# What is the most emotionally unforgiving piece of classical music?



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

The sort that can reduced an adult to a blubbering mess. I am listening to Chopin's Nocturne in C minor Op. 48 No. 13 and it presses all the buttons especially the last two minutes or so. It is so powerful and makes me wonder what Chopin would have been like to encounter. Other pieces that spring to mind is the last movement of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony or any of Beethoven's last string quartets.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Mahler's Kindertotenlieder.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Bach: violin partita no. 2 (chaconne)
Beethoven: piano sonata no. 30
Brahms: symphony no. 4
Brahms: string quartets no. 1-2 op. 51

They might not be devastating but do leave a bitter aftertaste.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Art Rock said:


> Mahler's Kindertotenlieder.


The epitome of that peculiarly German genre which the incomparable traumatic soprano Mme. Vera Galupe-Borszkh calls "dead baby songs."


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun is very moving. Barber's Adagio for Strings is even more moving.


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

I feel that a lot of violin concertos fit the description: Berg, Shostakovich's both, Gubaidulina's both, Britten...


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Shostakovich's 15th and final string quartet - I can't say I've ever been emotionally drained by any particular work but this one probably comes closest. The viola sonata isn't far behind either.


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

How could I forget: Shostakovich's 4th symphony! The ending is probably the most emotionally draining bit of music I've ever heard in my life. Mahler's 6th is pretty similar in this sense...


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Schubert's Winterreise. The protagonist is in such a dark place: he's lost his girlfriend, his social circle, his sanity and his hope. By the end of the cycle, he's emotionally numb, paralyzed by his despair and his nostalgia. Schubert's music creates a powerful portrayal of this chilling emotional trajectory.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Mahler Sym #6 (edp Solti recording...brutal)
Shostakovich Sym #14


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I don't think that there is any such work for me but the closest would probably be Josef Suk's _Asrael Symphony_


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Das Lied von der Erde, is for me the most emotional piece .


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## BlasterSarge (Jan 17, 2017)

The second movement of Barber's Violin Concerto is so emotionally intense it makes me feel like I can't breathe.


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## ST4 (Oct 27, 2016)

Bettina said:


> Schubert's Winterreise. The protagonist is in such a dark place: he's lost his girlfriend, his social circle, his sanity and his hope. By the end of the cycle, he's emotionally numb, paralyzed by his despair and his nostalgia. Schubert's music creates a powerful portrayal of this chilling emotional trajectory.


I'm sure a bit of telepathy just happened cause I was just thinking that  (and Mahler's 9th)


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## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

Bettina said:


> Schubert's Winterreise. The protagonist is in such a dark place: he's lost his girlfriend, his social circle, his sanity and his hope. By the end of the cycle, he's emotionally numb, paralyzed by his despair and his nostalgia. Schubert's music creates a powerful portrayal of this chilling emotional trajectory.


Pretty hard to beat this ^^^


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## AfterHours (Mar 27, 2017)

Heck148 said:


> Mahler Sym #6 (edp Solti recording...brutal)


What about Karajan's? ... ... ... Just kidding :tiphat:

(excellent choices btw)


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## ST4 (Oct 27, 2016)

Heck148 said:


> Mahler Sym #6 (edp Solti recording...brutal)
> Shostakovich Sym #14


Symphony #6? 6? 6? 6???? Did you mistype?

It's the only Mahler symphony that _isn't_ too much on the deep, emotionally destructive, melancholy side 

That is the Mahler symphony you listen to to party (like Wunderhorn), it's FUN :cheers:

You serious?


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Heck148 said:


> Mahler Sym #6 (edp Solti recording...brutal)
> Shostakovich Sym #14


Ditto on Mahler's 6th, specially the_ tour de force_ Final. (And if you ask me too ST4, yes I'm also serious about it)


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

For me they are Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and the Samuel Barber Adagio.

:tiphat:


Kind regards,

George


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Mahler's Kindertotenlieder.


Yeah. I agree with this.

Whenever I have a party at my house, it's usually a choice between the Beatles White Album and Kindertotenlieder to loosen up the crowd.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Yeah. I agree with this.
> 
> Whenever I have a party at my house, it's usually a choice between the Beatles White Album and Kindertotenlieder to lossen up the crowd.


There was a great episode of "Cheers" in which Rebecca (Kirstie Alley) attended a posh party at which the entertainment was a very corpulent baritone singing Mahler's _Kindertotenlieder. _She got thoroughly soused and started singing along, telling everyone else to "be quiet, Raymond Burr is singing for us."


