# The Most Moving Piece For Your Ears



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

There's a lot of great choices, but nothing quite tops Beethoven's 9th. It's so mammoth and never feels like it's trying too hard.

His most "soulful" work imo.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

The Heiliger Dankgesang is a contender for me.


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## Ravn (Jan 6, 2020)

Bruckner's 9th. It really does not get better IMO, although Mahler came close with the 9th and Das Lied von der Erde. 

If we read "moving piece" as "tearjerker" I'd throw in Schmidt's Intermezzo from Notre Dame and Pettersson's 8th symphony.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Of the works not listed yet: _Tristan und Isolde_. The third act is as dramatic, intense and moving as music can be in my opinion.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

To my ears? As opposed to what part of my body? Some pieces move my butt. Just curious...


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

vtpoet said:


> To my ears? As opposed to what part of my body? Some pieces move my butt. Just curious...


No oppositions enforced!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Ravn said:


> Bruckner's 9th. It really does not get better IMO, although Mahler came close with the 9th and Das Lied von der Erde.
> 
> If we read "moving piece" as "tearjerker" I'd throw in Schmidt's Intermezzo from Notre Dame and Pettersson's 8th symphony.


Interpretations of "moving" welcome.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I chose B9 because it wakes me up and makes me feel alive like no other piece of music can.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I chose B9 because it wakes me up and makes me feel alive like no other piece of music can.


Schubert's Great C Major Symphony gives me strength.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

One of the most moving: Dvorak Slavonic Dance Op. 72, no. 2

It has a wistful elegance that gets me every time I hear it. 

Franz Schmidt Symphony no. 4 is perhaps the moving moving large scale work I know. The Elgar 2nd right behind.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Elgar's : Enigma Variations / Nimrod (Adagio) and Strauss Four Last Songs.


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## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

Captainnumber36 said:


> The Most Moving Piece For Your Ears ... Interpretations of "moving" welcome.


For me, the "moving" effect of music involves an awesome, seismic experience that I have been describing as ultimately "transformative", and producing powerful emotional responses comparable to the responses of transcendent happiness, the depths of extreme grief, the ecstasy of falling in love, and other consuming emotional phenomena of that type. But it's more encompassing than merely emotional, in a way I've described as "psychic" ("spiritual"). My efforts to explain this experience finally led me to a more elaborate attempt to describe the phenomenon in a recent essay ("The Transformative Power of Great Classical Music").

So that's what I mean by a "moving" piece of music. It's as if the music opens up some kind of aperture through the "fabric" of my "ordinary" reality. But I truly can't single out just one great work (or segment of a work) that has this effect more than another; many pieces can bring on this kind of experience. And even if one particular melody or section of a piece has an especially strong effect, it comes in the context of the composition as a whole and I think of it all in that way.

In any case, to respond explicitly to the issue raised in the OP, at this moment a number of such extraordinarily "moving" works immediately leap to mind, so here are some examples:

Bach: Piano/harpsichord Concerto in E major, BWV 1053; Well-Tempered Clavier
Beethoven: Piano Sonata #29, B♭ major, "Hammerklavier"; Symphonies 5, 9 
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto #2; Symphony #7
Shostakovich: Symphony #5; Piano Concerto #2; Piano Quintet; Preludes & Fugues, Op. 87
Rachmaninoff: Symphony #2
Tchaikovsky: Symphony #6
Satie: Gymnopedies #1, 3 (orchestrated version)
Ravel: Pavane pour une Infante Defunte; Le Tombeau de Couperin; Mother Goose Suite; Piano Trio
Rozsa: Concerto for String Orchestra; Theme, Variations & Finale
Barber: Symphony #1; Violin Concerto; Piano Sonata; song "Sure on this shining night"
Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra
Piston: Symphony #4; Piano Quintet
... and so on ...


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Barber's "Adagio for Strings" not mentioned yet


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Beethoven's Ninth is a great plonking work of cathartic tension and release, but I'm not sure I'd describe it as "soulful" or "moving." To me it's like some great heraldic epic of chivalry.


