# Yearning is important!



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I have just posted on another thread this amusing excerpt from Michael Steen's *Lives & Times of the Great Composers* -

'Not surprisingly, love was the emotion on which the Romantics thrived. Often that love was not sexual love, but something purer, like the "total dedication of one soul to another", or the dreamy, melancholy longing, the yearning for the unattainable. *Wagner's characters frequently yearn for something; to the ordinary listener, it is not always immediately obvious for what they yearn so passionately; but no doubt, it was important to yearn.*'

But then it struck me that I myself love music, particularly Celtic music, which prompts in me this glorious melancholy, this passionate yearning for the unattainable, and indeed undefinable - the Song of Heart's Desire.

What music do _you_ enjoy that prompts you to *yearn*, or that seems to be *yearning for something*. 
Please do share it, so we can all *yearn* in concert. 

Or does 'yearning music' only irritate you, or make you feel impatient? Go on, then, please give examples, with comments - wit and repartee in the Oscar Wilde manner would be a bonus here, btw.

More seriously, are there musical qualities, tricks or techniques that can be associated with 'yearning' music? Minor keys, I suppose? Anything else? It would be interesting to know.

Thanks in advance for any replies. :tiphat:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

The most obvious classical music example of 'yearning' for me is Schumann's Traumerai -





 - accompanied here by appropriate romantic images.

The emotion seems to be a nostalgic pining for the innocence of childhood, though I expect my reaction is coloured by the context. This is an often played piece of music, but I don't usually feel sick of it, provided that there is enough variation in speed and expression to make it a 'comment on life'.

But if it is 'milked' for too much violiny schmaltz, if there is too much hesitation, then I do start to feel a little queasy & think, 'Oh, dry up' & other even less charitable thoughts. I feel that someone is trying to manipulate me, as in a too obvious TV commercial.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

The Celts, and particularly the Irish, are World Beaters when it comes to 'yearning music'. The longing to stay with his Beloved & the painful recognition that parting is inevitable shines through Carolan's 'Farewell to Music' - 



 - 
but even the airs that he composed for patrons often have this shimmering, silver thread of wistfulness woven through them. The Two Airs for Mrs Bermingham have a jig in the middle by way of diversion, but they are hauntingly beautiful, especially as rendered by J. J. Sheridan's plangent piano - 



.

I could go on like this all day - but the washing up is waiting...


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

But before I go , here are two poems that encapsulate this yearning quality for me.

William Blake's 'Ah, Sunflower', a song of Experience:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun:
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the travellers journey is done.

Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:
Arise from their graves and aspire,
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~









and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's 'Tears, Idle Tears', inspired by the ruins of Tintern Abbey









Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

All true romantic art yearns for something, that is indeed its essence, and also the reason why it continues to resonate with me so much. A modernist may say that the infinite is here already, in the eternal present, or even that the infinite is not needed, but I think that motivation in life must be found outside of life itself, in the unattainable. Schubert yearns, Berlioz yearns, Liszt yearns, Wagner yearns, Bruckner is the master of desperate but devoted yearning... and even someone like Beethoven skyrockets to the unknown, even if the Beethovenian feeling consists of equally many parts of actualizing the infinite in the here and now. So, yearning may be melancholy like Schubert, knowledge that the essence may never be reached, or it may be resolute, like Beethoven, devotion to make it appear in the present. Bruckner perhaps alternates between the two, and Wagner is sometimes both at the same time. But what is common to all these is _dissatisfaction with the present_. And that is something that can be shared by a traditional Christian and an Enlightenment Humanist alike.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Ingelou: The music you mentioned does it big time for me too. And really all of Schumann's Kinderszenen. Also some of the pieces from his "Album for the young." 

And then I can add the final etude in Chopin's BI130 bunch, which to me is filled with the most wonderful, wistful longing for something unattainable. 

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, a lot of Mozart's best music has that same, very romantic and un-Classical, yearning about it. Perhaps that is partly what accounts for its persistent popularity. 

Schubert yearns wonderfully in the slow movement from the Death and the maiden quartet.

And of course, Beethoven can be a major yearner, e.g. in the slow movement from the seventh symphony.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

The Celts make yearning almost an Olympic sport - the Welsh have hiraeth ; the Scots have a similar yearning for a vague land that is gone. Byron brings it out beautifully:

Years have rolled on, Lochnagar, since I left you
Years must elapse ere I see you again
Tho' nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you
Yet still thou art dearer than Albion's plain.
England thy beauties are tame and domestic
To one who has roved on the mountains afar
Oh! For the crags that are wild and magestic
The steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar.

