# Whose Melodies Never Get Old for You?



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

For me, it's Mozart. I find them so beautifully woven into their supported counterpoints; elegance at it's finest.

This is not just a Mozart thread, discuss who and why you don't tire of some composer's works!


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I've made lists of my 100 favorite melodies and subthemes, and listening to much music throughout the years from Bach, Beethoven and Brahms where each melody tends to get old after a while, I hate to say it again but the melodies of Mahler and Uematsu never get old for me. It's still as though it's the first day I heard them. Unlike the Classicists and Neo-Classicists that have a limited harmonic and melodic ruleset for their time, their melodies have a more fundamental tonal quality that escaped these expectations.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Richard Rodgers
Jerome Kern
The Beatles
Thelonious Monk
Antonio Carlos Jobim
Jimmy Webb
Wayne Shorter
Duke Ellington
Harold Arlen
George Gershwin
Leonard Bernstein
Erik Satie
Guiseppe Verdi


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Dvorak, Kalinnikov, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Grieg...


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Kalinnikov? Melodies? Don't get me wrong, I love his music, but to me his strengths are harmony and atmosphere.

As far as the thread question goes, I agree with the OP but would say similar things about a number of other composers as well.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Dvorak and Beethoven


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Mozart and Schubert, but sometimes I'm glad I don't get a melody stuck on my brain...


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## haziz (Sep 15, 2017)

Tchaikovsky above all.

Dvorak, Kalinnikov (again!), Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Grieg.

I absolutely love Beethoven, but I am not sure it is due to his melodies.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Grieg, Borodin....obviously... Chabrier...

And every now and then I put on Dvorak's Slavonic Dances and just wallow in the melodic loveliness of it all.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

I think a more interesting question is *which* melodies never get old. Can you name concrete examples of melodies?


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

chipia said:


> I think a more interesting question is *which* melodies never get old. Can you name concrete examples of melodies?


You first. .............


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Mozart and Schubert, but sometimes I'm glad I don't get a melody stuck on my brain...


My top two as well. But I need to add the melodies that I heard in my single digit years and thus have been a part of my life for the longest time - those of th Great Mercian Songbook.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

The Greatest Melodists


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Antonio Carlos Jobim


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

chipia said:


> I think a more interesting question is *which* melodies never get old. Can you name concrete examples of melodies?


Pomp and Circumstance. $2.99 on the discount shelf.

That moment when you realize I'm not kidding. Priceless.

Does this ever really age? *1:23*





A great melody that never gets old to me is called _Sprouting_ by Uematsu.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> You first. .............


Me first!

Themes (& music scores) for cinema by Alex North. I'm never in the mood to _not_ listen to North's soundtrack albums. These are welcomed by me any day/any time ... plus North's writing is quite multi-layered (and at times unpredictable) that none of it overstays its welcome.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> Richard Rodgers
> Jerome Kern
> The Beatles
> Thelonious Monk
> ...


I guess (in case it isn't clear for people like SanAntone) we have specify "we're only talking about classical music" in the title or OP everytime we do, in this classical music forum :lol:


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> I guess (in case it isn't clear for people like SanAntone) we have specify "we're only talking about classical music" in the title or OP everytime we do, in this classical music forum :lol:


I answered the question honestly - and included a couple of Classical composers.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Pat Fairlea said:


> Grieg, Borodin....obviously... Chabrier...
> 
> And every now and then I put on *Dvorak's Slavonic Dances and just wallow in the melodic loveliness of it all*.


Well said! Dvorak is one of my favorite composers...he was a superb melodist...and composer!

