# Eroticism



## wilson868 (Aug 16, 2015)

Is there any erotic music? I mean, not music for erotic stories, so Salome for example does not count. Is there any classical pieces that somehow suggest eroticism?


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

May I suggest "Shacking up to Chopin"?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

There's Scriabin's Op. 11 Preludes - as erotic as music gets.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchanale


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Tristand und Isolde, Act II.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Cialis commercials warn us that if we experience a certain indicator of arousal for more than four hours continuously, we should call a doctor.

_Tristan und Isolde_ runs for three and a half hours. This proves that music is the natural alternative to drugs.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Le flûte enchantée from Ravel's Shéhérazade.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Daniel Lentz: Kissing Song (1972)
_"I formed the group initially to perform KISSING SONG, a piece I made in 1972. This is scored for a mixed choir singing without words, and for the most part into one another's mouths. Sometimes it is boy to girl, other times boy to boy or girl to girl. I was interested in the beat frequencies this produced, and especially on how the sound was altered when the voices sing while French kissing. [...] It remains unperformed."_ (from The Mouth Magazine Interview)

Also, Nam June Paik's "attempt at the sexual emancipation of music" (Nyman) may be relevant.
The manifesto on the poster for Opera Sextronique (1967):
_"Why is sex a predominant theme in art and literature prohibited ONLY in music? How long can New Music afford to be sixty years behind the times and still claim to be a serious art? The purge of sex under the excuse of being 'serious' exactly undermines the so-called 'seriousness' of music as a classical art, ranking with literature and painting."_


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Hugo Alfven's Fourth Symphony "Från havsbandet."
Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe."
Nosyrev's ballet "The Triumphant of Love."
Glazunov's "From the Middle Ages."
Tcherepnin's "Narcisse et Echo."
Massenet's "Le roi de Lahore."
Popov's film "Komsomol is the Chief of Electrification" (largo cantabile).
Rachmaninoff's Symphony no. II (first and third movements).
Nikolai Rakov's Symphony no. I (first movement).
Albert Roussel's Symphony no. I (esp. the first movement).
Bantock's Celtic Symphony.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Pretty well anything by Debussy other than"Children's Corner". Failing that, anything else French and fin de siècle, I'd say.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

*Carl Orff: Carmina Burana/ Tempus est iocundum*

It is the time of joy, O maidens, now enjoy yourselves together, O young men.

Oh, oh, I am all aflower, now with my first love I am all afire, a new love it is of which I am dying.

I am elated when I say yes; I am depressed when I say no.

Oh, oh, I am all aflower, now with my first love I am all afire, a new love it is of which I am dying.

In the time of winter a man is sluggish, when spring is in his heart he is wanton.

Oh, oh, I am all aflower, now with my first love I am all afire, a new love it is of which I am dying.

My innocence plays with me, my shyness pushes me back.

Oh, oh, I am all aflower, now with my first love I am all afire, a new love it is of which I am dying.

Come, my mistress, with your joy *; come, come, fair girl, already I die.

Oh, oh, I am all aflower, now with my first love I am all afire, a new love it is of which I am dying.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Beethoven, Symphony #3 in E-flat "Erotica".

Wait - there's no t in the name of the symphony????


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

wilson868 said:


> Is there any erotic music? I mean, not music for erotic stories, so Salome for example does not count. Is there any classical pieces that somehow suggest eroticism?


Mozart's _Die Entführung aus dem Serail_.


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

There's actually a lot of music that strikes me as being very sensual, though I can't think of anything that actually sounds 'sexual' to me.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

OK, I'm being serious now. Try the Sinfonia Domestica by Richard Strauss. It's a day - and a night - in the life of the composer and his family...


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

waldvogel said:


> OK, I'm being serious now. Try the Sinfonia Domestica by Richard Strauss. It's a day - and a night - in the life of the composer and his family...


From what I have read about Frau Strauss, he probably spent the night on the sofa.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Tristand und Isolde, Act II.


Wagner's greatest music, imo


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

I've always thought there was a certain sensuousness in some parts of Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I wonder why Beethoven hasn't been mentioned in this thread. Or has he? His "Evenings in the Harems of Constantinople" was quite a hit in its day.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Verdi's _La Traviata_ too.


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## Steatopygous (Jul 5, 2015)

While we are on Strauss, there is the famous orgasm in the opening to Rosenkavalier, before the curtain rises on the lovers in deshabille.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Tristand und Isolde, Act II.


I second this, most erotic duet ever :tiphat:


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

wilson868 said:


> Is there any erotic music? I mean, not music for erotic stories, so Salome for example does not count. Is there any classical pieces that somehow suggest eroticism?


Scriabin, Le Poème de l'extase:






Now *that* is erotic.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2015)

I've never heard a piece of music that made me need to cover my lap after listening to it.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Kontrapunctus said:


> I've never heard a piece of music that made me need to cover my lap after listening to it.


........ Send me that music pronto whenever you find it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Kontrapunctus said:


> I've never heard a piece of music that made me need to cover my lap after listening to it.


That's what we call "Peewee Herman music."


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2015)

Nobody has mentioned Bolero? Is it too over done? The whole thing sound like a slow intense buildup to an ecstatic orgasmic ending.


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## Markbridge (Sep 28, 2014)

Scriabin's Piano Concerto.


