What music makes you cry?

[Paul Sherratt]

Ta, Pianorak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe9kKf7SHco&feature=fvw

I've already had that Black Coffee ...

[Pianorak]

Ta, Pianorak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe9kKf7SHco&feature=fvw

I've already had that Black Coffee ...

I take it you approve.
Thanks for the link, Paul - got it on CD as well.

[Russ]

I still cannot listen to Joni Mitchell's "Rainy Night House" without disintegrating, if only in remembrance of the turmoil I was going through when I first encountered it. Bits of Elgar and Vaughn Williams make me go distinctly gooey as well. The cause is always a memory entanglement, often an unresolved one.

tough guy Russ, (but really an old softy)

[Ferretfancy]

I got a bit misty eyed today listening to the Robert Russell Bennett arrangement of Porgy and Bess with Felix Slatkin conducting the Hollywood Bowl SO, particularly when we arrived at Bess you is my Woman now. Why? well it was one of the first stereo LPs I owned, and it sounds great on CD, the MGM style lushness still grabs me, and there's no substitute for American players of that era in this kind of music.

Threni, you no doubt remember the story about Stravinsky getting a telegram from the impresario Billy Rose - " Ballet a great success, how about asking Robert Russell Bennett to do the orchestration, he's really good and has done stuff for Gershwin. It would make it a stupendous success"| Stravinsky replied " Satisfied with great success ."

[Auferstehen2]

Off thread I know (please forgive me Dave2002), but ferretfancy’s Stravinsky reference reminds me of the old joke, where some artist invites someone saying more-or-less, “First night show coming up, have enclosed two tickets, one for you and for a friend of yours… if you have one.” Back came the reply, “Sorry can’t make your first show, but will try to attend the second… if you have one.”

Now who was this?

Apologies Dave2002,

Mario

[umslopogaas]

A work that always affects me very deeply is Schubert's last piano sonata in B flat, D. 960. Its partly the music itself and partly the circumstances: written just a few months before his premature death, when he was in the most wretched condition. And I believe it was unpublished at his death, which means that apart from his own playing during composition, he never heard it performed. I bought Brendel's 1971 version shortly after it was released and played it almost obsessively, I could not get the themes out of my head for months.

[Ferretfancy]

Auferstehn2

It was Bernard Shaw inviting Winston Churchill-allegedly!

[Petrushka]

Off thread I know (please forgive me Dave2002), but ferretfancy’s Stravinsky reference reminds me of the old joke, where some artist invites someone saying more-or-less, “First night show coming up, have enclosed two tickets, one for you and for a friend of yours… if you have one.” Back came the reply, “Sorry can’t make your first show, but will try to attend the second… if you have one.”

Now who was this?

Apologies Dave2002,

Mario

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

Edit: beaten to it again!

[Ferretfancy]

umslopogaas

Schubert's D960 is a heartbreakingly beautiful piece. Like you, I love the Brendel version, and I have just bought the Stephen Hough, which I am looking forward to hearing. There's also an extraordinary performance by Richter with the slowest first movement I've ever heard. I'm not sure that I like it, but it's worth hearing.
There's a sadness in so much of Schubert's music, and I find that I can never listen to it in any kind of casual way. It seems to me to address itself to a very particular frame of mind, overwhelming when the receptive mood is just right, but a little too disturbing at other times.

[Petrushka]

A work that always affects me very deeply is Schubert's last piano sonata in B flat, D. 960. Its partly the music itself and partly the circumstances: written just a few months before his premature death, when he was in the most wretched condition. And I believe it was unpublished at his death, which means that apart from his own playing during composition, he never heard it performed. I bought Brendel's 1971 version shortly after it was released and played it almost obsessively, I could not get the themes out of my head for months.

I always get a lump in the throat listening to the tremendous ending to Bruckner 5 when I recall that he never heard it performed. Apparently he was too ill to attend the first performance but as Richard Osborne said in the sleeve notes to the Karajan LP who is to say that he has not heard it since?

[Ferretfancy]

Petrushka,
Sorry about that! The other Shaw story I love concerned the fact that Mrs Patrick Campbell wanted to marry him. " Just think" she said "Our child could be born with my beauty and your intelligence"
"Ah" he replied, " But what if it had my beauty and your intelligence?"

[Uncle Monty]

Or Shaw getting a card to say "Lord and Lady Snooty will be At Home on Wednesday at 7.30", and sending back a reply saying "So will G. B. Shaw"

Or getting into a railway compartment, wherein a man asked him "Do you mind if I smoke?", to which Shaw replied "Do you mind if I'm sick?".

[Mary Chambers]

Schubert lieder are the surest tears-trigger for me, plus some Mozart and some Britten (The Second Lute Song from Gloriana comes to mind, the last part of Midsummer Night's Dream, Winter Words). Sometimes parts of Swan Lake, but I think that might be mostly nostalgia.

[salymap]

Key moments in Wagner operas [and I don't really like Wagner much]! The Schubert D 960 as mentioned.Little bits of'lesser' Elgar,from the Nursery Suite and other works, Strauss Four Last Songs, Brahms' Four Serious Songs.Bits of 'The Marriage of Figaro', mirroring the confusions of life.

[umslopogaas]

M24 Ferretfancy

As sometimes happens when I go looking on my shelves, I am surprised by what I've accumulated over the years. I have eight versions of D. 960, all on LP, and one (Brendel) on CD: this is from 1988, much later than his 1971 version. If I had to have only one, I'd probably stay with the earlier Brendel.

I have a version by Richter: it is a Melodiya recording, but licenced to the french company Le Chant Du Monde. Is that the one you've got? Richter made so many recordings, its possible there's more than one. There are no details on the LP about dates, venues etc. I'm normally a great fan of Richter, but I cant remember anything about that one.

Some big guns have had a go at this: apart from Richter and Brendel, I've got recordings by Arrau, Horowitz, Schnabel, Berman, Curzon and Haebler. Spoiled for choice!