I love both sets of the Slavonic Dances (opp. 46 and 72) and a similar set of pieces, Legends, Op. 59. And there is so much more of his glorious music that I love.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)




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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Two patterns I noticed from my selections for good non-aging melodies is (a) their application of harmony changing around enough to keep the melody interesting later on, and (b) a sense of extra-tonality or smoothness about them that doesn't indent neurons overpowerfully. It may be one possibility. But I can't seem to get behind the Dvorak or Borodin suggestions as much as their melodies have great initial beauty: Slavonic Dances, Polovtsian Dances, or Bartok's Romanian Dances I don't hear something one would care to continuously repeat, but the Elgar or Uematsu or Stravinsky, feels more melodically comprehensive. Something about SanAntone's or Prodromides's suggestions I want to try on for size and more of you posters', it's an interesting subject to think about. Thanks for posting it. What can be surmised about such a subject?


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

My favorite melodic composers are Mozart, Dvorak, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky. Beethoven was more of a motivic composer but I think the melodies in his violin concerto are some of the most beautiful ever written.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Many composers have melodies that never get old in my opinion. I consider Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Schubert the most gifted melodists overall, but I never tire for example of the themes in the slow movements of Beethoven's late quartets. Like in the case of good wine, their value seem to only improve with time to me.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I wonder if we don't recognize the most non-aging melodies because their writers took advantage of them. Think of your most repetitive pieces. A composer could get away with repeating a phrase because it was very easy to listen to for 5 minutes straight. Rimsky's work, like his 3-3 and Scheherazade, is actually successful for taking advantage of a brilliant melody? Maybe too much, and are these melodies actually _too_ good than we notice?

I contrast this with those brief melodic magical moments you wish the composer wrote more variation on. But you realize perhaps they wanted to, but just weren't as great to develop. Even though we love them, and we wait happily and patiently to get to that one part in a composition. It's an equally good trick. ie.










So what is the _proper_ form answer, if it depends? In essence, the former types like Rimsky don't 'close,' so we never feel a resolution or strong impact when they play on, like we do with more varying compositions. The 3-3 develops very slowly a better small variation.



Xisten267 said:


> Many composers have melodies that never get old in my opinion. I consider Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Schubert the most gifted melodists overall, but I never tire for example of the themes in the slow movements of Beethoven's late quartets. Like in the case of good wine, their value seem to only improve with time to me.


Beethoven for me is the best melodist out of the _popular_ composers. I wonder if his melodies will work towards this specific topic. Certainly more than Mozart's.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Ethereality said:


> Something about SanAntone's or Prodromides's suggestions I want to try on for size and more of you posters', it's an interesting subject to think about. Thanks for posting it.


Here are a couple to sample.

Hollywood's Hugo Friedhofer's 1957 *Boy on a Dolphin* cue "Nocturnal Sea" 



+
a track from my favorite Italian soundtrack composer Piero Piccioni 



 (*Senza via d'uscita*)


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

For me, they are Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

The melody that most people know as Brahms' 'Lullaby' gets a great workout with Johannes. It's the 2nd subject in the 1st movement of Symphony 2, and it's different and yet still the same in the Trio of II in the B major trio. Different and yet melting every time.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The lullaby and the two other Brahms melodies you mention have some similarities, but they are all so different, not at all "still the same". I have known the lullaby since a child and the other two since I was a teenager and it never occurred to me that they were extremely close to each other.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Bach (a much greater melodist than he's given credit for), Handel, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Rossini, Donizetti, Chopin, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Puccini, Gershwin


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> I answered the question honestly - and included a couple of Classical composers.


During my midday dog walk, I thought about this. In most three minute popular songs the melody will be straightforward, say AABA*. Not much time to explore it. But especially in the era of the great American Songbook (and forgive my crotchety keyboard/spellcheck typo in my previous post) that was only the beginning. A successful song could be performed, recorded even, by hundreds of people. And these performances will vary in almost every manner: vocalist (or instrumental), tempo, rhythm, accompaniment, arrangement, on occasion meter, on occasion harmony etc. But the melody, to quote Irving Berlin, lingers on. You have to have a pretty good tune to support this.

Note - jazz interpretations can be different, as they often rely on the harmony and improvisation.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Oops duplicate pot


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

For me, Brahms without question.