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## ddavewes (Dec 7, 2014)

Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)

Strauss - Dance of the Seven Veils from 'Salome'

Stravinsky - Rite of Spring, Danse sacrale


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I don't care much for the association of erotica with music (and Scriabin is possibly my favorite composer). Just goes to show how much of an individual experience music is. The Preludes Op. 11 and Piano Concerto, really? I've heard these works countless times and even play a few of the preludes myself, but I wouldn't have made the connection. I hear longing, passion, love, perhaps, but not necessarily erotica. Just because it's passionate doesn't mean it's all about sex.
Ok, The Poem of Ecstasy, after learning the composers intentions, I can't deny there are erotic elements, but calling it erotic still doesn't do it justice. It's a superficial and one-dimensional description. I read a translation of the poem that he wrote for it and I think it's more about achieving spiritual ecstasy. Anyway, my own association will always be that of the cosmos.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe, as was mentioned before, and La Valse.
Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun.

Also: Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I don´t get the eroticism in any of the works mentioned.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Sloe said:


> I don´t get the eroticism in any of the works mentioned.


Do you sense the ocean in _La Mer?_


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> Do you sense the ocean in _La Mer?_


I guess you mean Debussy´s La Mer. It is called The Sea so the title is leading me to what I am supposed to think of. If it was called Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun or The Sunken Cathedral I would think of these things instead.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Also, the electric bedsprings in Brown Shoes Don't Make It


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

There is Respighi ' s _Belkin, Queen of Sheba_ The fourth movement in the suite of this ballet has is titled *Orgiastic Dance*. It's pretty racy.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Also, Bizet ever popular opera _Carmen_. I just listened it.


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## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Anything can be erotic if you try hard enough.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

DeepR said:


> I don't care much for the association of erotica with music (and Scriabin is possibly my favorite composer). Just goes to show how much of an individual experience music is. The Preludes Op. 11 and Piano Concerto, really? I've heard these works countless times and even play a few of the preludes myself, but I wouldn't have made the connection. I hear longing, passion, love, perhaps, but not necessarily erotica. Just because it's passionate doesn't mean it's all about sex.
> Ok, The Poem of Ecstasy, after learning the composers intentions, I can't deny there are erotic elements, but calling it erotic still doesn't do it justice. It's a superficial and one-dimensional description. I read a translation of the poem that he wrote for it and I think it's more about achieving spiritual ecstasy. Anyway, my own association will always be that of the cosmos.


Eroticism isn't exactly superficial and one-dimensional. Maybe Scriabin was suggesting a more profound kind of "erotic".


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Abraham Lincoln said:


> Anything can be erotic if you try hard enough.


Ain't mankind great?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Abraham Lincoln said:


> Anything can be erotic if you try hard enough.


I keep trying with the _Art of the Fugue_, but so far nothing. Would Viagra help, do you think?


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I keep trying with the _Art of the Fugue_, but so far nothing. Would Viagra help, do you think?


Ahh but too much of that can lead to developing a fugue state


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Can't believe no one's mentioned the Lulu/Dr. Schoen love music....


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2016)

Strauss' Salome. "Ich will deinen Mund küssen Johannan!!"


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

This thread sprang to mind when I read this _Fanfare_ review of Françaix's _L'heure du berger_:

_Somehow describing Françaix's L'heure du berger as saucy or naughty doesn't quite capture it. If there were such a thing as pornographic music, this piece might qualify. The opening oboe slides of the first movement are nothing if not lurid. Throughout, the ensemble playing is front rank and rhythmically infectious. This stunning performance is categorically the best I've ever heard, out-distancing by several yards Ensemble Wien-Berlin (Camerata 580). _

I am not sure I fully agree with the reviewer, but you can make your own judgment:

I. Les Vieux Beaux

II. Pin-Up Girls

III. Les Petits Nerveux


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

Maybe some John Cage-type can "write" a piece where twelve sets of squeaky bed springs are put on the stage floor, then 12 people (or couples?) get on each of the bedsprings and gyrate with randomly changing speeds and patterns. The conglomeration of sounds would surely suggest a certain artistic, sublime type of eroticism - in a purely artistic sense, of course.

(Somebody help me with an appropriate title for this sure-fire Pulitzer Prize winner.)


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## Guest (Jan 12, 2016)

"Spring" Concerto. All the Baroque fans would come based on the billing, then leave half-way through.


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## Muse Wanderer (Feb 16, 2014)

Messiaen's Turangalila symphony 'Love theme' springs to mind, simply beautiful.






I was listening to Schoenberg Moses und Aaron just yesterday and the 'Erotische Orgie' came up...fits the bill perfectly!!


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

_L' apres midi d'un faune_ (even the _title_ is more erotic in French).


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Debussy's L'isle joyeuse for piano is incredibly exotic and sensual.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

The music of Lutoslawski is kin to wild animal sexuality.


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

dsphipps100 said:


> Maybe some John Cage-type can "write" a piece where twelve sets of squeaky bed springs are put on the stage floor, then 12 people (or couples?) get on each of the bedsprings and gyrate with randomly changing speeds and patterns. The conglomeration of sounds would surely suggest a certain artistic, sublime type of eroticism - in a purely artistic sense, of course.
> 
> (Somebody help me with an appropriate title for this sure-fire Pulitzer Prize winner.)


Interesting, but the end result would probably still sound like a multi-overdub of the 'comedy bedspring' sound effect from a 'Carry On' film.


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

Air on the G String?


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I keep trying with the _Art of the Fugue_, but so far nothing. Would Viagra help, do you think?


Oh Woodduck - Please...


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