# Symphonies with tragic endings?



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

I thought about this question after going through Haydn's symphonies (by the way I will finish them off sometime today) Most of the symphonies in a minor key that I have ever heard, end on a happy note even if the final movement still has some tension. That's basically my question, what symphonies in minor keys that you are aware of end on a sad note or full of tension?


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Mahler, symphony 6 in A minor. 
The final movement is a vast elaboration of a two chord theme which undrpins the first movement: a chord of A major modulating to the minor (below). Running half an hour, three heroic attempts to establish A major are each obliterated by a hammer blow and a return to the minor. The work ends, all energy spent, in the gloom of A minor.


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## Cygnenoir (Dec 21, 2011)

Sibelius 4 also ends in A minor, quiet and unresolved.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

The ending of Vaughan Williams's symphony 4 in F minor might be loud and brisk but all the dissonant themes of the first movement return right at the end, triumphantly *not *resolved into anything positive.

Havergal Brian's first symphony (_The Gothic_) in D minor may have some cataclysmic fortissimos towards the end, but the ending itself is pianissimo and highly ambivalent. The symphony sets the Latin _Te Deum_, the final words being _In te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in aeternum_ [_O Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded_]. The sense is very much of someone not at all confident that that prayer will be granted.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Experimentally chosen:

Sibelius #1
Brahms #3

They're hard to find. Most of the Symphonies are finished happily or Epic.


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## pjang23 (Oct 8, 2009)

The final movement of Tchaikovsky 6 is probably the most famous example. The composer killed himself shortly after this piece.

The final movement Brahms 4 is considered to be "taking back" the Ode to Joy.

Der Abschied from Das Lied von Der Erde is another tragic ending.


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## Jaws (Jun 4, 2011)

Schubert unfinished??


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Arsakes said:


> Experimentally chosen:
> 
> Sibelius #1
> Brahms #3
> ...


Thats part of the reason I asked, I am aware of a few, but no more, I was curious to see if anyone else could come up with more examples.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)




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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Gorecki's third. No hint of hope or optimism there....


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

Brahms 4 (how has this gone unmentioned?)
Mozart 40
Tchaikovsky 6
Mahler 6 and 9
Sibelius 4
Shostakovich 5, 8, 4 (and others)
Dvorak 7?

I do not know that I agree the Brahms 3 ends tragically. Ambiguously I would say.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The Brahms Fourth Symphony....leading us right to the apocalypse at its end.

Mahler 9. Played so softly....and the effect is shattering!


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Mahler #6
Sibelius #1, #4
VWms #4
Walton #1
Corigliano #1


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Manok said:


> *Symphonies with tragic endings?*


Exactly what is meant by "tragic" here can be nitpicked. A "despairing" ending, such as that of Tchaikovsky's 6th or Ralph Vaughn Williams's 6th or Shostakovich's 14th may not necessarily be tragic. Tragedy itself, as a vehicle that developed in the ancient Greek theatre in the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles, presents human situations that may seem to end badly (for the protagonist) but which actually prove ultimately optimistic, since some sort of salvation occurs for the general good through the tragic suffering and downfall of the protagonist, whom we term "the tragic hero." Why is such a character heroic? Could it be because his decision of ruin provides hope for his society?

Oedipus, the greatest tragic hero of them all, destroys himself with a horrifying blinding and self-exile into solitude and darkness, but his action (a courageous tragic choice) removes the great plague from his city of Thebes, a plague which has been killing citizens right and left. Oedipus could stop short of seeking out the truth, the answer to the final question, but he assumes his heroic role and destroys himself to save his city. So tragic characters act. And their terrible endings are antithetical to the endings of their very plays.

Think of Romeo and Juliet. The two young lovers die, but their death, or so the play hints at, restores their families to unity.

When art is absolutely depressing, providing no sense of hope, it tends to be short-lived. Artists themselves tend to be optimists. They have faith in the general goodness and upward movement of society. It is why they can spend their lives producing art in the first place.

So ... what exactly is a piece of music with a tragic ending?

I think immediately of Mahler's Ninth. That great sad ending movement seems to take us to the very brink of death, as the composer himself was dying as he wrote the music. But I've always been intrigued that on his death bed Mahler began sketching a Tenth Symphony, one which seemingly, from the sketches we have, promotes another look at life and death. We know that Mahler was contemplating Dante's _Comedy_ as he wrote. The _Comedy_ ends not in the dark world of the Inferno, but in the heavenly sphere. Perhaps Mahler was thinking of his own Second Symphony as he lay on that death bed jotting down the notes of the Tenth.

Anyhow, it's fascinating to ponder such things. But I know that overall I find music, and art in general, to be quite a positive, uplifting, and optimistic medium. I wouldn't want to waste my time listening to despair all day long.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Hausmusik said:


> I do not know that I agree the Brahms 3 ends tragically. Ambiguously I would say.


The whole Brahms #3 strikes me as strangely ambiguous, indeed even enigmatic. It's part of what I like about it. Would agree that the ending isn't really tragic, though that soft, shimmering return to the symphony's opening theme does create a sense of having traveled far only to end up where we started.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tragic ending? Disastrous is more like it. Prokofiev's 6th.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Mahler 9 by a long shot Bernstein for me please.


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