Interesting question and I could not qualify it with one single work because 'home' can be many different things.

The first that jumped to mind was the *WTC.* Back in 2005 I went through a bout of severe clinical depression. Outwardly, I would have appeared OK to family friends and colleagues but inwardly I was a mess. Dark thoughts, the black dog trotted alongside me constantly. I was offered medication, turned it down and instead resorted the the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. I played it on piano and I listened to it in the hope that it would level me out emotionally. It worked. This music brought me back home to the happy place I'd known it to be.

*Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.* The title of the opening movement says it all. "Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arriving in the country" Substitute home for country and this what it evokes. Peace, relaxation, contentment.

*Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4*. The first of the LvB PCs I familiarised myself with and every time I listen it brings back memories of me at my childhood home totally engrossed in the music.


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