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

An odd choice, maybe, but I find Part's Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten deeply moving.


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## Isiah Thanu (Nov 1, 2016)

BlasterSarge said:


> The second movement of Barber's Violin Concerto is so emotionally intense it makes me feel like I can't breathe.


Recently heard Hilary Hahn playing it, and she nails it. Such emotional music ,so well played.

Being English I find Vaughan Williams and Finzi affect me intensely.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

At once solemn, agonized and ecstatic, the "transformation music" from Act 1 of Wagner's _Parsifal_ - embracing in just a few minutes strict neo-baroque counterpoint, vertiginous chromaticism, and searingly powerful orchestral sonority - has always left me awed and overwhelmed.


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## Oortone (Mar 27, 2013)

Janspe said:


> How could I forget: Shostakovich's 4th symphony! The ending is probably the most emotionally draining bit of music I've ever heard in my life. Mahler's 6th is pretty similar in this sense...


+1
I can hardly breathe when I've heard a good performance on that one and the end is near... The celesta... Why?

Otherwise the funeral march in Beethovens third and almost all movements of Mozart's Requiem up to and including Lacrymosa is deeply moving.

But the absolute peak for me is in Schubert's ninth symphony, the trio in the third movement. It's so very beautiful and filled with longing.

It's so strange, it's such a private thing. It feels like you share it with the composer only.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

The last movement of Schnittke's Piano Quintet has this effect on me. I always feel like I need to sit a few minutes in silence after hearing it.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I can't believe Moonlight Sonata hasn't been mentioned yet, it's a HUGE contender imo.


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## Timothy (Jul 19, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I can't believe Moonlight Sonata hasn't been mentioned yet, it's a HUGE contender imo.


What does the Moonlight Sonata express? there isn't much for the mind to be susceptible to if it doesn't open to change, reason and logic. Elsewise, where are we all going and coming to?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Timothy said:


> What does the Moonlight Sonata express? there isn't much for the mind to be susceptible to if it doesn't open to change, reason and logic. Elsewise, where are we all going and coming to?


I feel it's so obvious, that it isn't even worth typing out an argument for. The music speaks for itself; it's unforgivingly morbid.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I feel it's so obvious, that it isn't even worth typing out an argument for. The music speaks for itself; it's unforgivingly morbid.


Dark, mysterious, grave, serene, poignant, evocative - but not morbid. Not to me. I find nothing obvious about this remarkable movement, to which the title "Moonlight" (not Beethoven's idea) does an injustice. It can be _played_ morbidly, and often is by pianists who fail to notice that it's in cut time, the half-note and not the quarter note being the basic unit.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

ST4 said:


> #6
> It's the only Mahler symphony that _isn't_ too much on the deep, emotionally destructive, melancholy side
> 
> That is the Mahler symphony you listen to to party (like Wunderhorn), it's FUN :cheers:
> You serious?


Are you?? Lol!!


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

jdec said:


> Ditto on Mahler's 6th, specially the_ tour de force_ Final. (And if you ask me too ST4, yes I'm also serious about it)


He's joking I'm sure


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Hello, new hear today.

There are many works which I find emotional, but at the top of my list right now is William Grant Still's "Mother and Child."


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Dark, mysterious, grave, serene, poignant, evocative - but not morbid. Not to me. I find nothing obvious about this remarkable movement, to which the title "Moonlight" (not Beethoven's idea) does an injustice. It can be _played_ morbidly, and often is by pianists who fail to notice that it's in cut time, the half-note and not the quarter note being the basic unit.


Show me a version that does it more accurately, by your standards, then. If it is played morbidly by some, then that means those versions are up to debate in this thread.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Joe B said:


> Hello, new hear today.
> 
> There are many works which I find emotional, but at the top of my list right now is William Grant Still's "Mother and Child."


Welcome, enjoy the forum!


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## ST4 (Oct 27, 2016)

Heck148 said:


> Are you?? Lol!!


