# Music representing death



## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

Which music for you best represents and expresses death? I think Mahler 10 finale ending, the way it settles on that chord, like an acceptance of death.


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## En Passant (Aug 1, 2020)

I think thanks to Tom & Jerry etc it will always be *Frédéric Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35*.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

The _Dies Irae_, musically all over the place, Rachmaninoff a big user of same.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

BenG said:


> Which music for you best represents and expresses death? I think Mahler 10 finale ending, the way it settles on that chord, like an acceptance of death.


I comment here expressly aware that you use the term "represents and expresses death". In some deep, metaphorical sense, all music (especially the symphony) provides an example of this, tracing, as the music does, an entire life -- full of episodes and changes and variations and differing moods, and finally achieving its end.

When Mahler expressed that a symphony should encompass the whole world, he was right on the mark, and perhaps his own symphonies are the greatest expressions of music representing life to death. Just as we humans move through a wide range of experiences towards our end (tragic or triumphal as it may be), so do great symphonies provide a representation of a similar experience.

Don't look so much for "death music". All things must pass. Even the universe will sometime dissolve back into nothingness. Rather, pursue music because of the mirror it holds up to what is really important to us all -- our life experience.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

The ending of Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony has always felt like a very dramatic depiction of death to me. Tchaikovsky hinted that the symphony had a program, but he never revealed what it was. And as is well known, he died suddenly and unexpectedly 9 days after the work was premiered, leaving some to speculate the two were related.


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## UniversalTuringMachine (Jul 4, 2020)

Liszt Totentaz
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique
Saint Saen Danse Macabre
Everything Mahler wrote


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

The third movement of Bruckner's 9th - it gives me the impression of his spirit being drawn into the hereafter even though the work wasn't intended to finish there.

All of Shostakovich's 15th string quartet - it's as if he was writing his own funeral dirge in advance. The Viola Sonata - his final completed work - reminds me of being there in hospital watching him die.

All cheerful stuff heh heh...


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## UniversalTuringMachine (Jul 4, 2020)

elgars ghost said:


> The third movement of Bruckner's 9th - it gives me the impression of his spirit being drawn into the hereafter even though the work wasn't intended to finish there.


There is a completed version performed by Rattle BPO featuring a cosmic ending, it's very faithful (most of the movement was almost identical to Bruckner's conception).


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

elgars ghost said:


> The third movement of Bruckner's 9th - it gives me the impression of his spirit being drawn into the hereafter even though the work wasn't intended to finish there.
> 
> All of Shostakovich's 15th string quartet - it's as if he was writing his own funeral dirge in advance. The Viola Sonata - his final completed work - reminds me of being there in hospital watching him die.
> 
> All cheerful stuff heh heh...


I listened to Bruckner 9 the other day and had a similar thought about the Adagio. What a movement.


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

UniversalTuringMachine said:


> There is a completed version performed by Rattle BPO featuring a cosmic ending, it's very faithful (most of the movement was almost identical to Bruckner's conception).


I have a completed one with Wildner on Naxos. I rarely listen to it because I've been conditioned so much over the years by the three-movement version. Nothing against completed versions, but if I don't want to hear the finale then at least I can just simply bale out after the adagio.


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## Ravn (Jan 6, 2020)

flamencosketches said:


> I listened to Bruckner 9 the other day and had a similar thought about the Adagio. What a movement.


Couldn't agree more. Imo the greatest symphonic movement of all time in the greatest symphony of all time. It is haunting, heartbreaking and immensely beautiful. It is the perfect way to end the last work of a symphonc titan. I cannot express in words how great that movement (or indeed the whole symphony) is.

I find the performing/completed four movement version interesting, but I've only heard the Rattle* recording. Sadly, I find the coda of the finale a bit lacking in power which is a letdown. Someone once told me that the completionists wrote the coda since it was missing, but I have not checked this myself. It does bring hope that someone someday might write another coda which is more powerful. But for the time being, I don't need a fourth movement to this symphony at all - it is perfect the way it is.

