# What are some "sad" or "tragic" pieces?



## Declined (Apr 8, 2014)

I'm thinking along the lines of Mahler Symphony 6 or Beethoven Piano Sonata 8. Pieces to listen to when one is very upset. I'm actually quite happy, by the way.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Declined said:


> I'm thinking along the lines of Mahler Symphony 6 or Beethoven Piano Sonata 8. Pieces to listen to when one is very upset. I'm actually quite happy, by the way.


Most of Shostakovich's oeuvre is sad . . . In its artistic poverty.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Morimur said:


> Most of Shostakovich's oeuvre is sad . . . In its artistic poverty.


HERESY!! Wasn't he just voted composer number one after an exhaustive counting of ballots submitted by the entire TC membership? I know I saw it somewhere....

Better than Stravinsky. Better than Mahler. Better than Sibelius. Better than Prokofiev.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Declined said:


> I'm thinking along the lines of Mahler Symphony 6 or Beethoven Piano Sonata 8. Pieces to listen to when one is very upset. I'm actually quite happy, by the way.


Check out Allan Pettersson's Seventh Symphony.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Declined said:


> Pieces to listen to when one is very upset.


Lol. "Upset" in what manner, to what degree, and over what? 
Then, I genuinely wonder _what listening to any sort of music would 'do for that.'_


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Declined said:


> I'm thinking along the lines of Mahler Symphony 6 or Beethoven Piano Sonata 8. Pieces to listen to when one is very upset. I'm actually quite happy, by the way.





PetrB said:


> Lol. "Upset" in what manner, to what degree, and over what?
> Then, I genuinely wonder _what listening to any sort of music would 'do for that.'_


Well, once I was very unhappy and tried listening to "sad" music. I started feeling sorry for the first violinists instead; they had to play ludicrously high notes.
Then, when the piece finished I started feeling sad again.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> HERESY!! Wasn't he just voted composer number one after an exhaustive counting of ballots submitted by the entire TC membership? I know I saw it somewhere....
> 
> Better than Stravinsky. Better than Mahler. Better than Sibelius. Better than Prokofiev.


Hey, that is not heresy, it is travesty, at its finest


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Check out Allan Pettersson's Seventh Symphony.


... and wallow in a tank of self-involved / self-pitying gloom. Good Call!


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## Kibbles Croquettes (Dec 2, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Lol. "Upset" in what manner, to what degree, and over what?
> Then, I genuinely wonder _what listening to any sort of music would 'do for that.'_


I'm not quite sure what you are getting at here.

Of course listening to nice songs won't help you overcome major depression, but it is well known that people use music for emotional self-regulation in everyday life. Furthermore, the paradox that although people usually tend to avoid negative feelings but still enjoy sad music is well known among those who study emotions and music - it actually is the central question in a research project started by Tuomas Eerola in the university of Jyväskylä - and it is understood that listening to sad music doesn't necessarily _evoke_ sad feelings but people _recognize_ the sad feelings and that can help people to cope with their own negative emotions by for example evoking feelings of emotional connectedness and empathy.

If music - and particularly sad music - doesn't work for you this way it's completely okay; but you should recognize that other people may feel differently. But as I said: I didn't really get your point.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

PetrB said:


> ... and wallow in a tank of self-involved / self-pitying gloom. Good Call!


Nahh, I think Pettersson's is much more than that (his childhood was brutal and his adult life is for the most part unhappy, poor guy). His music is as honest as it comes.

That said, as far as sad or tragic pieces are concerned, what comes to mind readily are:
Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony
Suk's Asreal
Glazunov's Eighth (esp. the mesto movement)
Schmidt's Fourth
Myaskovsky's Third, Sixth and Thirteenth symphonies
Chopin's Piano Sonata no. II
Bax's In Memoriam and Symphonies I & II.
Rachmaninov's Vocalise & "The Isle of the Dead"
Gliere's Concerto for Coloratura & Orchestra
Shostakovich's Eighth
Górecki's Symphony no. III
Bainton's Second Symphony
Elgar's Cello Concerto


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Barber's _Adagio for Strings_ is a classic work for sublimating - making sublime? - feelings of sadness, sorrow and grief. Then, perhaps, take it a step sublimer still with Vaughan Williams' _Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis._ A friend of mine who lost a partner from AIDS told me that this work meant a great deal to him during that difficult time. Somehow it reached through his grief to a level of transcendence and helped him find peace.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Brahms described his intermezzi op. 117 as "lullabies to my sorrows".





