# Goosebumps



## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

When did a passage of music make your hair stand on end? Last one for me was the middle section of Der Abschied, from Mahler's Das lied von der Erde. Start of Mahler's 2nd symphony never lets me down either. 

Get me listening with new ears please TC!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

When I came to like Messiaen (it took me a lot of time) I found that it had a very strong physical affect on me - almost dizziness rather than hair standing on end - and it still does. As an atheist I call it God.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

At the end of the slow movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto no.22 in E flat, K482, there are a couple of passing moments when a shaft of C major sunlight pierces the prevailing C minor darkness. The exquisite bittersweetness of those few bars of music has left me on the verge of tears more than once.

Shivers of an entirely different kind come over me when I listen to Schubert's shudder-inducingly Gothic Lied "Der Zwerg".


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Enthusiast, I can definitely relate to that with Messiaen, but the closest I've come to experiencing what you just described is with Mahler's 6th symphony. Recently I listened to the nightmarish, white-hot, hallucinatory, devastating Bernstein/VPO recording straight through and I was utterly paralyzed by the end. After the second hammer blow I forgot where I was and it felt like the music became part of my subconscious psyche. Something about this symphony works its way into my mind and generates a disturbing sort of catharsis. My heart palpitates, my breathing speeds up, and I feel physically tired. Who could ever create such a visceral work of art?


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

If you mean "stand on end" in a GOOD way, then any of the following:

Act 2 Finale of Marriage of Figaro
2nd movement of Beethoven 7th
2nd movement of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto
Finale of Beethoven's 9th
Ending of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto
Ending of Dvorak's NWS
1st movement of Beethoven's 3rd
1st movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto
ALL of Dvorak's Cello Concerto but especially the ending
1st movement of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto
Ending of Shostakovich's 5th

Being aware of the historical context in which the music was composed makes the emotional reaction more powerful.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Mahler: Symphony No. 8, Finale - (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Klaus Tennstedt)


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

The closing of Strauss' Salome.
Much of Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Oldest: numerous Bach pieces, especially the St Matthew Passion.
Newest: Penderecki's 6th, especially when the erhu kicks in.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)




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## Kiki (Aug 15, 2018)

The orchestral interlude in Abschied of Das Lied von der Erde is probably my favourite passage of Mahler. It is out of this world. So are the solo flute in the Finale of Mahler 10, and the beginning of Part II of Mahler 8.

I can also think of the scherzi of Bruckner 9 and Martinů 5, Messiaen's Turangalîla, Janáček's Sinfonietta and Schnittke's Viola Concerto, Cello Concerto No. 1 and Concerto Grosso No. 4／Symphony No. 5.



Art Rock said:


> Oldest: numerous Bach pieces, especially the St Matthew Passion.
> Newest: Penderecki's 6th, especially when the erhu kicks in.


Talking about Penderecki's 6th, at first I thought the use of a solo erhu was unusual, but those four erhu intermezzi set and remind us of the tone throughout the piece very well, and it sounds authentic rather than pseudo to me which is also nice.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Enthusiast, I can definitely relate to that with Messiaen, but the closest I've come to experiencing what you just described is with Mahler's 6th symphony. Recently I listened to the nightmarish, white-hot, hallucinatory, devastating Bernstein/VPO recording straight through and I was utterly paralyzed by the end. After the second hammer blow I forgot where I was and it felt like the music became part of my subconscious psyche. Something about this symphony works its way into my mind and generates a disturbing sort of catharsis. My heart palpitates, my breathing speeds up, and I feel physically tired. Who could ever create such a visceral work of art?


Bernstein's Vienna Mahler 6 _*is *_devastating.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Parts of Sibelius: Second Symphony, Pohjola's Daughter
Parts of Brahms: First Piano Concerto, First and Fourth Symphonies
Parts of Bach: Fourth Brandenburg Concerto, D-minor Keyboard Concerto
Ending of Respighi: Saint Gregory the Great
Parts of Ravel: Daphnis Daybreak Music, Concerto for the Left Hand
Beethoven: First movement, Eroica
Prokofiev: Parts of Piano Concertos 2 and 3


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

juliante said:


> When did a passage of music make your hair stand on end? Start of Mahler's 2nd symphony


The final few minutes of Mahler's 2nd. Every time no matter which recording and which medium (radio, LP, CD, Stereo, Monural)


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I'm bald. Nothing can make my hair stand on end.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Merl said:


> I'm bald. Nothing can make my hair stand on end.


I heard that!!!


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

End of Act 1 of Tosca by Puccini. The build up is so overwhelming.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Frisson is something I experience all the time in music, sometimes unexpectedly.

A remarkable recent such experience for me was listening to Mahler Symphony No. 8, Boulez.


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Will Todd's musical setting of John Keats's poem "Ode to a Nightingale" gets me each time I give it a listen. My reaction is always one of elation, some times resulting in 'tears of joy'.

True anecdote:
When I was growing up, my little sister would have to be removed from church if there was an organ or organ and choir playing. She would start sobbing and it would inevitably end up as wailing. She was not in control of this emotional reaction. My mom was always perplexed as to this behavior, as there was no explanation for it. She outgrew it at about the age of 10.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

It feels kinda sad that her reaction wasn't taken as a positive signal. When I was a toddler my mother, who regularly listened to classical music on the radio, turned it on one day and I began to cry, so she turned it off again, only for me to cry even louder. That alerted my parents to a sensitivity to music on my part which they then built on by offering me piano lessons when I turned 5. I went for the idea and have played the piano, and grown in my love for classical music, ever since.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Joe B said:


> Will Todd's musical setting of John Keats's poem "Ode to a Nightingale" gets me each time I give it a listen. My reaction is always one of elation, some times resulting in 'tears of joy'.
> 
> True anecdote:
> When I was growing up, my little sister would have to be removed from church if there was an organ or organ and choir playing. She would start sobbing and it would inevitably end up as wailing. She was not in control of this emotional reaction. My mom was always perplexed as to this behavior, as there was no explanation for it. She outgrew it at about the age of 10.


The initial blare/bleat of Scottish bagpipes always still gives me a strong tingle, as does the sound of a symphony orchestra tuning up.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Outside of Mahler and Bach (the two composers that probably have the strongest emotional effect on me) Faure and Durufle's Requiem is a good candidate for my most frequently goosebump-inducing music. I can't hear that perfect melody in Faure's Agnus Dei or the ethereal utterance of Durufle's Pie Jesu without getting chills, and when the voices enter I just break down. Similar reaction to Brahms's German Requiem, but that's partially due to a very, very personal connection I have with that work having to do with the death of someone dear to me.


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## MonagFam (Nov 17, 2015)

I think I probably get it quite a bit. That said, i don't think I can actually handle listening to Schubert's Der Erlkönig ever. It was hard well before I was ever a parent so there is no way I could handle it today.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Enthusiast, I can definitely relate to that with Messiaen, but the closest I've come to experiencing what you just described is with Mahler's 6th symphony. Recently I listened to the nightmarish, white-hot, hallucinatory, devastating Bernstein/VPO recording straight through and I was utterly paralyzed by the end. After the second hammer blow I forgot where I was and it felt like the music became part of my subconscious psyche. Something about this symphony works its way into my mind and generates a disturbing sort of catharsis. My heart palpitates, my breathing speeds up, and I feel physically tired. Who could ever create such a visceral work of art?


And yet... 95% (?) of people consider CM as boring. We are lucky. There's no other musical genre or art form that comes anywhere close for me with regard to eliciting this and other experiences described in this thread.


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