Joy in music

[gurnemanz]

Vivaldi!!

The start of the Concerto Alla Rustica is guaranteed to cheer me up.

Quite few Schubert songs, eg
Selgikeit (Bliss) Irmgard Seefried
Recorded 80 years ago and still unbettered in my view is Karl Erb's rendition of Am See. Pure delight in the stars in the sky. The way he sings "gar viele" (so many) at the end of the song is exquisite.

[Bryn]

To cite the obvious, Messiaen's Joie du Sang des Étoiles.

[ahinton]

Who is this "Joy" everyone is on about???

Dutilleux's wife - or perhaps Finzi's - or maybe Messiaen's Transports de same (which would appear to have been more effective than Mr Grayling's)...

OK then, I'll nominate the finale of Bartok's second Piano Concerto as the, for me, most joyous moment in music.

Fair choice!

[ahinton]

To cite the obvious, Messiaen's Joie du Sang des Étoiles.

And my citation of another Messiaenic example might suggest that joy was something at which he was rather good!

[Bryn]

Ans my citation of another Messiaenic example might suggest that joy was something at which he was rather good!

Your Messiaen work now puts me i mind of:

[edashtav]

Who is this "Joy" everyone is on about???

OK then, I'll nominate the finale of Bartok's second Piano Concerto as the, for me, most joyous moment in music.

Is it joyous, or a classical rondo full of optimistic festal flourishes, S_A?

[Richard Barrett]

Continuing the Stockhausen theme, there's also Momente with its motto from William Blake - "He who kisses the joy as it flies / Lives in Eternity's sunrise" - that appears at an ecstatic "moment" (Moment M(d) to be precise) in the part for solo soprano.

As for Freude for two harps, I have a homegrown one of those: https://soundcloud.com/zaricustra/k-...rps-and-voices

I like Gurnemanz's reference to the way Karl Erb sings just two words (it immediately recalled for me Jessye Norman's "Und die Seele unbewacht..." from "Beim Schlafengehen"). For me the joy of music is often encapsulated in these passing moments, perhaps associated with particular recordings (especially in popular music where the recording is the work itself), a particular "turn of phrase", a point of emotional focus, a change of structural direction. A single instant sometimes, which becomes timeless. (See Blake's words above!)

[richardfinegold]

No love for the last movement of Beethoven 9 for some reason

Actually it is usually Beethoven I look to for joy although more often the 7th symphony, the "Hammerklavier", the Op. 135 string quartet, the Grosse Fuge as well as its subsequent replacement finale (in somewhat different ways). Joy isn't necessarily the most positive of emotions though, it has an undercurrent of wildness, trampling over everything in its path without regard for what came before. Beethoven I think was quite good at problematising it in this way while still allowing it to win out. Something like Mahler 3 (or 2 or 8) meanwhile tries to end with a grand spiritual apotheosis that's wholly convincing while you're listening to it but afterwards raises questions in your mind (such as, e.g., "whatever happened to that O Mensch")

I was wondering when someone would get around to that Beethoven fellow...and for me, the finales of Mozart PC 21 or the Prague Symphony will do

[Joseph K]

Actually, all of John McLaughlin's album Devotion is euphoric, with the possible exception of Purpose of When.

In a Silent Way is pretty euphoric.

Then there's this:

… and I was just listening to the Messiaen movement from Turangalila Symphony...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Bella's distinction in the OP between the "joyous" and the "jolly" struck me this morning when I noticed a CD of Strauss family Polkas. The idea of over an hour of nothing but polkas (even by such masters as these) struck me as purgatorial. Jollity makes its mark quickly, and as quickly pales - Joy is a touch of the infinite: taking an instant, but lasting beyond even the memory of the moment.

[greenilex]

But we might be learning to dance the polka - surely a joyful occupation.

[Richard Barrett]

Joy is a touch of the infinite: taking an instant, but lasting beyond even the memory of the moment.

Indeed (see above)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But we might be learning to dance the polka - surely a joyful occupation.

Absolutely - and "jolly" Music can lead to "joyous" experiences: I remember with deepest fondness taking part in a performance of the "Toy Symphony" - the piece itself is a trivial one, but performing with friends in front of an appreciative audience (including many kids) gave rise to feelings (and, today, memories) far deeper than the Music itself. In this case, the "joy" arises secondarily from the music - what I think Bella was referring to was works that are inherently joyous?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Indeed (see above)

- and TS Eliot:

For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts

[cloughie]

Schubert: 5
Mozart: 39
Mozart: P&W Quintet
Mozart: Haffner Serenade
Mozart: Kegestatt Trio
Mahler: Blumine
Elgar: Chanson de Matin
Bach-Bantock: Wachet auf
Delius:Florida Suite
Rachmaninov:Vocalise
Faure:Requiem (Particularly if in the chorus)


That'll do for now