The great codas

[mathias broucek]

I read this as "can't agree with those"! I nearly fainted.

Some great Codas from Stravinsky - Petrushka; Les Noces (and its "revisit" in the Requiem Canticles); Symphonies in C in 3, of Psalms and of Wind Instruments ; Apollo - and, perhaps my favourite, that of the Octet: urbane, wry and with that chic little "pop" of a chord at the very end: the sound of a pen placing the final full stop precisely on the page.

Time seems to stop at the end of the Symphony of Psalms, doesn't it?

[verismissimo]

The end of Sibelius 5. What was he thinking?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The extended coda for Elgar's Enigma Variations. The original truncated version can be heard on the Halle/Elder recording, as an extra track.
It was Jaeger (Nimrod) who persuaded the composer to move away from his original plan, and what a good thing that he did.

[MrGongGong]

The end of Sibelius 5. What was he thinking?

I found reading Moomintroll gave me a clue

Mantra IMV has a wonderful "coda" ......... if that is what it is ?

[Tapiola]

One of my favourite codas is that of the last movement of Beethoven's F minor quartet, op. 95. The minor-keyed melancholia of the main theme stops quietly on a Tierce de Picardie chord, then...

... completely new F major thematic material, unrelated to anything that has gone before, skits along at twice the tempo of what has preceded it, nullifying completely the slightly lugubrious mood of the movement and ending in the highest of spirits.

Pure magic.

[verismissimo]

I found reading Moomintroll gave me a clue

Paraphrased as... ?

[mathias broucek]

The end of Sibelius 5. What was he thinking?

Or Walton 1....

My tutor at university reckoned that there was so much contrapuntal richness that all that daylight was needed to clear the air. He was a smart guy but I wasn't completely convinced....

[Nick Armstrong]

the coda that ends Elgar's Second Symphony.

That is one of three that has reduced me to rubble over the years: total magic everytime, but one specific instance is particularly memorable



The other two are:

- trombone chorale and final chord of Mahler 6

- coda of Mahler 9 in a live performance by Bernstein and the Concertgebouw

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I always think the coda for Malcolm Arnold's Grand Grand Overture is making fun of the one in the final of Beethoven's 5th. I know there are those who maintain it achieves perfect balance in B5, but I think it's way over the top.

[jayne lee wilson]

One of my favourite codas is that of the last movement of Beethoven's F minor quartet, op. 95. The minor-keyed melancholia of the main theme stops quietly on a Tierce de Picardie chord, then...

... completely new F major thematic material, unrelated to anything that has gone before, skits along at twice the tempo of what has preceded it, nullifying completely the slightly lugubrious mood of the movement and ending in the highest of spirits.


Pure magic.

WONDERFUL choice! I can hear it now!