# Which composer wrote the most melancholic music?



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Off the top of my head I'm thinking Chopin, Liszt, and Tchaikovsky, but of course there are many more. I'm listening to Chopin's nocturnes and they are beautifully sad. It is strange in a way that when I am feeling low I feel more empowered when listening to melancholic music then something more upbeat. 

Would it be too obvious to say the saddest pieces of music are Chopin's funeral march from his 2nd piano sonata or his short preludes in E and C minor?


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Rachmaninoff. There simply isn't anything more consistently melancholic.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

I'm going to make a left-field suggestion here: Schubert belongs on the leader board for this one. Even his major-key works are so often wistful at heart.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Of more modern composers I'd suggest Arvo Part. Some of his music is hauntingly melancholic and beautiful.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Chopin has to rate high, but others would be Mahler, Scarlatti (many composers of the baroque and transition to classical period), Ravel too. However they also wrote music that wasn't melancholic.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I've always related to* melancholy* since as a little girl I was taken to visit churches and used to muse at the epitaphs in the graveyard. It is indeed enjoyable in a strange way. 

It is different from *sad* or *tragic*: Biber's Sorrowful Mysteries and Vivaldi's Stabat Mater are moving in an almost-painful way. 
Melancholy is more the reminder that life is fleeting and death is waiting, but in a gentler, more wistful way. 
The poster piece for me is Dowland's Lachrimae:




And of course Dowland was a composer famed for his melancholy: 'Semper Dowland, semper dolens'.

I agree about Chopin. My favourite wistful piece is his 'Tolling Bells'.

I need to think about the question to come up with some more pieces that are in my opinion *melancholic*.

Good thread. :tiphat:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

A tossup between Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. However, some of Handel's slow opera arias can surely qualify-deadly melancholic. One of the reasons I don't keep a loaded gun in the house. I may not be here typing this.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

I find some of Bach's Toccatas very sad and melancholy even the major key ones. CPE Bach wrote some very wistful slow movements in his keyboard sonatas.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

hpowders said:


> A tossup between Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. However, some of Handel's slow opera arias can surely qualify-deadly melancholic. One of the reasons I don't keep a loaded gun in the house. I may not be here typing this.


Sobering post that!!!

I've never knowingly listened to any of Handel's slow opera arias; would you be able to recommend some please?


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Satie. The works of his that are not obviously humorous sound to me like they are shivering in the cold.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

Minor-key Purcell.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Eschbeg said:


> Satie. The works of his that are not obviously humorous sound to me like they are shivering in the cold.


I was just yesterday listening to his Cold Pieces, they are indeed "shivering in the cold."


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Whenever I think of Faure, I think of melancholic, wistful melodies. But I have not heard a lot of Faure, so maybe his general style is quite different.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

I'd say Shostakovich


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Tchaikov6 said:


> I was just yesterday listening to his Cold Pieces, they are indeed "shivering in the cold."


I've never thought of these as melancholic; rather just abandoned and desolate.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> I've never thought of these as melancholic; rather just abandoned and desolate.


For me that would mean melancholic in a way.


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

I find much of Brahms' music to be melancholic, admittedly in a 'good way'......

however with Tchaikovsky I find it melancholic but in an over wrought sense...and I resist embarking on a rant about Elgar!


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## ProudSquire (Nov 30, 2011)

For me, I find that Schumann definitely belongs to this category. To me, his music is full of twists and turns, longing and loneliness, beauty and sadness, and at the center of it there's this heart-wrenching sound that is uniquely his.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

*"English Composers own this genre."

*


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Hamlet. .


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

And of course, how can one not mention Shostakovich? 

His music had characteristics that were: depressing, melancholic, and even the joviality was forced.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Brahms, Brahms, Brahms! I also second jim prideaux, that Brahms is melancholic in a constructive way. 

I spent the past few weeks listening to his Clarinet Trio Op.114. That is the very definition of melancholy for me.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

I find Schubert quite melancholic but not in a depressing way. The Winterreise is one of music's finest representations of melancholy, and his last piano sonatas are deeply wistful. Not to mention the Death and the Maiden quartet


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

silentio said:


> Brahms, Brahms, Brahms! I also second jim prideaux, that Brahms is melancholic in a constructive way.
> 
> I spent the past few weeks listening to his Clarinet Trio Op.114. That is the very definition of melancholy for me.