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## golfer72 (Jan 27, 2018)

Mahler 2. Mahler 3 especially the finale. Rach Symp 2


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Well, Der Ring des Nibelungen moved me to utter shock and tears when I first experienced it, if that counts as a piece.


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## AaronSF (Sep 5, 2021)

Brahms's "German Requiem" always moves me.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

By coincidence I put on the Klemperer recording about ten minutes ago. Some of my favorite Brahms.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

The opening of Barber's violin Concerto - instant lump in the throat. And Britten's arrangement of the folk-song 'O Waly Waly', sung by Ferrier. Gets me every time.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Prokofiev's 2nd and 3rd piano concertos
Brahms 2nd piano concerto
Sibelius _Pohjola's Daughter_
Bach D minor keyboard concerto
Beethoven Eroica
Prokofiev violin concerto No. 1

So many more.......


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## Agamenon (Apr 22, 2019)

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, Act III.
Bach: St Matthew Passion.
Beethoven: Last piano Sonata. Op.111


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Perhaps Brahms' first piano concerto. I'd say it's too moving, actually. I don't like feeling things that strongly.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I just listed to the Romanza movement of Vaughan Williams' 5th. That was pretty moving.

As a whole though, I would put Beethoven's 6th, Strauss' Metamorphosen, and Tchaikovsky's 6th way up on my list. Another vote for Brahms' Requiem, too, especially "Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras."


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

I doubt there's a single piece which is totally moving from start to finish -- that would be unbearable! Better choosing one or two key moments:

1. the coda to Jenůfa (Janáček)
2. transition to and beginning of the coda of Suk's "Asrael"
3. second love duet in the "Cunning Little Vixen" -- between two foxes for those not familiar with the work. 

These three have been with me since the early 1980's and despite many wonderful discoveries since then, the list hasn't changed -- if anything's it's been reinforced by new performances.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

The Kyrie, Cum sancto spiritu and Dona nobis pacem from Bach's B minor Mass, BWV 106, BWV 21 (actually too many Bach cantatas to list), Sicut erat in principio from Bach's Magnificat, The Ricercar á 6 from Bach's Musical Offering, all of Bach's cello suites,
Worthy is the Lamb and Amen from Handel's Messiah, Handel's The Ways of Zion Do Mourn, 
Et vitam venturi saeculi and Benedictus from Beethoven's Missa solemnis, the final measures of Beethoven's Op. 111, 
The final measures of the Dvorák cello concerto,
Alexander's entry into Pskov from Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, the ending of the Shostakovich seventh,
Penderecki's Threnody, Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Wagner: Parsifal


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

dissident said:


> the ending of the Shostakovich seventh,


I wanted to highlight this (I agree with one or two others as well) because for me the very gradual build-up from the depths to the culmination of this symphony as much as the end itself is greatly underrated. This is probably because most conductors have no idea how to pace it and thus ruin it. Svetlanov does it perfectly. It's instructive to compare this very subtle build up to the much cruder one in the first movement. Both climaxes are of course utterly ear piercing as those who've heard it in concert will testify.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

I'd add a couple more: Bruckner's 8th and his Te Deum.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Knowing the story behind Dvorak's Cello Concerto, it's hard not to get hit by the emotional wallop the ending throws at the listener.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Olias said:


> Knowing the story behind Dvorak's Cello Concerto, it's hard not to get hit by the emotional wallop the ending throws at the listener.


There's also that wonderful little cadenza-like passage in the second movement, but I do love the whole thing.


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

Sibelius' 7th pretty consistently moves me at its emotional climaxes (you'll know what I mean if you're familiar with the piece).






The 4:00-6:30 minute passage, and about 12:15-13:15


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Saint Saens' Persons with long ears.


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## Giorgio Pitzalis (Feb 27, 2020)

the piece of music that always moves me to tears (it doesn't matter whether it is in the theater, on DVD or CD ..) is the ending of Puccini's Madama Butterfly ..... then if there is Santa Mirella with Karajan or Sinopoli I fall in strong sobs ...


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