* I don't buy the "Rattle is not a Brucknerian" argument. His recording of the 7th with Birmingham is stupendous.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

UniversalTuringMachine said:


> Everything Mahler wrote


Not sure if this is facetious, but I disagree with this. Mahler seems to have a reputation as someone who's always misanthropic, bitter, sarcastic, and obsessed with death. I think there is much more to his art than that. He was a quintessential late Romantic who was always searching for truth, and his music reflects the wide emotional spectrum of a man who struggled to find fulfillment in life and who had a wide-reaching and incredibly fertile artistic mind. The 9th, for example, I think represents so much more than just his oncoming death (he was actually in high spirits at the time anyway). I hear the imminent collapse of Romantic ideals, the onset of the century of totalitarianism, world war, and other evils; an inevitable journey away from a golden age that will never be restored. Of course that in itself is pure Romantic speculation, but Mahler's music lends itself to many different interpretations of its meaning which is why I can enjoy Bernstein's emotional excesses, Barbirolli's dark questing, Walter's optimistic spirituality, Kubelik's folksy "roots" approach, and even occasionally Boulez's more "analytical" view of Mahler. They're all different sides of Mahler's multifaceted personality.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Shostakovich- Sym #14
Strauss - Death & Transfiguration 
Mahler - Sym #9, DLvDE
and- 
any Requiem


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Ravn said:


> Couldn't agree more. Imo the greatest *symphonic movement *of all time in the greatest symphony of all time. It is haunting, heartbreaking and immensely beautiful. It is the perfect way to end the last work of a symphonc titan. I cannot express in words how great that movement (or indeed the whole symphony) is.
> 
> I find the performing/completed four movement version interesting, but I've only heard the Rattle* recording. Sadly, I find the coda of the finale a bit lacking in power which is a letdown. Someone once told me that the completionists wrote the coda since it was missing, but I have not checked this myself. It does bring hope that someone someday might write another coda which is more powerful. But for the time being, I don't need a fourth movement to this symphony at all - it is perfect the way it is.
> 
> * I don't buy the "Rattle is not a Brucknerian" argument. His recording* of the 7th with Birmingham is stupendous*.


1. The greatest symphony ever, is much better for this masterpiece.
2. The Sir hit me also very much with his Mahler's 8 & Birmingham. He is really someone who has great moments with many different composers without being what we call ''expert'' with them.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Ravn said:


> Couldn't agree more. Imo the greatest symphonic movement of all time in the greatest symphony of all time. It is haunting, heartbreaking and immensely beautiful. It is the perfect way to end the last work of a symphonc titan. I cannot express in words how great that movement (or indeed the whole symphony) is.
> 
> I find the performing/completed four movement version interesting, but I've only heard the Rattle* recording. Sadly, I find the coda of the finale a bit lacking in power which is a letdown. Someone once told me that the completionists wrote the coda since it was missing, but I have not checked this myself. It does bring hope that someone someday might write another coda which is more powerful. But for the time being, I don't need a fourth movement to this symphony at all - it is perfect the way it is.
> 
> * I don't buy the "Rattle is not a Brucknerian" argument. His recording of the 7th with Birmingham is stupendous.


I'm curious about the completed 9th for sure but the "Rattle's no Brucknerian" trope seems to have kind of scared me off from seriously checking it out. I need to change that, and it will likely be Rattle's recording-he is a major champion of the completion-but I think it can wait. I'm still in the "getting to know each other" phase with this symphony. I don't listen to it often because I don't want to spoil the magic, if you will. In any case, I have a hard time picturing something following that Adagio. It sounds so climactic.


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## Ravn (Jan 6, 2020)

To answer the OP, the first three works that springs to mind is Brahms's requiem, Ligeti's Lux Aeterna and Penderecki's Threnody.



Dimace said:


> 1. The greatest symphony ever, is much better for this masterpiece.
> 2. The Sir hit me also very much with his Mahler's 8 & Birmingham. He is really someone who has great moments with many different composers without being what we call ''expert'' with them.


1. I believe I wrote that in the same sentence you highlighted, although using the term "of all time" rather than "ever". My apologies if I was unclear. 
2. Thank you for the recommendation. I will add it to my listening list.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

From the thread < Why is Brahms so great? >



hammeredklavier said:


> The Maurerische Trauermusik (Masonic Funeral Music) in C minor, K. 477 (K. 479a), is an orchestral work composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1785 in his capacity as a member of the Freemasons. Mozart's own entry into his catalogue under the heading "July 1785" may be an error; he most likely forgot to enter a new heading for November. It was performed during a Masonic funeral service held on 17 November 1785 in memory of two of Mozart's Masonic brethren, Duke Georg August of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Count Franz Esterházy von Galántha, members of the Viennese aristocracy.
> The work uses the Gregorian chant psalm-tone, tonus peregrinus. The work is scored for strings; woodwind instruments including two oboes, a clarinet, three basset horns and a contrabassoon; and two horns. The basset horn parts were written for fellow Freemasons Anton David and Vincent Springer.
> 
> 
> ...