I got to play these piece on the piano with an amazing clarinetist and cellist a couple of weeks ago, and my God, the first and third movements made me want to weep.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Cesar Franck. His symphony and symphonic variations plus his violin sonata have a lot of melancholy about them.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

*Rachmaninoff *no doubt (more so than *Tchaikovsky*, at least to me). *Myaskovsky* comes to mind also (although he balances that with his sublime, graceful, soulful slow movements). *Bax* and *Glazunov* fit that mode also, more or less.

Others worth mentioning (or considering):

Samuil Feinberg
Roger Sacheverell Coke
Allan Pettersson
Felix Blumenfeld
Leonid Sabaneyev
Modest Mussorgsky (his operas)
William Baines (bittersweet, but not as mawkish as some of Rachmaninoff's works).


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## ST4 (Oct 27, 2016)

This piece meets the criteria (much like an Allan Pettersson symphony) for me:






I love Josquin Des Prez so much btw :tiphat:


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## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

Karlowicz: sadness is the prevailing mode, with a few very brief departures into 'happy'.


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## Omicron9 (Oct 13, 2016)

I can't say "the most melancholic," but for lugubrious depth, I'd have to mention Somei Satoh. Also quite beautiful, IMO.


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## Holden4th (Jul 14, 2017)

brianvds said:


> Rachmaninoff. There simply isn't anything more consistently melancholic.


Yes, some of the etudes and preludes are the most melancholic music I've ever heard.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

I don't think anyone has mentioned Beethoven. The last 5 String Quartets are so sad they are uplifting at the same time, you could call them the quantum quartets. Many slow movements of his piano sonatas can make grown men weep and the funeral march from the Eroica is formidably melancholy. 

Is the 1st movement of his Piano Sonata in C Sharp minor Op. 27 No. 2 the single most melancholy piece ever written?


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

beetzart said:


> I don't think anyone has mentioned Beethoven. The last 5 String Quartets are so sad they are uplifting at the same time, *you could call them the quantum quartets*. Many slow movements of his piano sonatas can make grown men weep and the funeral march from the Eroica is formidably melancholy.
> 
> Is the 1st movement of his Piano Sonata in C Sharp minor Op. 27 No. 2 the single most melancholy piece ever written?


This is a brilliant description. You're absolutely right - his late quartets are like Schrödinger's cat...they're in a state of superposition, somehow managing to be optimistic and tragic at the same time.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I came in to say Beethoven, he is the ultimate original emo! Sorry Betty, your man is a crying baby sissy boy overcompensating his sensitivity with overly aggressive behavior. 

But, he could also be very uplifting, but some of his music is straight up darkness, no hope, no sign of light, many of his piano sonatas are this way especially the first movement of the ever so famous Moonlight and Fur Elise.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I came in to say Beethoven, he is the ultimate original emo! * Sorry Betty, your man is a crying baby sissy boy overcompensating his sensitivity with overly aggressive behavior.*
> 
> But, he could also be very uplifting, but some of his music is straight up darkness, no hope, no sign of light, many of his piano sonatas are this way especially the first movement of the ever so famous Moonlight and Fur Elise.


I agree - and that's one of the things I love about him! I love it how he has this vulnerable side underneath his tough exterior. I wish I could hug him and stroke his cheek and comfort him (and then do some other stuff...) :devil:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Bettina said:


> I agree - and that's one of the things I love about him! I love it how he has this vulnerable side underneath his tough exterior. I wish I could hug him and stroke his cheek and comfort him (and then do some other stuff...) :devil:


All he ever needed was you Betty, just think you might have cured his ailing heart and then all his music would've sounded like Mozart!  to think!


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Bettina said:


> I agree - and that's one of the things I love about him! I love it how he has this vulnerable side underneath his tough exterior. I wish I could hug him and stroke his cheek and comfort him (and then do some other stuff...) :devil:


If I were to meet Beethoven, maybe when we can traverse parallel universes, I would like to shake his hand, pat him on the back and see if he wanted to go for a pint!


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Nobody seems to have mentioned John Dowland! He is often very melancholic  Sweet!


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