# Most Beautiful/Emotional Symphony



## mahlernerd

What is, in your opinion, the 2 or 3 most beautiful or emotional symphonies (or other orchestral pieces) ever written?

For me:
Tchaikovsky Pathétique
Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5


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## Art Rock

Bruckner's 9th (in the three movement version)
Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde
Gorecki's 3d


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## Long02

mahlernerd said:


> What is, in your opinion, the 2 or 3 most beautiful or emotional symphonies (or other orchestral pieces) ever written?
> 
> For me:
> Tchaikovsky Pathétique
> Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5


Great choices I don't personally think they're is a more agonisingly beautiful symphony that the 'Pathétique' so would be my first choice. 
Mahler's 2nd because of the 4th movement and the finale. 
Bruckner's 8th because of the adagio. Although the rest of the symphony is very dark and depressing the main adagio is so strikingly beautiful that it touches me every time I hear it. 
Vaughan Williams 5th is great as well but probably a little lower on my list


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

Tchaikovsky's 6th definitely is high up there.
But if you want one that utterly tugs on emotions and is to me absolutely beautiful, I recommend Gorecki's 3rd Symphony, the "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs."


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

I see Art Rock beat me to the Gorecki!


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## Orfeo

Glazunov: Symphony no. IV (mainly because of its first movement)
Bax: Symphonies III & VII
Bruckner: Symphonies VII & VIII
Mahler: Symphony no. IV
Stanford: Symphony no. V
Moeran: Symphony in G
Rachmaninoff: Symphonies II & III
Myaskovsky: Symphonies V, XVIII, XX, XXI, XXV, XXVII (its slow middle movement)
Tubin: Symphony no. IV
Sibelius: Symphony no. II
Stenhammar: Symphony no. II
Atterberg: Symphony IX (not the most beautiful, but definitely emotional)
Kalervo Tuukkanen: Symphony No. III "The Sea"
Janis Ivanovs: Symphony no. VI
Adolfs Skulte: Symphony no. II
Nikolai Rakov: Symphony no. I
Erkki Melartin: Symphony no. IV
Hanson: Symphony no. II
Nielsen: Symphony no. III
Rued Langgaard: Symphony no. XIV "Morgenen" (The Morning)
Alwyn: Lyra Angelica
Eller: Five Pieces for Strings & Elegia
Lydia Auster: Piano Concerto


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## mbhaub

Franz Schmidt #4
Ernest Bloch Symphony in C sharp minor
Edward Elgar #2


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## Merl

Brahms 3
Bruckner 9
Tchaikovsky 6


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## Allegro Con Brio

For me beautiful and emotional are not at all the same things whatsoever. Here I choose to list the symphonies which I experience the most intense emotional reactions from:

Mahler 6, 9
Sibelius 2, 7
Bruckner 7 (only the first half though)
Shostakovich 5
Vaughan Williams 5
Brahms 3, 4
Tchaikovsky 6


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## MusicSybarite

Some are these:

*Peteris Vasks - Symphony No. 2, Symphony for strings
*The symphonies by Giya Kancheli. Supremely profound works... with some sudden outbursts!
*Alfred Schnittke - Cello Concerto No. 1, mostly the cathartic last movement
*Kaljo Raid - Symphony No. 1. The last movement is absolutely magnificent
*Eduard Tubin - Symphony No. 10
*Boris Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 3 _Sebastopol_
*Allan Pettersson - Symphonies Nos. 6 and 7 and his Violin Concerto No. 2
*Edmund Rubbra - Symphonies Nos. 4 and 8
*Ildebrando Pizzetti - Piano Concerto _Canti della Stagione Alta_
*Josef Suk - Asrael Symphony
*Jean Sibelius - Symphony No. 7
*Albéric Magnard - Symphony No. 4
*Gustav Mahler - Symphonies Nos. 2, 6 and 9
*Anton Bruckner - Symphonies Nos. 7-9


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## leonsm

Alwyn - Symphony no. 1 (especially the superb adagio)
Atterberg - Symphonies no. 3 and 5
Beethoven - Symphony no. 3
Bruckner - Symphony no. 8
Elgar - Symphony no. 1
Mahler - Symphony no. 2
Merikanto - Symphony no. 2
Nielsen - Symphony no. 4
Pärt- Symphony no. 3
Pettersson - Symphony no. 7
Saint-Saëns - Symphony no. 3
Shostakovich - Symphony no. 5
Szymanowski - Symphony no. 3


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## Art Rock

mahlernerd said:


> What is, in your opinion, the *2 or 3* most beautiful or emotional symphonies (or other orchestral pieces) ever written?


Better get used to it. Many here do not read the first post. And if they do, they don't pay attention to it anyway.


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## Rogerx

Art Rock said:


> Better get used to it. Many here do not read the first post. And if they do, they don't pay attention to it anyway.


There's me thinking how to say this as polite as you did. :tiphat:


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## Enthusiast

I agree with Allegro Con Brio that emotional and beautiful are different things - often almost opposites if the emotion is a bit angsty - and would go for Mahler 6 as a very emotional symphony along with Tchaikovsky 6. While emotion is perhaps best represented in music as something that the composer develops over the span of the work, beauty is not commonly sustained over symphonic length. Bruckner in particular has many beautiful moments but it would be hard to describe any of his symphonies as paragons of beauty. Still, I choose Bruckner 7 - probably because I am listening to it as I type. For non-symphonic beauty ... Tippett's piano concerto is hard to beat IMO.