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## Tempesta (Sep 2, 2021)

Handel,
Richard Strauss
&
Mozart,
Donizetti & Verdi's melodies the most


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## hawgdriver (Nov 11, 2011)

Brahms, Mozart, Schubert


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Beethoven, Wagner, Schumann, Mahler, Nielsen. 

Probably I couldn't listen to any composer non-stop but I don't think that classical pieces are necessarily meant to be listened non-stop anyway.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

Kreisler jr said:


> The lullaby and the two other Brahms melodies you mention have some similarities, but they are all so different, not at all "still the same". I have known the lullaby since a child and the other two since I was a teenager and it never occurred to me that they were extremely close to each other.


Ah, well - that's the mastery of Brahms. They don't _sound_ similar, but they're extremely close in shape; the symphony and the song almost identical, in fact. The opening interval has a minor/major difference, and the rhythm is tweaked, but that's it. Clever man.
I like to think that even if he did destroy so many pieces, he had the sense to recycle the best bits, so that we haven't really missed out on anything truly worthwhile that he wrote.


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## 1846 (Sep 1, 2021)

My favorite melody of all is the 18th variation of the _Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini_. Best three minutes ever written. I'm a huge fan of the wealth of melody Rachmaninoff gives us.

The trio and duet from the final scene of _Der Rosenkavalier_.

_Song to the Moon_ from Dvorak's opera _Rusalka_.

From the opera _Die Tote Stadt_ by Korngold, _Marietta's Leid_.

The whole of Puccini's opera _La Fanciulla del West_.


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## 1846 (Sep 1, 2021)

My favorite melody of all is the 18th variation of the Rachmaninoff _Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini_. Best three minutes ever written. I'm a huge fan of the wealth of melody Rachmaninoff gives us.

The trio and duet from the final scene of _Der Rosenkavalier_.

_Song to the Moon_ from Dvorak's opera _Rusalka_.

From the opera _Die Tote Stadt_ by Korngold, _Marietta's Leid_.

The whole of Puccini's opera _La Fanciulla del West_.


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## MrMeatScience (Feb 15, 2015)

Hmmm... In general, I'd say Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Kalinnikov, Puccini, Mahler, and Stravinsky. 

Some prominent examples:
Mozart -- Piano Sonata No. 18, second movement
Schubert -- Nachtviolen
Brahms -- Violin Concerto, first movement, second theme
Dvorak -- Symphony No. 7, first movement, second theme
Tchaikovsky -- Symphony No. 5, first movement, first theme
Borodin -- In the Steppes of Central Asia
Kalinnikov -- Symphony No. 2, finale
Puccini -- La Boheme, Quando men vo
Mahler -- Symphony No. 10, first movement, first theme
Stravinsky -- pretty much anything from Rite of Spring


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## Rondo (Jul 11, 2007)

Apart from the Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and Brahms staples...

Grieg (Peer Gynt, Holberg Suite, Sigurd Jorsalfar), 
Sibelius (Symphony Nos 1, 2 and 3, & tone poems)


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## JakeBloch (Mar 27, 2014)

Schubert
Brahms
Dvorak
Puccini


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Mahler
R. Strauss 
Schubert 
Wagner
Debussy
Chopin
Puccini


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

It seems pretty broad to do this for composers entire oeuvres. I will say I never seem to tire of the melodic material in the first movement of Ravel's Piano Trio, or the ones in the second movement of Prokofiev's second symphony.

There are plenty more I love but those were the first that came to mind.


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## golfer72 (Jan 27, 2018)

Ethereality said:


> I've made lists of my 100 favorite melodies and subthemes, and listening to much music throughout the years from Bach, Beethoven and Brahms where each melody tends to get old after a while, I hate to say it again but the melodies of Mahler and Uematsu never get old for me. It's still as though it's the first day I heard them. Unlike the Classicists and Neo-Classicists that have a limited harmonic and melodic ruleset for their time, their melodies have a more fundamental tonal quality that escaped these expectations.


Yes totally agree on Mahler.


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

Johannes' music never seems to get old for me.


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