What Piece Drives You to Tears?

[Daniel DiMercurio]

Hey everyone,

So with the exception of a couple Billy Joel ballads, I've come to realize that the only music that can really make a grown man like myself tear up is a moving orchestral piece. The sad thing is that for me, most circumstances in life (e.g heartbreak) really can't drive me to tears. I've never been much of a crier, but there are just some melodies and arrangements that break me down.

So I figured I'd ask all of you if anyone has had a similar emotional connection to a piece of music, whether it is from the sheer beauty of it all, or perhaps it brings back a painful memory from the past.

For me, Pietro Mascagni's Intermezzo from Cavelleria Rusticana does it...

[Gav Brown]

Here is one that breaks my heart >

[Ingo Lee]

Thanks Gav for posting that, I liked it although it didn't affect me the same as you.  The score did make me curious;. groupings of 22 and 23 sixty-fourth notes, who hears that?  I ended up on this site:

http://www.pennario.org/Pages/Composer/Leonard-Pennario-Midnight.html

which has this original score supposedly as written by Pennario, with guitar diagrams even.

Apparently the complex piano part was improvised and never played the same way twice by Pennario. The score that appears in the video is a transcription by someone with a better ear than mine! Doris Day loved this and so it appeared in her movie 'Julie'. I love this stuff, thanks!

Gav Brown said:

Here is one that breaks my heart >

[Gav Brown]

When faced with such a blizzard, I think as a performer you have to think of it in terms of the interval of time between the beginning note of a run, and the end note. Not the notes in the arpeggios, but the notes in the chords of the surrounding melody. If you have a whole note at the beginning of the run, then you have that much time to get the arpeggio crammed in until the next melodic note sounds, so if you play a run of 12, 15, or 23, then that’s notated as 12, 15, or 23 notes = 1 whole note. Of course it helps if you’re a virtuoso and a genius. I looked him up too and saw the same things you saw. I was hoping to find something else on par with this, but apparently this is his single masterpiece.

[Dane Aubrun]

It's probably the last part of Barber's Knoxville Summer of 1915.

I can't explain to myself why it should affect me. Leontyne Price's recording in particular brings me out in goosebumps. 

.

Then the closing scenes of West Side Story (the film).....

.

[Art Lowell]

Off topic for Gavin: I have belonged to this forum for awhile and would like to be able to find my way back to the home page to post new topics and see what other topics are there, but I've lost that bookmark. Can you help me?

[Gav Brown]

For Art,

http://composersforum.ning.com/

[Ali Riza SARAL]

My favorite is Verdi Lacrimosa...

Lacrimosa Verdi Requiem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UENK70U6Lk

Actually Lacrimosa by itself is my favorite...

Lacrimosa Mozart Requiem is very beutiful and holds the whole Requiem up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1-TrAvp_xs

Lutoslavsky Lacrimosa,  is also very touching.

Penderecki Lacrimosa also.

If attended, one can perceive that Lacrimosa has something

hidden that brings the best in its composer. 

Ali

[Stephen Lines]

Michael, I fully agree with your choice - this is some of Dvorak's best writing and Renee makes a very excellent interpretation of it....very moving.

Michael Lofting said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trfLkYpOglA

Renee Fleming, song to the moon from Rusalka.

I didn't know Dvorak had written an opera.

[Stephen Lines]

Well if lacrimosae can't bring a tear to the lachrymal glands what ever else would ;}

Ali Riza SARAL said:

My favorite is Verdi Lacrimosa...

Lacrimosa Verdi Requiem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UENK70U6Lk

Actually Lacrimosa by itself is my favorite...

Lacrimosa Mozart Requiem is very beutiful and holds the whole Requiem up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1-TrAvp_xs

Lutoslavsky Lacrimosa,  is also very touching.

Penderecki Lacrimosa also.

If attended, one can perceive that Lacrimosa has something

hidden that brings the best in its composer. 

Ali