Ticks all the boxes of romantic yearning - wild scenery, bleak and barren, awesomely lovely, remembered in tranquiliy and days that are past. I'm not so good on the music, as it's a bit modern for me. I tend to come in with the folk romantics - Grieg, Smetana, Bartok et al. Smetana's Ma Vlast is an example of yearning with the harp used to particular effect in Vyšehrad.


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## Freischutz (Mar 6, 2014)

It depends what I'm yearning for. I don't think any music makes me yearn for love, but practically whenever I listen to anything Spanish, I have a yearning for an exotic rustic experience! Perhaps in a more serious way, there are some pieces of music that make me yearn to be a better person, like Bruckner's 9th which always reminds me of my humble place in our universe.

In terms of musical trickeries, the first thing I'd point to is the build up in Tchaikovsky's _Romeo and Juliet_ before each entrance of the love theme, which has a lot of typical features: harmonic tension, rising scales, crescendos, though these can of course be used for many effects depending on exactly how you use them. And maybe that's more to do with immediate, red-hot lust than deep yearning!


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Some yearning poetry from an anonymous early medieval Anglo-Saxon (Professor Tolkien had his Aragorn recite it in slight modification):

Where is the horse gone? Where the rider? 
Where the giver of treasure? 
Where are the seats at the feast? 
Where are the revels in the hall? 
Alas for the bright cup! 
Alas for the mailed warrior! 
Alas for the splendour of the prince! 
How that time has passed away, 
Dark under the cover of night, 
As if it had never been! 

As for music, just one word: Schubert. Winterreise, lots of other lieder, and particularly the slow movements of the piano sonatas and the trios.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

I am not sure of the exact meaning of yearning in English, but if it is similar to "longing for something beyond...", well, one piece for me is the finale "Dona nobis pacem" from Bach's Mass in B minor.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

I get a sense of yearning when listening to Bach's instrumental music. It sounds as if the composer is never satisfied and is always trying to reach something higher, more sublime. Just as you think a cadence is approaching, Bach will surprise you and take the music in another direction (I think "Fortspinnung" is the technical term). In Bach, it isn't the immediate sense of closure and finality that is important but rather the constant sense of striving.

I suppose Schubert's _Die schöne Müllerin_ is also a good example, a classic tale of unrequited love.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Xaltotun said:


> I think that motivation in life must be found outside of life itself, in the unattainable.


I find that interesting, though I don't agree with the trend of this thread which strongly equates it with romanticism.

There is an emotional imploring in plenty of music before then. For example in concerto/sonata slow movements and in arias. This kind of yearning reaches out to the listener and involves us more in the music, and at the same time helps us arouse and even help quench our own feelings.


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## Freischutz (Mar 6, 2014)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Where is the horse gone? Where the rider?
> Where the giver of treasure?
> Where are the seats at the feast?
> Where are the revels in the hall?
> ...


Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago?
Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa?
Hwær cwom symbla gesetu?
Hwær sindon seledreamas?
Eala beorht bune!	
Eala byrnwiga!
Eala þeodnes þrym!
Hu seo þrag gewat,
genap under nihthelm,
swa heo no wære.

It's from _The Wanderer_ if anyone is interested, though it's a common motif.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

The most yearning piece for me is probably Vaughan-William's Tallis Fantasia. The original theme may have been sacred, but for me it is the epitome of romantic yearning in Vaughan-Williams' handling. There is a climactic part about 3/4 through with all the ensembles ringing out in unison. That always represented to me all the different types of love coming together at the same time in one painfully impossible focus, but it does not last and the piece ends questioning . . . (shiver)


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I feel yearning when I hear Ive's music with those nostalgic Yankee hymns, reminding me of a simpler time, when people moved a bit more slowly and spoke to each other face to face, seemingly without the constant need to text each other.
I yearn for those long forgotten days. I was apparently born a bit too late.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

We always romanticise the past though (which we can never fully know) and of course we have no idea at all if the future could be better. And of course it's not just about when but where you are and who you are with. But maybe that's part of the need to create something that's unattainable that we can yearn for and never be disappointed by.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Yes, whenever I hear certain pop songs, I yearn for that day on the beach when I first met one of my girlfriends, but of course I can never go back.
It remains a wonderful moment in my memory bank.
Who are we if not for our memories?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Freischutz said:


> Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago?
> Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa?
> Hwær cwom symbla gesetu?
> Hwær sindon seledreamas?
> ...