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## SONNET CLV

mahlernerd said:


> What is, in your opinion, the 2 or 3 most beautiful or emotional symphonies (or other orchestral pieces) ever written?
> 
> For me:
> Tchaikovsky Pathétique
> Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5


The Tchaikovsky was my first thought. The VW Fifth is certainly the strongest of that composer's symphonies in the category "beautiful and emotional". The Gorecki mentioned in another post is a great choice, as are a dozen or so others also listed.

I'll offer a favorite maybe not yet mentioned: William Alwyn's Fourth Symphony. Too, I would add Shostakovich's Eleventh, Leonard Bernstein's First, Joly Braga Santos's Fourth, and the Korngold Symphony in F#.

Of course, there are so many others. Part of the point of a symphony is to be beautiful and emotional.

Happy listening.


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## Strange Magic

Using the alternative of "other orchestral pieces", I'll contribute Bach: D-minor keyboard concerto; Prokofiev: PC #3; Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra. We get here heady mixes of joy, purely transcendent magic, and great poignancy.


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## Brahmsian Colors

Brahms: Symphony no. 3
Dvorak: Symphony no. 8
Grieg: Elegiac Melody no. 2, also known as "The Last Spring" (the most popular orchestral version)


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## Olias

DVORAK'S CELLO CONCERTO!!!!! I tear up every single time.


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## erki

Uri Caine Symphony nr. 5 Adagietto


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## Coach G

mahlernerd said:


> What is, in your opinion, the 2 or 3 most beautiful or emotional symphonies (or other orchestral pieces) ever written?


Three most beautiful:

Wagner: "Siegfried-Idyll"
Beethoven: Symphony #6 "Pastorale"
Barber: "Knoxville: Summer of 1915"


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## DeepR

Bruckner 8
Scriabin "4"
Sibelius 7


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## Joachim Raff

Tchaikovsky Symphony No.6


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## Simplicissimus

Brahms 4
Hindemith “Mathis der Maler”
Walton 1


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## Totenfeier

Beethoven 6 & 7
Mahler 3, 6, _Das Lied von der Erde_

More than three works, but only two composers; will that do?


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## ZeR0

Tchaikovsky 6
Mahler 6, 9, Das Lied von der Erde
Bruckner 9


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## Tinker

Well, I'm a late-comer to this discussion, but here is my two cents worth: clearly Porgy & Bess must be high on any list of the most moving, most beautiful works ever written. But I refer to the complete opera (Maazel's ground-breaking concert performance on Decca or Simon Rattle's on EMI--all the rest are cretins). I realize that I may be speaking out of turn, however, since this discussion concerns symphonies & symphonic works, not opera. Sorry, but I had to say.


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## golfer72

Mahler 2 and 3


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## Rogerx

I do think have I a new favourite second every day .


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## Waehnen

*
Mahler 2
Tchaikovsky 6
Sibelius 7*


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## Tarneem

mahler's 2nd

Schubert's 8th

Wagner's Siegfried Idyll


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## Aries

emotional:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3
Mahler: Symphony No. 5
Wagner: Tannhäuser Ouverture

beautiful:

Tchaikovski: Symphony No. 5
Rimski-Korsakov: Scheherazade
Beethoven: Symphony No. 6
Sibelius: Symphony No. 1

I read Bruckner synphonies in this thread. Imo he wrote the best symphonies but they are anti-emotional like a rock and in general not human like the nature.


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## Xisten267

Beautiful _and_ emotional, by different composers:

Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral"
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde


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## RobertJTh

Let's do single movements because why not.

Bruckner: adagio from Symphony No. 6 (@Aries, _anti-emotional like a rock_, right?)
Sibelius: finale from Symphony No. 5
Mahler: finale from Symphony No. 3


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## Cristian Lee

Bruckner _anti-emotional like a rock?_ He is one of the most emotional composers ever.


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## Aries

RobertJTh said:


> Bruckner: adagio from Symphony No. 6 (@Aries, _anti-emotional like a rock_, right?)





Cristian Lee said:


> Bruckner _anti-emotional like a rock?_ He is one of the most emotional composers ever.


Unemotional music can still evoke emotions. A flower or a volcanic eruption can also evoke emotions but has no emotions.

Bruckners music is religious and mediates certainty. I experienced that Bruckners music can be much more helpful against depressions, while the emotional music of other composers make things rather worse in such situations. Emotionallity goes hand in hand with loss of control, but Bruckners music is very controlled and planned. The terrace dynamics imply a sudden change in emotions, but it is more true that emotion is just not the point of the music, and because of that normally emotionally cruicial things like dynamics can change drastically very fast, because they are not emotional in his case. The way Bruckner plays with the instrumentation of motives and that the motives are often scaled down, scaled up, reversed or shortened is also an unemotional handling of motives.

I think other composers cared more about directly evoking emotions by writing emotional music, while Bruckner did not care and wrote for God. Bruckners music polarizes, and I think it is because he does something really different on the emotional level than other composer. Some find Bruckners music just very unsettling and grueling, maybe his music is completely different for them. So I can only speak for me. But for me "emotional" seems wrong to describe Bruckners music. It rather fits Wagners music or Beethovens or Mahlers or Tchaikovskis etc. The adagio of his 6th still conveys certainty for me, good to calm down emotions.


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## eljr

Art Rock said:


> Gorecki's 3d


bingo, but at 1, not 2 or 3.


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## Pat Fairlea

If we mean 'emotionally affecting', I'll put in a word for RVW's 3rd symphony. Despite the 'Pastoral' title, it's a requiem for the ruined places of WW1.


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