Upcheering music

[kernelbogey]

Have you a favourite piece of music you put on the CD player when you're beset by The Blues, or a grey February day starts abysmally dark - or you just need upcheering*?

I suggest just one piece of music for your post and let's see where this goes.

* I'm indebted to an Irish friend for this novel coinage.

[kernelbogey]

Of several, I think my own most potent choice is JSB Goldberg Variations - played by Beatrice Rana.

[Pulcinella]

Tippett: Concerto for double string orchestra.
The middle movement is so sad that it makes my woes seem insignificant, and then the third movement can't do anything but cheer me up.

[smittims]

Haydn. The 'Sunrise' quartet, but really almost any Haydn quartet. For me he's the voice of reason and well-being in music

[french frank]

I feel very apologetic (not unusual for me, especially around these parts!), but I wouldn't think to use music to affect my mood. I listen to music - composers or individual works - to find out about them; or I listen to works I know and like; sometimes even works I know and don't like to give them another hearing. Being fairly equable by nature I don't have strong mood changes. The idea of 'music to cheer you up' is in the same category as 'music to relax you'; or 'music to help you concentrate on your studying'. But we all differ.

[Pulcinella]

I feel very apologetic (not unusual for me, especially around these parts!), but I wouldn't think to use music to affect my mood. I listen to music - composers or individual works - to find out about them; or I listen to works I know and like; sometimes even works I know and don't like to give them another hearing. Being fairly equable by nature I don't have strong mood changes. The idea of 'music to cheer you up' is in the same category as 'music to relax you'; or 'music to help you concentrate on your studying'. But we all differ.

Maybe I'm thinking of music to reassure me if/when things seem to have gone horribly wrong, either personally or in the world at large: the restorative power of (great) music, perhaps?

But I take your point completely.

[french frank]

Maybe I'm thinking of music to reassure me if/when things seem to have gone horribly wrong, either personally or in the world at large: the restorative power of (great) music, perhaps?

I suppose if I wanted to take my mind off troubling circumstances I'd be more likely to go up on the Common for a walk and see what experiences I find there, or to start planning my next meal . Strange indeed ...

[vinteuil]

... I am not sure I wd put on a piece of music deliberately to cheer myself up : but I know that almost any Scarlatti sonata will have that effect

.

[gradus]

I've got quite a few, by no means all from the R3 stable, but the third movt of Rimsky's piano and woodwind quintet blows away my blues.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Ist movement of Mozart Sonata for Two Pianos in D major esp in the performance by Josef and Rosa Lhevinne .
One if the greatest of all recorded piano performances.

[Roslynmuse]

The only composer I could listen to when I was coming out of a period of depression was Sibelius - the 5th and 7th Symphonies and Tapiola, or maybe the last of the Four Legends. (And - cheating by adding another composer - Tippett is such a life-affirming composer that once in a positive frame of mind something like the Ritual Dances from Midsummer Marriage never fails to elate.)

[french frank]

Oh, well, I did think I would choose Mozart's oboe quartet to be played at my funeral!

[kernelbogey]

But I take your point completely.

Me too. I think personal choice is very different from a prescription from R3. (FF: Aural equivalent to the walk on the Common?)

[Bella Kemp]

Thank you kernelbogey for starting this wonderful thread. My choice would be the 3rd Movement of Beethoven's op. 132 string quartet. It represents, quietly, the moment when one realises that somehow things will work out all right after all.

[Petrushka]

... I am not sure I wd put on a piece of music deliberately to cheer myself up.

.

Nor would I. That's not the way I listen to music. Like FF I'm of a more equable disposition, especially since retirement, and rarely feel 'down'. Having said that, the troubles of the world are put into perspective by listening to Bach and Bruckner continues to provide comfort and joy.