Feelgood classical works

[Petrushka]

I take [y]our point but much might then depend upon how one would define "feelgood" in this particular context...

You mean I could listen to Shostakovich 8 and 'feel good' that at least I'm not in Stalingrad 1942? I don't think the OP was thinking on that level of ambivalence but taking 'feel good' at face value.

In which case, I'd offer:

Johann Strauss:Die Fledermaus
Wagner: Die Meistersinger Act III
Mahler: Symphony No 5
Schubert: Symphony No 5
Any Haydn symphony (especially the minuets)

George Bernard Shaw had this to say about Die Meistersinger: 'Such a wonder, and a treasure of everything lovely and happy in music'. Now that's feel good!

[Bryn]

The Quodlibet (Spring) from Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts:

[Pulcinella]

Stravinsky: Pulcinella (either the suite or the full ballet)

[oddoneout]

Surely the only "non-feelgood" music is music one doesn't like?

There is a great deal of music I like listening to, but there are a few pieces or parts of works that, for whatever reason,(and I don't know what those reasons are) go beyond that - a smile, bounce in the step "that feels better" feeling cf "I enjoyed that".

[french frank]

When I read other people's suggestions, I realise I don't really like feelgood music

[LHC]

Haydn’s Creation for me. Wonderful and life-affirming.

[vinteuil]

There is a great deal of music I like listening to, but there are a few pieces or parts of works that, for whatever reason,(and I don't know what those reasons are) go beyond that - a smile, bounce in the step "that feels better" feeling cf "I enjoyed that".

... I agree - there is something specific in some music that has that effect : for me, Scarlatti and Haydn stand out.

There is also another class of music which I can usually enjoy, but if ever I am feeling a little queasy makes me feel queasier still. And here for me that wd be Schumann. On a good day I find a lot to enjoy in his music : when I feel uneasy about the world, he adds to the unease.

P'raps we need another thread - not 'music I dislike' (we've had such before and they end up boringly negative) but 'music I sometimes like but which I sometimes find makes me uncomfortable'...

.

[jayne lee wilson]

My problem with the very notion of "feelgood" is that if you are truly upset or stressed about something, an active attempt to manipulate your own emotions (with music, alcohol, or anything else) hardly ever works (or only in the very short term). Because the only thing that will work is facing, solving, or salving, the problem - if at all possible.

In my darkest times, which I've had way too many of, I usually feel that almost all music is either too happy or too sad; often simply too busy.
(I do remember two strange, very time-and-occasion--specific exceptions: White Man Sleeps, by Kevin Volans; and Common Tones in Simple Time, by John Adams; possibly because, at the specific time, they felt quite remote: closer to an emotional neutral.

On better days, I sometimes think: good chance to take the bigger musical challenges on. (Of course, for the aubade/nocturne, I will choose something less demanding...and which plays well sotto voce).

Pity you can't get endorphins in tablet form; but doubtless we'd only end up abusing them.

[Petrushka]

P'raps we need another thread - not 'music I dislike' (we've had such before and they end up boringly negative) but 'music I sometimes like but which I sometimes find makes me uncomfortable'...

.

I'd have a prime candidate for that category: Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle. It's a total masterpiece and I've got half a dozen versions on my shelves, but I find it a really disturbing, unsettling work. Very few pieces of music do that to me but this one does.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sticking to what I consider joyful music, in alphabetical order of composer:

Bacewicz - Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion

JS Bach - Goldberg Variations

Bartok - Cantata profana
- PC No 2
- String Quartet No 5
- Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
- Concerto for Orchestra

Beethoven - Bagatelles Op. 126
- String Quartet in B major, Op 130

Berio - Coro

Bliss - A Colour Symphony
- Oboe Quintet

Borodin - Symphony No 2 in B Minor

L Boulanger - Pie Jesu

Boulez - Piano Sonata No 2

Brian - Opera: The Tigers

Bridge - Enter Spring
- Trio (Rhapsody)
- Piano Trio No 2
- Enter Spring
- String Quartet No 4
- Overture: Rebus

Brouwer - Guitar Concerto (Concerto Elegiaco)