Sadness not necessarily is tragic...


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Morimur said:


> Most of Shostakovich's oeuvre is sad . . . In its artistic poverty.


What's with the Shostakovich bashing recently?


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Der Leiermann said:


> What's with the Shostakovich bashing recently?


I believe that it was agreed that people could unfairly malign Shostakovich in exchange for the continued right for everyone to make incessant jokes about John Cage. It was a tough compromise but probably worth it, imo.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Well, I think it's good that Dmitri can raise a few sparks.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Blancrocher said:


> I believe that it was agreed that people could unfairly malign Shostakovich in exchange for the continued right for everyone to make incessant jokes about John Cage. It was a tough compromise but probably worth it, imo.


If I knew that the only admissible reprisal for making a Cage joke was a Shostakovich putdown, I'd have my comedy writers on the phone right now.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2014)

Kibbles Croquettes said:


> I'm not quite sure what you are getting at here.
> 
> Of course listening to nice songs won't help you overcome major depression, but it is well known that people use music for emotional self-regulation in everyday life. Furthermore, the paradox that although people usually tend to avoid negative feelings but still enjoy sad music is well known among those who study emotions and music - it actually is the central question in a research project started by Tuomas Eerola in the university of Jyväskylä - and it is understood that listening to sad music doesn't necessarily _evoke_ sad feelings but people _recognize_ the sad feelings and that can help people to cope with their own negative emotions by for example evoking feelings of emotional connectedness and empathy.
> 
> If music - and particularly sad music - doesn't work for you this way it's completely okay; but you should recognize that other people may feel differently. But as I said: I didn't really get your point.


I thought the point was obvious. What sad music would you recommend that the OP listen to s/he is in a sad frame of mind?

Thanks for the pointer to the Eerola work, some of which can be found at

http://journal.frontiersin.org/ResearchTopic/941


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I consider "sad" and "tragic" to be extreme and awful things or states of mind. Some months ago I went through the death of a relative and what I experienced there was something I would call "sad" and "tragic". Not something I would like to accompany with any music, to be honest. In fact, after living that, I tend to see most attempts by artists to produce something "sad" and "tragic" to be caricaturesque, and which completely fail to sympathize with the feelings I had at those moments. The music of the late romantic style being the most repulsive to me in this regard, particularly some pieces of a more histrionic type and ideals (this doesn't mean I don't like this style, just some particular pieces and ideas by some particular composers).

The only music that helped me was what I woud call 'static music' (like, e.g., Cage's Fourteen), music that made me forget of time, of myself, of everything, just static music like my static contemplation of the events surrounding me in complete nihilistic desolation. Of course, this is more related to some kind of "Eastern" approach (and, in fact, this music is indeed influenced by these eastern ideas). Perhaps my worldview and personality tend to these ideas then, though I don't subscribe to any religion, and don't have any desire to do it.

I don't claim any of these things as 'intrinsic' properties of this music, that's just how I experienced it at that particular moment. Today, my experience is different, and possibly tomorrow it will be different to the one I have today.

Of course, in more gentle moods, I can listen to, e.g., Ravel's Sad Birds and be delighted with its "sadness". But upon thinking about it, it's not because it "relates to my own sadness". What delights me is the _poetry_ of the music, which is a very different thing. The same with the first two Intermezzi from the Op.119 by Brahms, and even with Mahler's 6th or Ligeti's Requiem. And I guess that if I am in some vaguely melancholic mood, this delight can be calming. But it's a completely different thing than the "sad" and "tragic" situation of the first paragraph.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Der Leiermann said:


> What's with the Shostakovich bashing recently?


Well, the more any composer becomes, more likely de facto vs. any sort of planned conspiracy, the object of so much and so many subjective opinions on their greatness... when they are, truly, questionably a fine enough composer but when compared to other contextual uses of 'great,' like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, etc.... well, then you get at least a little friendly but heated contention.

