# What’s the most impressively loud piece of classical music you’ve ever heard?



## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

Mine is Berlioz, Grande Messe des morts, heard in the Royal Albert hall some years ago now.
I’ll never forget the first climax, it was like the world coming to an end! I‘ve never heard anything quite like it since! 
In fact after that first climax I noticed some people actually leaving the auditorium, presumably because it was too much for them.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Last year or the year before, I went to a performance (among other things) of Mussorgsky's _Night on a Bald Mountain_ at the Sheldonian in Oxford. Although the piece is not the loudest in classical music, the Sheldonian is considerably smaller than most concert halls, so the climaxes with cymbal crashes were borderline painful to the ears!


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## Moira (Apr 1, 2012)

Sadly, I went to an opera highlights performance where they had ... for what reason I will never know ... a drummer with a steel drum kit. He drowned out a sixty piece orchestra, a thirty piece choir and 8 soloists singing into mikes. And it was 'classical' music. Ouch!


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## mensch (Mar 5, 2012)

Étude No. 13, "L'escalier du diable" for piano by Ligeti features extreme dynamics, ƒƒƒƒƒƒƒƒ at one point. I've always found the way the whole piano resonates after playing this difficult and loud piece very impressive.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

Try watching this until the end and tell me if you know anything louder. You need to go to the section that starts at 21:57 (I tried getting the video to start at this point, but it doesn't seem to work here).


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Albert hall The proms in the eighties Respighi Pines of Rome. I was quite close though! It was the first time they used rock concert type lighting.Very cool. They had a Trumpet player up in the rafters for the solo too. Poor lad got stopped by security apparently! " Here mate where do think your going with that trumpet" lol! He just got there in time.


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## humanbean (Mar 5, 2011)

This recording of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 conducted by Claudio Abbado. The beginning starts off with a BAM! that is startling and shocking, but isn't annoying and doesn't hurt the ears. Probably the most impressive dynamics I've heard in a recording.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Badinerie said:


> Albert hall The proms in the eighties Respighi Pines of Rome. I was quite close though! It was the first time they used rock concert type lighting.Very cool. They had a Trumpet player up in the rafters for the solo too. Poor lad got stopped by security apparently! " Here mate where do think your going with that trumpet" lol! He just got there in time.


Yes, a Sydney Opera House performance by the Minnesota Orchestra under Neville Marriner, of all people, of that same work back in the mid-80s had a thoroughly overwhelming 'Appian Way'. Extra brass choirs all around the hall (a la Berloiz) really added to the effect.

Also, the sustained _ff_ at the end of Sibelius 2 can be pretty overwhelming too.
cheers,
GG


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

The_ triple fortissimo _in the final movement of Shostakovich's 5th. It actually used to be a test piece played before a studio recording was made. The sound engineers would record the orchestra playing that before the session, it was the loudest things could get back then, so they adjusted their equipment to that (I think around 1950's or '60's).

I found that work live to be impressive, but Orff's _Carmina Burana_, with all that percussion, was quite ear shattering. I don't like that work as my favourite, but I went to hear it live just for that kind of thrill or vibe. I think it was the first choral concert I remember ever going to as well.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Messian's Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, as someone said, often gets _loud enough to wake the dead._

and I've had a soft spot for his exhuberant and loud 'dance' movement from 
Turangalila Symphony, V; "Joie du Sang des Étoiles"


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Performed live, I think I accomplished a new record today. I heard my college's symphony orchestra do a dress rehearsal of Mahler's 2nd symphony, with choir and everything. I think the mvmt where the choir comes in, that was probably the loudest thing I've ever heard, considering it was the most instruments/voices I ever heard play/sing at once.

However, I would also say Corigliano's Symphony no. 3 "Circus Maximus," the climax mvmt. was also one of the worst, since there was surround ensemble around the audience, everyone blowing their brains out for like 5 seconds.


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## Romantic Geek (Dec 25, 2009)

While this isn't a piece...the movement "Catacombs" of Pictures of an Exhibition is pretty loud and impressive.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Romantic Geek said:


> While this isn't a piece...the movement "Catacombs" of Pictures of an Exhibition is pretty loud and impressive.


Isn't a piece?


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## Romantic Geek (Dec 25, 2009)

violadude said:


> Isn't a piece?


Well...it isn't a stand alone work. (I mean, specifically the Catacombs movement)


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Last summer, a performance of _Lohengrin_ in the Savonlinna Opera Festival, in the medieval castle of Olavinlinna. The choral parts were extremely loud and impressive!


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