The 1st is what I listen to when I want something that is quite ecstatic but not too over the top
The 2nd is what I listen to when I'm feeling quite sentimental
The 3rd is what I listen to when I'm having an existential crisis 
The 4th is what I listen to when I'm in love
The 5th is what I listen to when I need some invigoration with a slice of melencholy
The *6th* is what I listen to when I'm feeling on top of the world, it's fun, opening with the most badass march ever!
The 7th is what I listen to for more reflection, on more darker things
The 8th is what I listen to, to confront those dark things
The 9th is what I listen to when everything in life feels like it's over and I'm doomed
The (unfinished) 10th is more of an afterthought for that, for me

There


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## ST4 (Oct 27, 2016)

_Rückert-Lieder_ though has brought me to tears multiple times, such a barren feeling of emotional and personal nothingness when I hear that cycle


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## Miserable Sod (May 2, 2017)

ST4 said:


> The 1st is what I listen to when I want something that is quite ecstatic but not too over the top
> The 2nd is what I listen to when I'm feeling quite sentimental
> The 3rd is what I listen to when I'm having an existential crisis
> The 4th is what I listen to when I'm in love
> ...


 When I first heard the finale from Mahler's 6th symphony I spent all morning listening to it on repeat. It's a devestating piece of music which, like the first movement, incorporates many different moods over the course of a large half an hour movement. It has the most "tragic" ending to a symphony I've heard.

The march theme from the opening movement is indeed fun, but the more I listen to this piece the more I realise just how much music there is in the opening movement alone. I'd say the meat of this symphony really is in the tragic final movement. To my ears its the total opposite of a chilled out fun symphony.


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## ST4 (Oct 27, 2016)

Miserable Sod said:


> When I first heard the finale from Mahler's 6th symphony I spent all morning listening to it on repeat. It's a devestating piece of music which, like the first movement, incorporates many different moods over the course of a large half an hour movement. It has the most "tragic" ending to a symphony I've heard.
> 
> The march theme from the opening movement is indeed fun, but the more I listen to this piece the more I realise just how much music there is in the opening movement alone. I'd say the meat of this symphony really is in the tragic final movement. To my ears its the total opposite of a chilled out fun symphony.


Well the finale sure is absolutely visceral but I can't listen to it without smiling the whole time.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Show me a version that does it more accurately, by your standards, then. If it is played morbidly by some, then that means those versions are up to debate in this thread.


I can't think of one offhand. It's been a long time since I heard it last. Check out some performances or play it yourself at home, as I have. I only know that most people play it too slowly, as if it were in 4/4 time, or even 12/8. It makes it quite a different piece, a sort of funereal dirge. I think that's what Beethoven's 2/2 time signature is designed to avoid. You may still find it morbid. There's no accounting for personal reactions. Someone obviously thought it sounded like moonlight.


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## adrien (Sep 12, 2016)

Beethoven's 6th Symphony last movt at the end.
Tchaik 6
Elgar cello concerto

A lot of music is more moving if you know the back story.

For example the Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem is more spine tingling once you know that Mozart only heard one performance of it, and that was the night he died when some friends came around and sang it to him on his deathbed.


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## Daniel Atkinson (Dec 31, 2016)

Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.






Daniel


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## nature (Jun 25, 2017)

Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)

Especially the second movement, and the context of the libretto being produced from a holocaust victim. I can not listen to it without feeling deep sadness.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Thanks, I'm sure I will. Nothing like being passionate about something and being able to share it.

Sorry, I didn't get the quote in before posting.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Welcome, enjoy the forum!


Thanks, I'm sure I will. Nothing like being passionate about something and being able to share it.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Elgar's Nimrod
The slow movement of Barber Symphony 1
Faure Requiem


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

ST4 said:


> The *6th* is what I listen to when I'm feeling on top of the world, it's fun, opening with the most badass march ever!


#5 is melancholy??, while #6 is fun, on top of the world??

OK...whatever.....I'll guess that is a pretty unique take on #6...


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Miserable Sod said:


> It's a devestating piece of music which, like the first movement, incorporates many different moods over the course of a large half an hour movement. It has the most "tragic" ending to a symphony I've heard........To my ears its the total opposite of a chilled out fun symphony.


That's how I hear it...


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## Mal (Jan 1, 2016)

Threnody for the Victims of Hirsoshima by Penderecki


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## Omicron9 (Oct 13, 2016)

The Arvo Part "Te Deum/Berliner Mass" album.

Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8

Shostakovich Viola Sonata op. 147


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## wolkaaa (Feb 12, 2017)

I'd add Prokofiev's Visions fugitives.


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## ST4 (Oct 27, 2016)

Heck148 said:


> #5 is melancholy??, while #6 is fun, on top of the world??
> 
> OK...whatever.....I'll guess that is a pretty unique take on #6...


"Invigorating" was the crux of my statement about the #5, not melancholy. The adagio in the #5, fits that description but I don't think so for the majority of that symphony :tiphat:


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

All of Kancheli. Just... all of it.