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Although I believe Beethoven to be the most life-affirming composer who ever lived, I firmly believe that after the Marcia Funebre of the Eroica, no other piece of music can call itself a Funeral March.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

always think the arietta from op 111 feels like it's about death and acceptance.


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## Fredrikalansson (Jan 29, 2019)

Mussorgsky Songs and Dances of Death

Schubert String Quartet Death and the Maiden

Elgar Dream of Gerontius


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

The music on this CD definitely fits the bill:


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Does : Staying alive also counts?


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

We are asked for music which expresses or represents death, which is (I suppose) different from music expressing or representing our thoughts about death. Most of the pieces I immediately thought of seemed to be more music which reflected our feelings when we think about death, rather than attempts to depict death itself. The ones below are closer to depictions of death itself.

In relation to moments of death I suppose you have pieces like Shostakovich 11, which attempts to portray mass-shooting.
At the other extreme you have "last breath" pieces which ebb away. I know Strauss' Metamorphosen is supposed to be about culture, not people, but it ebbs marvellously. And of course, there's Haydn in The Seven Last Words, as Jesus commends his soul to his Father prior to the earthquake.
Then you have fading away agnostically pieces such as the end of VW 6 (_With regard to the last movement of my No. 6, I do NOT BELIEVE IN meanings and mottoes, as you know, but I think we can get in words nearest to the substance of my last movement in 'We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded by [sic] a sleep._).
Of course, if you bring heaven into the picture then you have all manner of possibilities to express, but a favourite for me is the In Paradisum of Faure's requiem. I believe this is about being led into paradise rather than being in paradise (accusative not ablative!), so we are in the territory of death happening rather than death having happened.


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## Beebert (Jan 3, 2019)

Death from a dark point of view:

Schubert - Piano Sonata D 959, 2nd mvt

Schubert - Der Leiermann from Winterreise


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

Holst: Ode to Death


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

The nicest depiction of death I've ever seen or heard.


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

What about final movement of Tchaikovsky Symphony no 6 (Pathetique) . It is as though Tchaikovsky knew he was going to die at any time!


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

echoing David P above. 
This is just gorgeous..."come, lovely and soothing death". One of Holst's finest masterpieces....


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

^ A little creepy to me, but maybe because I watch too many horror movies.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

mikeh375 said:


> This is just gorgeous..."come, lovely and soothing death". One of Holst's finest masterpieces....


You're really loyal to your English composers aren't you... I don't believe Holst wrote a single masterpiece, 3rd or 4th tier composer.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

1996D said:


> . I don't believe Holst wrote a single masterpiece, 3rd or 4th tier composer.


Oh, please....Holst knocked them out of the park with regularity....his wind ensemble works alone are sure winners.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Heck148 said:


> Oh, please....Holst knocked them out of the park with regularity....his wind ensemble works alone are sure winners.


He's only played and liked in England like Elgar, although the latter is probably ten times as good. English composers have had a sorry time, maybe Mike is trying to compensate by being overly biased.

If one English composer stands out and deserves more credit it's Elgar by far, Holst is the definition of a systematic, talentless composer.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

1996D said:


> You're really loyal to your English composers aren't you... *I don't believe Holst wrote a single masterpiece*, 3rd or 4th tier composer.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

*Franz Schmidt's 4th symphony* sure fills the bill. The composer himself said that the ending, where the orchestra tapers down to the lone trumpet (which opened the symphony) is like the last sounds one hears as he leaves the earth ascending to heaven. (BTW: there's a new set of the complete symphonies coming out next month on DG with Paavo Jarvi!).

The ending of the *Gliere 3rd *is the death of Ilya Murometz and he turns back to stone.

*Richard Strauss Death and Transfiguration* - on his deathbed, the victim replays his life and then...dies. Followed by the transfiguration.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


>


Good moments but as a whole it's not a masterpiece, it's very superficial. Elgar's symphonies show much better form and have actual depth.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

1996D said:


> He's only played and liked in England like Elgar, although the latter is probably ten times as good. English composers have had a sorry time, maybe Mike is trying to compensate by being overly biased.


Rubbish



> Holst is the definition of a systematic, talentless composer.


Horse dung....your uninformed opinion is a commentary on your ignorance of great music, rather than any condemnation of Holst.....his band/wind ensemble works are deservedly well loved, widely performed/recorded and are regarded as masterpieces, true pillars of that musical genre....you should check them out...


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> ^ A little creepy to me, but maybe because I watch too many horror movies.


