# Does music move you to tears with is beauty, if so what pieces?



## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

A lot of people wouldn’t relate to this but I bet it will strike a chord here.
What music has brought a tear to your eye? 
For me almost every time I play it is the opening of Finzi’s Eclogue for piano and strings op.10, Something deeply tender and deceptively simple about it.


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Gorecki - Symphony 3. Especially after I visited Auschwitz.


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Amazing Grace.


----------



## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Tristan und Isolde,


----------



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Radetzky March by Johann Strauss


----------



## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

Ralph Vaughan Williams--_*Fantasia* *on* *a Theme* *by* *Thomas* *Tallis* *and* *The* *Wasps*._


----------



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Aramis said:


> Radetzky March by Johann Strauss


Hah. If you're trying for shock value, how about Das Horst Wessel Lied?


----------



## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Hah. If you're trying for shock value, how about Das Horst Wessel Lied?


I think that more appropriately belongs in the "terrifying music" section of this forum, really.


----------



## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

Tristan und Isolde
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 6
Sibelius - Symphony No. 5


----------



## dmg (Sep 13, 2009)




----------



## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

presto said:


> For me almost every time I play it is the opening of Finzi's Eclogue for piano and strings op.10, Something deeply tender and deceptively simple about it.


A beloved piano teacher and music history professor at my college recently retired, and at his final concert appearance at the school, he played Finzi's Eclogue with the orchestra. A lot of people teared up, including members of the orchestra, and him.


----------



## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

_Erbarme dich_ from Bach's St. Matthew Passion

Bruckner 8, adagio (!)

Enescu 3rd symphony, 3rd movement

Sibelius 3, 2nd movement


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

You all already know who/what I cry to. 

Curious enough, Prokofiev doesn't really make me cry. I've cried only a few times to his (ballet) music, it's very rare. Same with Shostakovich. I'm still incredibly moved by both of them though.

But Glazunov has literally made me cry so many times, I lost count around 20 in the last 3 years. It's ridiculous!


----------



## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

There was a time when I was very in touch with all the music that I listened to. I would cry at lots of things and find them so beautiful, but I don't feel that strongly now. The strongest musical experience I can remember is when I played Rachmaninoff's B minor prelude for the first time. I had studied the parts individually and when I finally played it all together and realized the meaning of the piece, I burst into tears. I was in a very strange mental state for the rest of the night. I just remember feeling really close to the composer, like Rachmaninoff had showed me exactly what he felt like.

I think only musicians have that.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Sofronitsky said:


> There was a time when I was very in touch with all the music that I listened to. I would cry at lots of things and find them so beautiful, but I don't feel that strongly now. The strongest musical experience I can remember is when I played Rachmaninoff's B minor prelude for the first time. I had studied the parts individually and when I finally played it all together and realized the meaning of the piece, I burst into tears. I was in a very strange mental state for the rest of the night. I just remember feeling really close to the composer, like Rachmaninoff had showed me exactly what he felt like.
> 
> I think only musicians have that.


I've cried to my own flute music before. It all just dawned on me all of a sudden in this one phrase how deep it was, and I just lost my embouchure and cried.


----------



## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

Sofronitsky said:


> There was a time when I was very in touch with all the music that I listened to. I would cry at lots of things and find them so beautiful, but I don't feel that strongly now. The strongest musical experience I can remember is when I played Rachmaninoff's B minor prelude for the first time. I had studied the parts individually and when I finally played it all together and realized the meaning of the piece, I burst into tears. I was in a very strange mental state for the rest of the night. I just remember feeling really close to the composer, like Rachmaninoff had showed me exactly what he felt like.
> 
> I think only musicians have that.


I've had that, too. Copland Clarinet Concerto. And Finlandia (first thing I ever played in an orchestra, so I think it was the experience of being part of an orchestra as much as the music itself).


----------



## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

I’m glad to see other people own up to their emotions, my wife cant understand how I can be moved in this way by what she says is “just music.”
But then she can be moved to tears by a movie which I very rarely do.


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

samurai said:


> Ralph Vaughan Williams--_*Fantasia* *on* *a Theme* *by* *Thomas* *Tallis* *and* *The* *Wasps*._


I'll second the Tallis Fantasia. It never fails.