Same thing happened lately on / around / and over the wonderful greatness of the otherwise also perfectly O.K. but, you know -- not really "great" -- Ralph Vaughan Williams


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Blancrocher said:


> I believe that it was agreed that people could unfairly malign Shostakovich in exchange for the continued right for everyone to make incessant jokes about John Cage. It was a tough compromise but probably worth it, imo.


*Ladies, gentlemen, and tenors, Hats off to A Prizewinner!*


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Kibbles Croquettes said:


> I'm not quite sure what you are getting at here.
> 
> Of course listening to nice songs won't help you overcome major depression, but it is well known that people use music for emotional self-regulation in everyday life. Furthermore, the paradox that although people usually tend to avoid negative feelings but still enjoy sad music is well known among those who study emotions and music - it actually is the central question in a research project started by Tuomas Eerola in the university of Jyväskylä - and it is understood that listening to sad music doesn't necessarily _evoke_ sad feelings but people _recognize_ the sad feelings and that can help people to cope with their own negative emotions by for example evoking feelings of emotional connectedness and empathy.
> 
> If music - and particularly sad music - doesn't work for you this way it's completely okay; but you should recognize that other people may feel differently. But as I said: I didn't really get your point.


My apology for a rather cliché assumption: i.e. without further qualification of what was sought and why, the OP read to me like many a moody adolescent's request for music which for them seems to well accompany teen angst.

I recall a decades older study about 'sad' music and listener response, and it was quite interesting, the findings rather in that vein akin to _Schadenfreude_, where the listeners' response of having those emotions evoked then triggers a brain secretion which makes the listener actually feel rather good! That might well explain, even if the listener is not 'upset,' why this stripe of music which evokes those emotions appeals to so many.

This would mean that people who are 'down' may not actually better cope because they have listened, but, as the Greeks attributed both music and healing to Apollo, that genre of music may actually have at least a temporary 'healing affect,' or at least temporarily relieve the symptoms.

The catalyst triggered is then one of neurological mechanics, and not a psychological aid!

If you plow through the dozens of listings found when you Google search "Why sad music makes us feel good," (or simile) you will find dozens which happily go along with the premise being looked into in that study you mentioned. These are all more in line with a pop-psychology theory which will likely have a vogue until some give up on that touchy-feely squishy pop trend and begin to look at the real science behind sad music and how it works on us, and then perhaps some psychological aspect of address can be better arrived at. Look far enough, and you may land upon that article more truly about the science of the effect. As it is, that research you mentioned is merely replicating dozens of very questionable 'pop psych' trends.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I think that some of Brahms later works can make me rather sad .


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

^^^Yes!! The late piano pieces plus the Brahm's Fourth Symphony minus the forced joviality of the third movement.

The last movement of the fourth always spells "DOOM" to me.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Well, the more any composer becomes, more likely de facto vs. any sort of planned conspiracy, the object of so much and so many subjective opinions on their greatness... when they are, truly, questionably a fine enough composer but when compared to other contextual uses of 'great,' like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, etc.... well, then you get at least a little friendly but heated contention.
> 
> Same thing happened lately on / around / and over the wonderful greatness of the otherwise also perfectly O.K. but, you know -- not really "great" -- Ralph Vaughan Williams


Well I think Shostakovich and RVW *are* great. Along with Messiaen, Lutoslawski, Brahms, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Haas and Ligeti. Sue me.


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## Kibbles Croquettes (Dec 2, 2014)

PetrB said:


> My apology for a rather cliché assumption: i.e. without further qualification of what was sought and why, the OP read to me like many a moody adolescent's request for music which for them seems to well accompany teen angst.
> 
> I recall a decades older study about 'sad' music and listener response, and it was quite interesting, the findings rather in that vein akin to _Schadenfreude_, where the listeners' response of having those emotions evoked then triggers a brain secretion which makes the listener actually feel rather good! That might well explain, even if the listener is not 'upset,' why this stripe of music which evokes those emotions appeals to so many.
> 
> ...