I'm surprised Phil given your own language... Or do you mean the poem is a little creepy? I'll grant you it is unsettling, but Holst's sumptuous harmony seems to act as a balm.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

There's always Britten's War Requiem. The last mvt. sets Wilfred Owen's 'Strange Meeting', set in a dark tunnel after death and is very effective, especially the string crescendos around the words "I am the enemy you killed my friend, I knew you in this dark", Britten at his finest and most effective 'word setting'.
The Dies Irae is truly terrifying too.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. Being August, this seems especially appropriate. I prefer the Bruno Madera version.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

The Dream of Gerontius (Elgar) is, of course, all about death (or at least a dream of what is supposed to happen after you die).


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

"The Pilgrim reaches the end of his Journey" does it for me, courtesy of Ralph Vaughan Williams and The Pilgrim's Progress:






The Alleluias get me every time (starting at about 33 seconds in).
And then the Holy, Holys at 1.50ish tend to wipe me out for an hour or so


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

mikeh375 said:


> I'm surprised Phil given your own language... Or do you mean the poem is a little creepy? I'll grant you it is unsettling, but Holst's sumptuous harmony seems to act as a balm.


The music's great. It's the words telling Death to come, and the sound of the voices saying it. I wish the words were a bit different, or a solo singer saying it. The idea of a group of people asking for death to come sounds like some cult chant.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> The music's great. It's the words telling Death to come, and the sound of the voices saying it. I wish the words were a bit different, or a solo singer saying it. The idea of a group of people asking for death to come sounds like some cult chant.


Or a Bach cantata!


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## MrMeatScience (Feb 15, 2015)

It's the late Shostakovich pieces for me -- particularly Symphony No. 14 and the last quartet. I can only listen to them periodically even though I love them, it's just really unrelenting music. Some late Mahler gets there too, but he takes a rather different view on the subject.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

1996D said:


> He's only played and liked in England like Elgar, although the latter is probably ten times as good. English composers have had a sorry time, maybe Mike is trying to compensate by being overly biased.
> 
> If one English composer stands out and deserves more credit it's Elgar by far, Holst is the definition of a systematic, talentless composer.


Haha, you always crack me up. I'll admit when I was your age (24 or so?) I'd like to pass judgement on different kinds of Art, and be kind of dismissive. It takes more work to see the virtues of each kind.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Tsss... it takes 46 posts before Mahler's Kindertotenlieder get mentioned?


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Art Rock said:


> Tsss... it takes 46 posts before Mahler's Kindertotenlieder get mentioned?


_Kindertotenliender_ is such a powerful work (on the death of children) that I read somewhere that some divas won't sing it while their own children are little.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Art Rock said:


> Tsss... it takes 46 posts before Mahler's Kindertotenlieder get mentioned?


Right, Ravel "Pavane", also


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

I'm still alive, and I don't know much myself about death and dying.

This is my modest try:
If the question would have been "what music is representing _*dying*_ the best", then I would probably go for the Finales of Tchaikovsky 6 and Mahler 9.
(Damn, dying is painful.)

For *death* as a state of 'being': John Cage, 4'33" (on repeat in aeternum).

For experiencing *death* as a state of 'mourning about someone else's death'... maybe Mozart's _Maurerische Trauermusik_ comes close.

For a *sudden* death: J.S. Bach, Contrapunctus 14 from _Die Kunst der Fuge_ (BWV 1080-19).

Funny, I did not pick any vocal/choral piece.
Maybe next year.
If I'm still alive.


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## Marc (Jun 15, 2007)

Of course I do know beautiful vocal pieces about death/dying/mourning about death. It's actually strange I forgot to mention them. The best 2 are probably "When I am laid in earth" of Purcell's _Dido and Aeneas_ and "Zerfließe, mein Herze, in Fluten der Zähren" from Bach's _Johannes-Passion_.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Suk - Asrael
Janáček - Elegy on the Death of My Daughter Olga
Schmidt's Symphony No. 4 - "A requiem for my daughter"

....and pretty much every requiem ever written is about death


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Death & the Maiden, or was that already mentioned? 

Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary...


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## Plague (Apr 4, 2020)

Gorecki - String quartet no.3 '...songs are sung'

The work took inspiration from a Russian poem by Velimir Khlebnikov which reads 'When horses die, they breathe/When grasses die, they wither/When suns die, they go out/When people die, they sing songs'.


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

mbhaub said:


> The ending of the *Gliere 3rd *is the death of Ilya Murometz and he turns back to stone.