Sometimes these brings tears to my eyes:
Beethoven's 9th
Monteverdi - 1610 Vespers
Weiner - Romance for cello harp and string orchestra

and in the field of (slightly) more popular music:
Yes - Awaken
Jethro Tull - A Passion Play


----------



## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Mozart - The Marriage of Figaro, Act IV, Ah Tutti Contenti...also, the 3rd Mvt. from the Gran Partita kv 361


----------



## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

If this is not limited to strictly *classical *works, I'd like to in all humility submit a work from the jazz world. This has brought me to tears, not only because the piece itself so deftly captures the loneliness and fear that the first man in outer space must have felt at times, but because the gifted and sensitive musician who plays it so beautifully was taken from us at such an obscenely young age. *Both *he and the composition are things of *beauty *and *loss:*



*.* 
I just had to post another version of this masterpiece; sorry:


----------



## PhillipPark (Jun 22, 2011)

Every time I listen to "The Princess' Round" from the _Fire Bird Suite_. The melodies almost have a haunting, Saint Saens-esque quality to them.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Gorecki - Symphony 3. Especially after I visited Auschwitz.

Indeed!


----------



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The vision that Mahalia is channeling is enough to convert the hardened atheist.


----------



## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

> The vision that Mahalia is channeling is enough to convert the hardened atheist.


Well, not quite. I can appreciate religious music, but my appreciation is always in its humanity, not divinity.

On topic, music (and art in general) doesn't make me cry. It's not some stupid macho thing, it's just that when music really affects me, it's in a different way altogether. Maybe someone knows what I'm getting at.


----------



## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Music doesn't make you cry. The circumstances in which you listen to them do.


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Rasa said:


> Music doesn't make you cry. The circumstances in which you listen to them do.


80-85% of the times I've cried from music were at night. When I was alone.


----------



## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

Rasa said:


> Music doesn't make you cry. The circumstances in which you listen to them do.


I would extend that thought to "subject matter". I get most teary at the opera. The two that get me EVERY TIME are Puccini's Butterfly and Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Honourable mention goes to Andre Gagnon's "romantic opera" on French-Canadian poet Emile Nelligan. Hounourable mention not because it doesn't get me crying but because I don't consider it an opera, but a lyric musical. And also because I don't think most non-quebeckers would be as moved as I would be.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

The ending of Mahler's 2nd symphony
The really dreamy waltzy parts of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony, if anyone knows what part I'm talking about
2nd movement of Barber's violin concerto
2nd movement of Barber's piano concerto
The 3rd movement of Mahler's 4th symphony
the last movement of Mahler's 9th symphony
The 3rd movement of Beethoven's op. 57 no. 1 string quart
Parts of Tchaikovsky's 6th
second movement of Sibelius's 2nd symphony
last movement of Sibelius's 1st symphony

.....ya...I cry a lot


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

By crying, do you guys mean just getting choked up, or actually falling on the ground weeping bitterly?


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> The vision that Mahalia is channeling is enough to convert the hardened atheist.


1:41, tears. 2:00, right foot tapping. 4:00, laughing. She's not using any tricks; she's just singing from heart.


----------



## PhillipPark (Jun 22, 2011)

For me, the former: getting teary eyed =).


----------



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

On the side note, it's not first thread about music that makes you cry but there are no theads like "music that makes you comb your hair", "music that makes you bang your first upon the table", "music that makes you jump", "music that makes you writhe", "music that makes you tense your muscles", "music that makes you do dignified poses of glory", as well as many others - what's wrong with you people, is crying only thing you can do, only extreme reaction to music you know? What a poverty!


----------



## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

The first entry of the cor anglais in Delius' Brigg Fair. 1' 40" in this performance.


----------



## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

This one--first time--every time:


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

samurai said:


> This one--first time--every time:


I appreciated how it was used in the movie Master and Commander as a sort of requiem.


----------



## Sofronitsky (Jun 12, 2011)

Aramis said:


> On the side note, it's not first thread about music that makes you cry but there are no theads like "music that makes you comb your hair", "music that makes you bang your first upon the table", "music that makes you jump", "music that makes you writhe", "music that makes you tense your muscles", "music that makes you do dignified poses of glory", as well as many others - what's wrong with you people, is crying only thing you can do, only extreme reaction to music you know? What a poverty!


Well since you've put it out there, Bach's G Minor Concerto for Keyboard is the only thing that's made me try to sing counterpoint and move my fists like an ape simultaneously.


----------



## GMMM (Jul 5, 2011)

Shostakovich piano concerto no 2. Andante. Just the best music ever written


----------



## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Wagner: Das Rheingold - when the Rheingold emerges. Purity of nature and the universe, about to get corrupted...
Wagner: Die Walküre - here, it's more practical to count the times when I don't cry. There are not many of those...
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde - boo hoo, all the way through...