I am, very! Old English was a big part of my degree course at Durham University, & it's lovely to see this again. Thanks, Freischutz! :cheers: Wes thu hal! (Don't know how to type thorn!  )


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

This is a song which evokes in me a yearning for the past. Her singing here is so authentic yet so nostalgic that it consistently brings me to tears, not just looking back to the days of my youth but actually transporting me back to the days of Dusty Springfield and Burt Bacharach, and I'm reliving my teen years.

I'm reminded of D. H. Lawrence's poem, Piano:

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

"Yearning", in the sense applied by the OP, is a form of self-ennoblement that seems to permeate the Romantic Period in literature. It is _*I want*_, romanticized, and obscured by emotional perfume.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Media vita by Gombert. Here's the score. Henry's Eight did an awesome recording of this.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Ukko said:


> "Yearning", in the sense applied by the OP, is a form of self-ennoblement that seems to permeate the Romantic Period in literature. It is _*I want*_, romanticized, and obscured by emotional perfume.


Very cynical, and possibly true.

On the other hand, I think we can to some degree choose what we desire. We can't choose what we get out of life but we can perhaps choose what we would like to get out of it, and this affects our identity and character. To be all poetic about it, it's not what we have that defines us, all this is just compromise or accident, it's rather our concept of the ideal and the ideal world that reveals our values and much of who we really are, if that matters to you.


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## Muddy (Feb 5, 2012)

Beethoven could yearn with the best of em. The slow movements of his quartets just ache with yearning. The Cavatina from op. 130, the Lento from Op.135, for example. The tremendous slow movement of Piano Sonata no.29, op 106. Ah, and the slow movement of the Archduke Trio.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

How about Beethoven's greatest slow movement of all-that of the a minor string quartet, the famous "Hymn of Thanksgiving" movement.-shows where Mahler got his adagio inspiration from.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

The epitome of yearning is Tristan und Isolde.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

MagneticGhost said:


> The epitome of yearning is Tristan und Isolde.


That's for sure. Wish I had some of that Isolde's Love Potion #9. It's Saturday Night!!! :lol:


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

hpowders said:


> That's for sure. Wish I had some of that Isolde's Love Potion #9. It's Saturday Night!!! :lol:


Ah, but be careful who you drink it with


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

MagneticGhost said:


> Ah, but be careful who you drink it with


I'll freeze it in case I ever meet that special someone!


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Or the arietta from Beethoven's Op 111 piano sonata, which strives for the ineffable more than any piece I know.


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

too much to just think of 1 piece


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Ukko said:


> "Yearning", in the sense applied by the OP, is a form of self-ennoblement that seems to permeate the Romantic Period in literature. It is _*I want*_, romanticized, and obscured by emotional perfume.


But, in this context does "I want" mean "gimme gimme" as in the lizard brain feeling entitled to everything, or does it mean a true lack as in its original meaning? Or are they still both the same?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Weston said:


> But, in this context does "I want" mean "gimme gimme" as in the lizard brain feeling entitled to everything, or does it mean a true lack as in its original meaning? Or are they still both the same?


LONGING... goes well with unrequited love; the missing / grieving over a deceased loved one; the 'world ache' of knowing the old way of life and 'the world as they knew it' was near over, about to die, be forever gone, and longing -- via nostalgia (literally, memory through or with pain) -- for that lost thing....

_that_ sort of Romantic. _That is Romantic._

They were a lugubrious lot 

Schubert / Nacht und Träume (poet: Matthäus Casimir von Collin)

The implication is that sleep / dreams -- I'm certain an analogy for death (if one believes in afterlife, of course) in this context.

von Collin's poem (with translation):
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=3956

The Schubert Song, Barbara Hendricks, soprano; Andras Schiff, piano





Text, simple enough, perfectly ambiguous as to being analogous without being specific, yet _dark, nostalgia, longing, and ever near or present death_ -- set nearly as if it were a lullaby.

Music, also simple enough, not really minor key, eh?

Yet...


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)




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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Yeah. I was thinking of that episode when I first saw this thread.
"Do you ever yearn, George?" Funny!!!


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