Yes, I am familiar with those neurophysiological explanations also. I thought about referring to them, but I was too lazy to actually go and fetch the articles from my bookshelf to check if I remembered them correctly.

But what I think is more important than my laziness is that you should remember that the more reductionist a view is doesn't necessarily mean that the more scientific it would be (what ever that then means to each one); nor does the fact that psychological phenomena can be correlated to, or even reduced to, neurophysiological activity mean that it wouldn't be meaningful to use psychological theories to describe them. People generally tend to automatically assume that more biologically based explanations would be in some way better (or more scientific) and make less reductionist explanations obsolete, but it isn't quite that simple: sometimes less reduced views may give more meaningful descriptions of complex human behaviour than trying to explain for example musical taste with neurosecretion (that's obviously a silly example but I wanted to bring some warmheartedness in this conversation; a more realistic example might be to say what we can learn about the complex emotional responses to music by putting someone in an fMRI machine in which she responds to simple stimuli by pushing two buttons).

What it comes to your last paragraph, it is, of course, obvious what your attitude is, and you are entitled to it, but disregarding studies as " touchy-feely pop trend", "pop psych" that isn't "real science" is quite a hasty conclusion and indeed rather harsh. Maybe I'm "touchy-feely" but I do see neurophysiological and psychological explanations as complementary - in no way is my intention to say that reductionist/neurophysiological views would be worse. Both views can be - and are - criticized and develop by answering to that criticism.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MagneticGhost said:


> Well I think Shostakovich and RVW *are* great. Along with Messiaen, Lutoslawski, Brahms, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Haas and Ligeti. Sue me.


I'm wondering if you meant to post the above in that "Greatest Symphony written within the last 100 years" thread?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Kibbles Croquettes said:


> Yes, I am familiar with those neurophysiological explanations also. I thought about referring to them, but I was too lazy to actually go and fetch the articles from my bookshelf to check if I remembered them correctly.
> 
> But what I think is more important than my laziness is that you should remember that the more reductionist a view is doesn't necessarily mean that the more scientific it would be (what ever that then means to each one); nor does the fact that psychological phenomena can be correlated to, or even reduced to, neurophysiological activity mean that it wouldn't be meaningful to use psychological theories to describe them. People generally tend to automatically assume that more biologically based explanations would be in some way better (or more scientific) and make less reductionist explanations obsolete, but it isn't quite that simple: sometimes less reduced views may give more meaningful descriptions of complex human behaviour than trying to explain for example musical taste with neurosecretion (that's obviously a silly example but I wanted to bring some warmheartedness in this conversation; a more realistic example might be to say what we can learn about the complex emotional responses to music by putting someone in an fMRI machine in which she responds to simple stimuli by pushing two buttons).
> 
> What it comes to your last paragraph, it is, of course, obvious what your attitude is, and you are entitled to it, but disregarding studies as " touchy-feely pop trend", "pop psych" that isn't "real science" is quite a hasty conclusion and indeed rather harsh. Maybe I'm "touchy-feely" but I do see neurophysiological and psychological explanations as complementary - in no way is my intention to say that reductionist/neurophysiological views would be worse. Both views can be - and are - criticized and develop by answering to that criticism.


I don't work at being 'different,' but do wonder for example, since I am a musician and do react rather outside the average to something like what is thought of as "One of the saddest pieces ever composed," -- the Barber Adagio for Strings, which is to me not so sad, or expressing longing, as much as a beautiful piece built in a sort of wave contour which involves a masterly long and floating melodic line. If it is not 'sad' to me, does the rest, neurological or psychological, hold true? Or am I, to joke, really beyond help of the reach of the conclusions of those studies?

This is the area which has me somewhat glibly near wholesale discounting such studies... or at least advocating running blind tests where one group are professional musicians, not undergraduate music students but older adult musicians, and the other a 'lay group,' -- because I think that might bring some interesting and somewhat surprising results.