Alan Bush - Cantata: The Winter Journey
- Cantata: Voices of the Prophets

Busoni - Fantasia Contrappuntistica

Caplet - Epiphany, for Cello and Orchestra

Cardew - Thaelmann Variations

Cary: The Rhyme of the Flying Bomb

Casella - Partita for Piano and Small Orchestra

Casken - Still Mine, for Baritone and Orchestra

P.M Davies - Missa L'Homme Armé

Debussy - Jeux
- En blanc et noir

Dukas - Variations, Interlude & Fugue on a Theme by Rameau

Dutilleux - Symphony No 1

Eisler - Songs from Die Rundkoepfer und die Spitzkoepfe
- Six Hoelderlin Fragments
- Septets Nos 1 (Variations on American Children's Songs) and 3 (Circus)

Elgar - Introduction & Allegro

Gerhard - Symphony No 1

Kilar - Krzesany

Grainger - The Warriors

Grisey - Quatre Chants pour Franchir le Seuil

Harvey - Madonna of Winter and Spring

Henze - Cantata della Fiaba Estrema
- Double Concerto for Oboe, Harp & Strings

Holst - Fugal Concerto
- Hammersmith
- 12 Humbert Wolf Songs
- Scherzo (projected symphony)

Honegger - Symphony No 4 (Deliciae Basiliensis)

Ireland - These Things Shall Be

Janacek - The Diary of a Young Man Who Disappeared
- Suite: The Cunning Little Vixen

Jolivet - Ondes Martenot Concerto

Koechlin - Les Bandar-Log

Lutoslawski - Livre pour Orchestra
- Symphony No 3

Malipiero - Setti Canzoni
- Violin Concerto

McCabe - Symphony No 3 (Hommages)

Messiaen - Messe de la Pentecote
- Chronochromie

Parmegiani - De Natura Sonorum

Poulenc - Le Bal Masqué

Prokofiev - Suite: The Love of Three Oranges
- Piano Sonata No 8

Rachmaninov - Symphony No 3

Revueltas - Redes

Roussel - The Spider's Banquet

Schumann - Piano Concerto

Serocki - Symphonic Frescoes

Souster - Spectral, for strings with live electronics

Stockhausen - Gesang der Jungelinge
- Telemusik

Stravinsky - Petruschka
- Les Noces
- Orpheus

Suk - Zrani

Varese - Amériques

Vaughan Williams - A Sea Symphony
- An Oxford Elegy

Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brazilieros No 5 for soprano & 8 cellos

Walton - Violin Concerto

Zappa - Civilization Phase III

Zemlinsky - Lyric Symphony in Seven Songs

Lots of jazz would also fall into this category - but not under this thread, I think

[Pulcinella]

... [Interesting list edited to save space!]

Loads for me to explore there, SA (if I can get my streaming service back up and running, or ditch it for something else).

But Stravinsky's Orpheus as joyful?
Much as I love it, that's not a description of it that I'd ever think of using.
I find it immensely sad, especially when the slow descending harp scales return at the end.

[Serial_Apologist]

Loads for me to explore there, SA (if I can get my streaming service back up and running, or ditch it for something else).

But Stravinsky's Orpheus as joyful?
Much as I love it, that's not a description of it that I'd ever think of using.
I find it immensely sad, especially when the slow descending harp scales return at the end.

Yes I must admit some of those choices do rather stretch a useful description: the same could be said of the Lili Boulanger - but all the music produces a feeling of welcoming warmth in some way, to me, that makes me feel better for having listened to it, whether it concludes in an extrovert manner or not.

[Pulcinella]

Yes I must admit some of those choices do rather stretch a useful description: the same could be said of the Lili Boulanger - but all the music produces a feeling of welcoming warmth in some way, to me, that makes me feel better for having listened to it, whether it concludes in an extrovert manner or not.

So for me something like RVW's S5 would certainly fit that bill, even if it's tears that it risks bringing on rather than a smile.

[Edgy 2]

For instant good feeling

Mozart Gran Partita, Sonata for 2 Pianos
Any number of Haydn Piano Trios, Sonatas, String Quartets
Beethoven String Trios
Butterworth English Idylls, Banks of Green Willow

For a cure for manic depression most of Vaughan Williams (works/worked for me)

[Richard Barrett]

My problem with the very notion of "feelgood" is that if you are truly upset or stressed about something, an active attempt to manipulate your own emotions (with music, alcohol, or anything else) hardly ever works (or only in the very short term). Because the only thing that will work is facing, solving, or salving, the problem - if at all possible.

(...)

Pity you can't get endorphins in tablet form; but doubtless we'd only end up abusing them.

Exactly. And one could say the same about music: if it were really capable of reliably affecting people's emotions in a controllable way it would long ago have been used successfully as a means of social control, which thankfully doesn't really work. Or does it???