# Your profound musical moments?



## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

It's some time since I had one, but one I remember vividly was being fourteen/fifteen and listening to Debussy's _La Cathédrale Engloutie_ on an LP through headphones. Lying on the bed. It was the last track on the record and I let it revolve until the tone arm returned itself, and lay there a bit stupefied.

What is yours and what did you feel?


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

I was cosmically bored as a teenager and used to half-listen to music reading novels. One evening I had an LP of Bach Organ Chorales on the stereo. Suddenly, I stopped reading and thought, OK, I get it.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

A couple of memories: first hearing Hovhaness' First Piano Concerto, _Lousadzak_, on the old MGM LP, then finding to my joy that his 2nd Violin Concerto on the other side of the disk was just as mind-blowing. Another was the revelation of the TV introduction by Bernstein of Glenn Gould and the historic performance of the Bach First Keyboard Concerto. I was mesmerized through the entire performance.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

When I first heard a recording of Richter playing Schubert's Piano Sonata in G major, I was almost struck dead. It's still my favorite recording of a piano sonata. A live performance also stands out in my memory. After years of only having seen or listened to 19th-century ballet, I recall being amazed when I first watched Stravinsky's Agon choreographed by Balanchine; both the music and dancing seemed from another world. That music always takes me back.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

When I was first getting really into classical music I saw Marc-Andre Hamelin playing the Liszt Sonata live. I could hardly contain my joy and I had to try really hard not to burst into laughter: it was just so incredibly _awesome_.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Hearing Mahler for the first time- his fourth symphony. It swept me up from the very first notes and I was in a magical other world for the next hour. It was Abbado, whose version is actually no longer my favorite, but completely blew me away the first time.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Due to an accident of when I happened to have series tickets, I happened to be in Symphony Hall when the teenaged Itzhak Perleman made his BSO debut playing the Sibelius Concerto. I was absolutely overwhelmed.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Sitting down with the music of Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring and being amazed that my fingers could play such divine notes.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It has to be my first experience of Wagner's _Parsifal,_ via a radio broadcast from Philadelphia when I was around sixteen in culturally deprived south Jersey. Already knowing some Wagner orchestral bits and having studied the stories of operas in books, I was somewhat prepared, but four-plus hours of this mysterious, harrowing and exalted work had me totally transfixed and left me in some kind of altered state that persisted for most of the day, and in a deep way persists even now.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

A long, long time ago (in a galaxy far away) the local classical music station (yes we had one back then) played the Bernstein/NYPO recording of Nielsen's 5th symphony to which the only reaction was 'that ... was ... fantastic'. Two or three years later the San Diego Symphony played the same symphony and I had tickets near the front of the orchestra section. The feeling at the end of the first part was aptly summed up by a young couple behind me with a quiet but deeply felt 'wow'!

Back then the Los Angeles Philharmonic did 6 concerts per year in San Diego and in 1969, one of them was the Mahler 9th conducted by Sir John Barbirolli. I don't remember any particular part of it but along with a Chicago Symphony/Solti Mahler 5th a few years later, was one of those concerts which made me NOT listen to recordings of those works again for a long time so that I wouldn't ruin the memories.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Double profound concert:

Many years ago a new multi million dollar fine arts hall opened on our campus and started to bring in classical acts. Within the first couple of years a symphony orchestra was scheduled to play Copland's _Appalachian Spring_. Now I had grown up loving this work and listening to it hundreds of times, but I had only heard the full orchestra version and not the 13 piece chamber orchestra version. The problem with the full orchestra version is that it drowns out the middle parts, the interweaving lines of music underneath the melody. In the chamber orchestra version, many of these lines can be heard much clearer due to fewer musical instruments and also because many are played on piano, which sounds so distinctly different from the rest of the orchestra that those parts seem to stand out.

The concert took place around my birthday and the tickets were a present from my wife. It was the first time I had heard the 13 piece chamber orchestra version live. So on the night of the performance I sat listening with a huge grin on my face to one of my favorite pieces of music *and really hearing it all for the first time*. I was enthralled! (To this day I avoid the full orchestra version.)

Second part:

Two days before the concert the pianist with the orchestra took sick. With little time before the performance the orchestra selected a good friend of mine who was our composition teacher and choir director (and another former John Boda student) to play piano. I didn't know about the change in pianists and was pleasantly surprised when he walked out on stage and sat down at the piano. He was brilliant, filling in on such short notice and performing beautifully.....the parts I had never heard before.

Double profound concert. Double birthday present.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

I had drone flute (two pipes) and when the dog thought it was a stick it ate one half . So I was crying and later drilled new fingering holes into the single-tone drone that survived . After playing this awhile , it got stolen . So I went to the river and found a length of river cane . Making an identical one more , this one a big man stepped on . A few moody useless years then passed until I felt better I've made plenty more by now , and am ready to make one more - the original magic drone flute in D-flat. And also I have a smarter dog . She protects flutes .


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

To sum up my impressions, and what this makes this piece super profound to me:

1. Slow, soft
2. Major keyed, but melancholy minor key twinges unexpectedly
3. The minor keyed sections range from melancholy to anger and fear
4. Resolution into major, ending with peace, thoughtful contentedness

Sad, slow major is my favorite mood in classical music, I think. I guess you can call it a "romantic" kind of feeling, like 2 lovers professing love to each other, or heartsickness from not being able to see each other. Sad major is an expansion of what major ought to be, not merely a "happy" key, but one that struggles to deal with pain, and yet there is resolution to be content and at peace.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Middle movement of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G transports me to another world.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

^Yes I've had many profound experiences listening to that Ravel movement.

The truth is I have profound musical moments quite often. I'll mention one by a relatively less famous composer - the first time I listened to/viewed Partch's _Delusion of the Fury_ was a very powerful and unique experience.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

I have them quite often too lucky me. Last one was listening to qautor mosaique’s recent recording of Beethoven SQ 15 slow movement. Cliche maybe but no less true for it.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Debussy: Suite Bergamasque - IV. Passepied (Gieseking)

I find this piece is profound and beautiful at the same time. It can be played many different ways, each competent pianist emphasizing different aspects of it, truly the mark of a remarkable piece of music. Tomita did a wonderful electronic version.


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## Kollwitz (Jun 10, 2018)

A year or so ago, very early on a Sunday morning I drove to Scotland on my own to visit relatives. In very light traffic and amidst some beautiful scenery I listened to Benjamin Zander's talk that accompanied his recording of Bruckner 5, then immediately after listened to the symphony (for the first time), without having to stop at all. By the time the coda of the fourth movement arrived I was completely overwhelmed, a huge physical and emotional response to the music. As an enthusiastic listener with no real musical background, Zander's interpretation of the different themes and movements really helped me to understand it more deeply and, by extension, the rest of his work. It made me feel and understand, more than before, how music is able to express deep meaning and beauty in ways that other art can't.


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