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## Kibbles Croquettes (Dec 2, 2014)

PetrB said:


> I don't work at being 'different,' but do wonder for example, since I am a musician and do react rather outside the average to something like what is thought of as "One of the saddest pieces ever composed," -- the Barber Adagio for Strings, which is to me not so sad, or expressing longing, as much as a beautiful piece built in a sort of wave contour which involves a masterly long and floating melodic line. If it is not 'sad' to me, does the rest, neurological or psychological, hold true? Or am I, to joke, really beyond help of the reach of the conclusions of those studies?
> 
> This is the area which has me somewhat glibly near wholesale discounting such studies... or at least advocating running blind tests where one group are professional musicians, not undergraduate music students but older adult musicians, and the other a 'lay group,' -- because I think that might bring some interesting and somewhat surprising results.


In no way do any studies suggest that everyone should react to stimuli in a stereotypical way. It is mostly about, as you said, averages. Obviously things such as musical expertise, personality traits, current mood, musical taste etc. are factors and their contributions are being studied.

But I can sympathize with your feelings: I do, too, quite often react in a way that seems to be outside the average and for that reason I am, as are you, critical of those studies. I've had quite a few insightful conversations - after few beers - about the validity of those studies with people more oriented to that field.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Barber's _Adagio for Strings_ is a classic work for sublimating - making sublime? - feelings of sadness, sorrow and grief.


I've never heard, felt the Barber as being that, ergo am a little non-plussed to see it topping various lists of "The Saddest Piece Of Music Ever Written."

I know I've got odd tastes, too, compared to what many react to emotionally, though (can't think of anything in particular in this moment) some pieces have effected me in just that way.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

PetrB said:


> I've never heard, felt the Barber as being that, ergo am a little non-plussed to see it topping various lists of "The Saddest Piece Of Music Ever Written."
> 
> I know I've got odd tastes, too, compared to what many react to emotionally, though (can't think of anything in particular in this moment) some pieces have effected me in just that way.


For me, Barber's Adagio is about how after any disaster we have the obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Sibelius - Symphony no. 1, Kullervo Symphony
Schoenberg - Pelleas Und Melisande (it's tonal)


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Blancrocher said:


> For me, Barber's Adagio is about how after any disaster we have the obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.


Yes. I'm estimating my taxes for the year 2014. Cue the Barber Adagio.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

There are pieces that are 'by definition' sorrowful, e.g. finale of Tchaikovsky's 6th -- adagio *lamentoso*.

But in general I agree that any reaction of sadness will differ from inidividual to individual, e.g. the opening of Rachmaninov's 4th piano concerto has the capacity to stir feelings of melancholy inside me, yet I'm sure that this is not even remotely the case for others...


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

Ravel's _Pavane pour une Infante Défunte_.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Balthazar said:


> Ravel's _Pavane pour une Infante Défunte_.


Without knowing what triggered Ravel to write the piece, or how he regarded it, it is completely normal for people to assume that "Pavane for a dead princess" is a piece on the death of a child 

It is anything but. The Pavane, a truly antique dance form, was imagined as being danced by a young princess as depicted also in an antique painting, perhaps the well known Diego Velázquez painting _Las Meninas,_ or another portrait of a similar nature, also centuries old.

Ravel had no assumption the young woman in the painting had an early or untimely death, but rather envisioned this young woman in the antique painting in her own time, dancing to a pavane... that she may have lived a long and full life to adulthood and old age is more the projection of her story than any other scenario.

Then, the work has an elegance and nobility about an antique dance form, as danced by a lovely young woman in antique times. The 'death' is only to indicate that also in antiquity, she had passed.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

PetrB said:


> Without knowing what triggered Ravel to write the piece, or how he regarded it, it is completely normal for people to assume that "Pavane for a dead princess" is a piece on the death of a child
> 
> It is anything but. The Pavane, a truly antique dance form, was imagined as being danced by a young princess as depicted also in an antique painting, perhaps the well known Diego Velázquez painting _Las Meninas,_ or another portrait of a similar nature, also centuries old.
> 
> ...


Point taken. But even if it were entitled _Spaghetti and Meatballs_, I would still find it one of the most poignant and sorrowful pieces of music that I know.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Der Leiermann said:


> What's with the Shostakovich bashing recently?


Maybe 'cause he's dead and can't defend himself? Just a guess.


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