What music makes you cry?

[Dave2002]

This exchange supposedly took place between George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill.

Edit: beaten to it again!

There is a similar Beecham story, which goes something like "Sir T, my new piece is having its first performance next week."
Sir T: "Oh dear boy, it's not the first performance you need to worry about, but the second." [not an accurate rendition, but the gist is there ...]

I like the one where Beecham says to a "friend" - "And what is your brother doing these days". Reply - "He's still King!"

[salymap]

It's rather nice to see Beecham wrong-footed though.

[Cellini]

What makes me cry? Well, of course, this effing government.

[mikerotheatrenestr0y]

On reflection, it's almost always Schubert: Des Baches Wiegenlied, for example, and the String Quintet, and the last piano sonata's first movement, and the last Moment Musical, and the late String Quartets... Housman settings, such as Butterworth's Is my team ploughing? sung by Bryn Terfel on The Vagabond, and Hardy settings by Finzi or Britten - The Choirmaster's Burial gets me, and the final cry of "How long?" in Before Life and After, or the end of Channel Firing. I'll also agree with Rosenkavalier. And there are probably other pieces I haven't thought of yet - like some of Brahms' late piano pieces.

[StephenO]

The trio from Rosenkavalier does it for me, too.

Also:

Wotan's Abschied from Die Walkure

Quintet from Die Meistersinger.

Agree on all three. The final scene of Gotterdammerung is another tearjerker as far as I'm concerned. Apart from opera, Urlicht from Mahler 2, Strauss's Tod und Verklarung and Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht all get me moist eyed. So does the last movement of Elgar 1.

P.S. Can anyone tell me how to type umlauts over German vowels, please?

[Petrushka]

I like the one where Beecham says to a "friend" - "And what is your brother doing these days". Reply - "He's still King!"

This same story is told about Sir John Gielgud, probably apochryphal in both cases.

[makropulos]

The title says it!

Any of these in a good live performance is likely to get me going...I'm sticking just to some favourite operas, to keep the thing within reason:

Mozart Figaro Act 4 finale (and very probably quite a few places earlier)
Wagner Meistersinger Quintet - (ditto, and later too)
Wagner Walküre - Sieglinde's "O hehrstes Wunder" in Act 3, and Wotan's Farewell
Wagner Götterdämmerung, several places in the Immolation Scene can get me going.
Humperdinck Hansel and Gretel, Evening Prayer, and even more the choral reprise of it near the end of the opera
Sullivan Yeomen - several places. This was the first music I remember making me cry, and when it's done really well it still does
Strauss Rosenkavalier Presentation of the Rose and Final scene
Strauss Ariadne, several places...places
Janacek Katya, double love duet at the end of Act 2
Janacek Vixen, final scene and probably several times before then
Janacek House of the Dead - Goryanchikov's "New life..." in the final scene
Gershwin Porgy and Bess - just about any time in the last half hour or so
Weill Street Scene
Vaughan Williams Pilgrim's Progress
Britten Billy Budd - Epilogue

And that's without even starting on Verdi, Puccini, several Broadway shows, and several other operas.

But crying doesn't normally happen when I'm listening to a CD or watching a DVD of the same thing.

[EdgeleyRob]

Although not to the point of actually crying ther are many occasions when I can come very close -
Several moments in the Elgar symphonies (the very opening of no 1 gets me every time).
Lots of RVW especially the slow movements of the 5th symphony and piano concerto.
Britten and Finzi (Billy Budd and clarinet concerto).
Any Yes fans out there what about the ending of gates of delerium from the Relayer album (soon oh soon the light..........) very emotional.
Mainly British music it seems.
A strange one which I can't explain is the Bach Busoni chaconne in D minor,The 'bit' from 0.04 to 1.40 in this excellent version (you will have to excuse my lack of musical terminology,I don't know my recapitulation from my exposition, is it a variation?).About half a minute of music which just reduces me to an emotional wreck. I have been known to just replay that bit over and over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fsekFC-pw8&feature=related

[LeMartinPecheur]

Odd how many replies on this predominantly classical message board are, ahem, popular ditties!

The one that most nearly does it for me - I'm not much of a blubber(*) - is Paul Simon's Slip-sliding away.

(*)except with films with ridiculously happy endings like Toy Story 3

[vinteuil]

Odd how many replies on this predominantly classical message board are, ahem, popular ditties!

:

As Noël Coward put it - "extraordinary how potent cheap music is"...

I'm amazed at how many people on this board seem to cry under the influence of music. I am often moved by many pieces of music - but have never actually had literal tears flowing as a result. Whereas I can quite easily well up when watching various corny movies...

[Donnie Essen]

I'm not a crier at music. Just ain't. It's only happened the once in my lifetime, and that was at my watching the DVD set of the Ring for the first time. It was the final scene of 'Gotterdammerung'. It was strange, 'cause it wasn't like the story moved me terribly (I didn't know what the hell to make of it at that point), but the music at the end just did it unexpectedly.

I haven't seen 'Toy Story 3' yet. Gotta get round to that. Only ever cried properly at a movie once, and that was at 'Make Way for Tomorrow', that film about old people. I cried at the end of that, and not in a good way, but in a way that hurt so that you had to cry to get it out of you. Nasty.

Hey, don't tell no-one about this, unless you actually wanna get tenderized. I'll find you, I swear.

[Dave2002]

It was strange, 'cause it wasn't like the story moved me terribly (I didn't know what the hell to make of it at that point), but the music at the end just did it unexpectedly.

That was one of the things I was hinting at, and trying to discover about from others.

Some music may have extra-musical associations for people which trigger a response in them, but when it happens for no very obvious reason, that's odd - but I'm convinced it happens.

Someone I know recently went to see Tosca, with others, and got involved enough to become tearful, and was surprised about that - and wants to repeat the experience! The others were not emotionally affected. At least in that case though, the opera plot itself can evoke emotions - as also plots like Madame Butterfly, La Traviata etc.

[Don Basilio]

I can't think of anything I would always cry to when I heard, but among others that have made my cry, and might again if I heard them after a break.

Sam Cooke singing A Change is Gonna Come. Pretty amazing for me, given my indifference to popular music.

More I Cannot Wish You from Guys and Dolls.

Love Breaks All Rules in RVW The Poisoned Kiss.

I have sat dry eyed through La boheme and La traviata, but did cry the first time I heard (in the opera house at that) the epilogue to Britten's Billy Budd and the lullaby in Bedlam in The Rake's Progress, Gently little boat.

[Mary Chambers]

I must add the Epilogue to Billy Budd, too. I have cried in La Traviata - it depends on the performance.

[ahinton]

What makes me cry? Well, of course, this effing government.

I'd not have even thought to associate our present UK government with music, so your answer is abit like saying a quarter to three when asked what the weather's like.