Yes! I also love how at the end, we hear fragments from all the previous movements in reverse until it ends on the first movement. It's a clever twist on the similar thing done in the 4th Movement of Beethoven's 9th or Bruckner's 5th.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## Ich muss Caligari werden (Jul 15, 2020)

In high school, when my best bud and I first discovered Classical music for ourselves, we saw _much_ of the genre dealing with death - so acutely conscious did it seem to us of the measuring and passing of time, of beginnings and endings. My friend is departed now himself, so perhaps he knows the truth of it... and while our view seems exaggerated to me now (we were, admittedly, gothically morbid), I would aver still that there is a heightened perception or awareness of our limited span buried within this music, ironically mirrored by public perceptions of the genre itself. As the musicologist and pianist Charles Rosen observed: "The death of classical music is perhaps its oldest continuing tradition."


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Berg's violin concerto and Rautavaara's double bass concerto are both written to an angel of death.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Riley's Requiem for Adam was written in memoriam for a friend's son. The use of New Orleans street funeral music is particularly affecting.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Corigliano - Sym #1


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## Ich muss Caligari werden (Jul 15, 2020)

1996D said:


> You're really loyal to your English composers aren't you... I don't believe Holst wrote a single masterpiece, 3rd or 4th tier composer.


Your comment makes me profoundly sad, 1996D...to think someone doesn't just love Holst's _St. Paul Suite_ to high heaven...


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Sibelius Symphony 3, 2nd movement. Dying, resigned breaths.


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## Guest (Aug 11, 2020)

MarkW said:


> Although I believe Beethoven to be the most life-affirming composer who ever lived, I firmly believe that after the Marcia Funebre of the Eroica, no other piece of music can call itself a Funeral March.


There's the Chopin Piano Sonata but, yes, I agree with this.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Ich muss Caligari werden said:


> Your comment makes me profoundly sad, 1996D...to think someone doesn't just love Holst's _St. Paul Suite_ to high heaven...


Don't be sad about some kid's ignorance! Maybe one day he will discover that Holst wrote a lot of music that defied such expectations.


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## Bill Cooke (May 20, 2017)

Mahler 6 
Sibelius: Valse Triste
Sibelius: the Swan of Tuonela 
Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin (the final part)
Raff: Symphony 5 "Lenore"


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## Ich muss Caligari werden (Jul 15, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> Don't be sad about some kid's ignorance! Maybe one day he will discover that Holst wrote a lot of music that defied such expectations.


*Thanks*, Enthusiast, for your sage counsel. I remember being similarly foolish; wasn't until my 40s I began to appreciate Wagner (and tellingly, Mahler and Bruckner). I sure wish we would abandon talk of numbered rankings, "3rd rate," etc and notions of the "Greatest" as well - they hold little meaning and less justification; instead talk more from the "I": "I really don't like Holst's music." Or more revealingly, "I lack the ability to appreciate Holst's music." Or more positively: "What things should I look for in Holst's music?"


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Ich muss Caligari werden said:


> Your comment makes me profoundly sad, 1996D...to think someone doesn't just love Holst's _St. Paul Suite_ to high heaven...


St. Paul Suite is great music making in my book, although masterpiece may be pushing it a bit too much.

Fortunately, not everything I like and enjoy need be a masterpiece.


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## Ich muss Caligari werden (Jul 15, 2020)

JAS said:


> St. Paul Suite is great music making in my book, although masterpiece may be pushing it a bit too much.
> 
> Fortunately, not everything I like and enjoy need be a masterpiece.


Thanks, JAS, agree wholeheartedly. I sure do love the _St. Paul Suite_, so I'm gonna call it a "me-sterpiece." Interestingly, Holst was one of CM's most self-effacing composers - to 1996D's condemnation, he'd have responded, smiling (as he actually said): "It's a great thing to be a failure..."


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Perhaps I might say that it is better to be remembered as a third tier composer than to be completely forgotten. Or perhaps it is better to have written one or two pieces that have given people joy, than to have written none.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Ich muss Caligari werden said:


> Thanks, JAS, agree wholeheartedly. I sure do love the _St. Paul Suite_, so I'm gonna call it a "me-sterpiece." Interestingly, Holst was one of CM's most self-effacing composers - to 1996D's condemnation, he'd have responded, smiling (as he actually said): "It's a great thing to be a failure..."


Holst's First Suite in Eb for Band is definitely a masterpiece....a superb work, 3 rather short movements, but so eloquently put together...really top-notch. Large or small - great is great....


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

MarkW said:


> Although I believe Beethoven to be the most life-affirming composer who ever lived, I firmly believe that after the Marcia Funebre of the Eroica, no other piece of music can call itself a Funeral March.


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