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## jimsumner (Jul 7, 2013)

I've long thought that the Shostakovich viola sonata is music to slit your wrist to.

I'm a bit surprised that no one has mentioned the Schubert string quintet. An emotional roller coaster.


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## arnerich (Aug 19, 2016)

Brahms clarinet quintet.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

As for sad music, the saddest of all is the third movement of the Hammerklavier sonata. Could anyone deny this? I dare you!


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Franck's Violin Sonata; it is relentless especially the last movement when he ties the whole piece together. Amazing motif in the last two movements that leaves me with my head in my hands, crying. How he changes mood so quickly is remarkable, too, with modulations out of nowhere as if they aren't theoretically possible.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

For me, Schnittke wins here. Both _Cello concerto No. 1_ and _Piano quintet_ are terribly moving in a high degree. Sorrow and desolation wherever you want.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Another poignant example is _In Memoriam Benjamin Britten_ by Pärt. It's something written with the soul.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

> Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)
> Especially the second movement, and the context of the libretto being produced from a holocaust victim. I can not listen to it without feeling deep sadness.


Agreed - a very sad and emotional movement; more so as it opens on a brief, rather uplifting major phrase.

I'd like to nominate Howard Skempton's "Lento". It gets me every time.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

Beethoven's good-bye to the world:


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## rw181383 (Aug 4, 2017)

Allan Pettersson's Symphony No. 10 is in the top 5 for me.


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## Crystal (Aug 8, 2017)

Beethoven's pathétique sonata.


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## Oortone (Mar 27, 2013)

rw181383 said:


> Allan Pettersson's Symphony No. 10 is in the top 5 for me.


I haven't heard that one. Since I love his 7th and find it extremely emotinal I must give it a try. Any recommended recordings?


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## rw181383 (Aug 4, 2017)

Oortone said:


> I haven't heard that one. Since I love his 7th and find it extremely emotinal I must give it a try. Any recommended recordings?


Love the 7th as well! The 10th is 25-30 minutes of aggressive intensity, with very little respite. It doesn't have the hard-won peace that closes 6, 7, and 9. I like the Francis and Segerstam, but my favorite is still the Dorati which is available at: http://www.haydnhouse.com/composer.htm


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

rw181383 said:


> Allan Pettersson's Symphony No. 10 is in the top 5 for me.


That one is his most aggresive symphony: lots of despair, anger, chaos.


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## Oortone (Mar 27, 2013)

rw181383 said:


> Love the 7th as well! The 10th is 25-30 minutes of aggressive intensity, with very little respite. It doesn't have the hard-won peace that closes 6, 7, and 9. I like the Francis and Segerstam, but my favorite is still the Dorati which is available at: http://www.haydnhouse.com/composer.htm


Thanks, great to know.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Art Rock said:


> Mahler's Kindertotenlieder.


I've come to absolutely love that. The Bernstein/Janet Baker recording convinced me that the mezzo-soprano may be the most beautiful of all voice types.

But the most emotionally unforgiving of all musical works is Mahler's 6th. It is part of its very fabric to be intentionally unforgiving... the entire symphony is just Mahler saying: "Ha! You thought you were going to get rebirth and hope! Well **** that, I'm just about to bludgeon your ears with a huge hammer to make sure that you know life is meaningless (until the 8th when I'll be out of my Nihilist phase I promise)


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

Shostakovich's Violin sonata and Viola sonata (two of his last chamber works): Sadness, pessimism, repressed anger, irony, sarcastic mood, bitter, thoughtful, still with both enough energy to demonstrate the creative mind he was... at the time of the mentioned works he had a little more bittersweet-dominating temperament (it coming since his 13rd Symphony, the acid _Babi Yar_, passing through his most introspective side with the 2nd Cello concerto and reaching the valedictory moment with the help of the 15th String quartet. I consider there are no doubts that Shostakovich meant Russian minds in the last century (and millenium)! BTW, the 1st Cello concerto, the 1st Violin concerto and The Execution of Stepan Razin (another unforgiving piece) are personal front-runners.

A few minutes ago I played the, perhaps, the comforting counterpart of the previous ones: Panufnik's 3rd Symphony and Foerster's 4th Symphony. The special message is: guaranteed hope and plenty of bliss.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I've cried listening to music from Star Wars and Naruto....I cried listening to 'Ich Grolle Nicht' in a slower tempo sung by anna moffo


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