----------



## StephenTC (Apr 24, 2014)

Usually I have to be in the right state of mind to be moved to tears: the exception is the album "Song of the Angel" - Jane Sheldon (soprano) which gets me EVERY time: especially the song "If" but several other tracks as well.
eg: 




Most often it is the female voice that will rip your heart out eg: the Caccini "Ave Maria", Cristina Gallardo-Domas





In instrumental music: The Great Gate at Kiev from Pictures at an Exhibition (Mussorgsky / Ravel / Solti) - how does it manage to sound magnificent and sad at the same time?! - because we know that it was created for a magnificent gate that was never built?





Once, when I had not listened to it for a couple of years, the LVB 5th Symphony: I was a bit distracted as the 3rd movement started- when the horn marched in, underpinned by the slashing strength of the strings, the effect was electrifying, shocking my body and starting tears from my eyes. It embodies Struggle *and* the Triumph over it, with magnificence and shining beauty (aah "lovely old Ludwig", as little Alex from A Clockwork Orange would say.)


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Funny how no music affects me in that way. It simply elevates me, especially Bach, outside of my normal self in a spiritual way.

Tears come when watching movies, not when listening to music.


----------



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

The last movements of Bruckner's 5th and 9th.
Bach Brandenburg Concerto no 4
Tchaikovsky 6th symphony
Tchaikovsky 1st P con
Chopin 1st Piano sonata
Alkan symphony for piano 1st movement
Czerny symphony no 1
Ries symphony no 5
Beethoven 9th symphony
Clementi piano sonatas op 50


----------



## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

samurai said:


> Ralph Vaughan Williams--*Fantasia* *on* *a Theme* *by* *Thomas* *Tallis*


Tears are rare for me, but this one always has me on the cusp.


----------



## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a clear winner in this category for me but Beethoven's Sixth Symphony has the same impact as such.


----------



## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Elgar's _Sospiri_ is short and sweet, but packs an incredible punch, especially in Sir John's Barbirolli's recording.

Mahler's _Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen_ when sung by Dame Janet Baker, with Barbirolli (again) conducting.

_Ah non credea_ and the preceding recitative from *La Sonnambula*, but only when sung by Callas.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The only thing I can think of is when I'm given a surprise party and they sing Happy Birthday to me.


----------



## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Most of the time it depends on the context of the music; for example, the adagio from Giselle. The only time I cried just from the music alone was the second movement from Mozart's quintet for piano and winds. Towards the end the piano just accompanies with soft chords like footsteps and the woodwinds exchange the same little melody in call and response and at the time I was listening, it sounded as if the instruments were really talking to each other in hopelessly optimistic, pleasant, and naive tones. I thought it was impossible that someone couldn't be moved, but then I'd casually scroll down and see a typical youtube comment "This is, like, so boring" for a nice dose of reality.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Liszt's Sonata in B minor.

However I was peeling onions at the time.


----------



## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I'm not sure if I've ever cried from a piece before. At most, I cried once listening to Chopin's first ballade, but that was because it reminded me of my first piano teacher who passed away


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Same here. I'm very sensitive to music and I love it but it never makes me cry. 

Things like waterboarding could make me cry.


----------



## Tera Dactil (Dec 22, 2020)

Prokofiev Violin Concerto #1
Stravinsky "Firebird" - the Nocturne


----------



## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

There is nothing more emotionally moving than the score to Titanic. I don't care who you are.

It seems certain Classical composers are the best with emotions, such as Debussy and Chopin, but later composers have them beaten in this facet.


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Ethereality said:


> There is nothing more emotionally moving than the score to Titanic. I don't care who you are.
> 
> It seems certain Classical composers are the best with emotions, such as Debussy and Chopin, but later composers have them beaten in this facet.


WOW, that was a bad song to me, I do not like it at all. It was why I never watched that movie. Most touching song in English to me would be the "Fairest Isle" by Henry Purcell.


----------



## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I don't remember any song there. I know there is lots of choir. I think the best tracks/movements are 8, 3 and 4.

edit: Also I may have posted this work in the wrong thread. I meant incredibly emotional, not necessarily beautiful.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

It would be a long list, beginning with Bach's D-minor keyboard concerto and the Fourth Brandenburg and running through much of orchestral Brahms to Ravel's Left Hand Concerto and Daybreak music, and to Prokofiev's violin concertos and certainly the third piano concerto. And Sibelius' Second Symphony and Pohjola's Daughter, and to Hovhaness' First Piano and Second Violin Concertos. Just scratching the surface.......


----------



## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

Devastating.


----------



## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

It didn't move me to tears but I was sitting in the living room yesterday listening to the finale of Mahler's 7th and I wasn't really aware of it until my wife walked in and gave me a "look". She tells me not to play any classical music that is orchestral while driving because both hands need to be on the wheel.


----------

