Musical angst

[Bella Kemp]

Having received the complete Beethoven piano sonatas from Mr K. for Christmas and so far keeping to my resolution to play at least one movement of one sonata each day during this anniversary year (well, originally, it was to be a complete sonata every day, but heck . . . ) I find myself pondering angst in music. Beethoven, it seems to me, was a composer much given to expressing his angst in his compositions. One finds this emotion in numerous other European composers - Mahler, Wagner, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz (I am flinging down names from the top of my head) - but it strikes me that angst is quite remarkably absent from most British composers (setting aside, perhaps, Britten and Tippet). There is, of course, deep melancholy in such as Elgar and Vaughan Williams, but when RVW tried for angst, in his 4th symphony, he merely appears as very cross.
Am I mistaken?

[richardfinegold]

Stiff upper lip, Keep Calm and Carry On, etc. The English, at least up to a certain point in History, have been known more their veneers of restraint and politeness. One has to peer behind the surface to find the angst. I wouldn’t describe the opening of Elgar’s Cello Concerto as devoid of angst, however. I’m sure that others can supply other examples

[Dave2002]

Let's be sure what we're writing about first - https://www.lexico.com/definition/angst [one of several, all roughly the same]

Post 1 strikes out Britten and Tippet, who perhaps do convey this kind of emotion in a few of their works - War Requiem, Sinfonia da Requiem, Child of Our Time.

Elgar - as suggested, though I'd not thought of it before - the opening of the cello concerto, then parts of DoG.

Is this an emotion which is evoked by many musical works? Honegger symphonies perhaps?
Further, unless a composer has specifically described how a piece has been composed, it is hard to be sure that any emotion has been specifically elicited by a musical composition. Mention has been made of RVW - the opening of Symphony 4 is pretty forceful - but as suggested it's anger, rather than angst? Similarly for number 6, which has some spectacular moments. Walton - a symphony with great power - but again anger, if anything, mostly.

What about Mars from the Planets?

Other potential candidates (not British) might include Gorecki's 3rd symphony - but surely it veers towards tranquillity and sorrow, rather than anger and brooding concern.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Am I mistaken?

I think so - it would be an astonishingly bad performance of the Elgar Symphonies, or the Violin Concerto, or RVW's 6th, "7th", and 9th Symphonies (or Dona Nobis Pacem) that failed to convey a sense of dread. Malcolm Arnold?! (In fact, one struggles - and fails - to resist the temptation to suggest that those Brits who avoided angst are the very ones that give British Music a very bad name!)

Beethoven? Furious defiance, awe, the Sublime - but "angst"?

[Dave2002]

I think so - it would be an astonishingly bad performance of the Elgar Symphonies, or the Violin Concerto, or RVW's 6th, "7th", and 9th Symphonies (or Dona Nobis Pacem) that didn't fail to convey a sense of dread.

Double or even triple negative?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Double or even triple negative?

Ooops!

[LMcD]

Having received the complete Beethoven piano sonatas from Mr K. for Christmas and so far keeping to my resolution to play at least one movement of one sonata each day during this anniversary year (well, originally, it was to be a complete sonata every day, but heck . . . ) I find myself pondering angst in music. Beethoven, it seems to me, was a composer much given to expressing his angst in his compositions. One finds this emotion in numerous other European composers - Mahler, Wagner, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz (I am flinging down names from the top of my head) - but it strikes me that angst is quite remarkably absent from most British composers (setting aside, perhaps, Britten and Tippet). There is, of course, deep melancholy in such as Elgar and Vaughan Williams, but when RVW tried for angst, in his 4th symphony, he merely appears as very cross.
Am I mistaken?

To my ears at least, the opening movement of Finzi's Cello Concerto sounds pretty angst-ridden.
We shall be attending a performance of the Vaughan Williams 6th in the near future - I'll let you know how much angst flows from the stage to the front row of the terrace
Elgar's mastery of his stronger emotions doesn't mean that they're not to be found in his music. For me, the opening of the Piano Quintet evokes a sense of intense yearning in what is often a pretty 'emotional' work - an impression confirmed when it was included in a recent performance in our local church.

[Richard Tarleton]

For me there's a fair amount of angst to be had in viol music, whether singly or in consorts. I hear it in this..... The pavan and the viol between them were made for it. Dowland was also given to exploring the boundary between sleep and death in some of his songs that goes beyond mere melancholy.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

For me there's a fair amount of angst to be had in viol music, whether singly or in consorts. I hear it in this..... The pavan and the viol between them were made for it. Dowland was also given to exploring the boundary between sleep and death in some of his songs that goes beyond mere melancholy.

- Byrd and Lawes, too.

[Richard Tarleton]

- Byrd and Lawes, too.

and Tobias Hume

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

and Tobias Hume

Yet another composer I need to make more time to listen to - the little I do know is wonderful.

[Richard Barrett]

Should we maybe be clear about what the word actually signifies? - that is to say anxiety (to which it's etymologically related of course) and fear. How much fear is there in Beethoven's music? Hardly any, I would say. And Stravinsky? Even less, surely. ("I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, or psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc….Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence.") "Angst" as such is something I would associate more with Allan Pettersson, or the more expressionist works of Schoenberg (Erwartung) or Hindemith (Sancta Susanna) - or, since he's been mentioned, Tobias Hume ("Alas poor men, why strive you to live long..."). So something else must be meant here I think.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I was using the "feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general" sense, as used in the link Dave gave in #3.

And you're right about Stravinsky, too - I hadn't noticed his name included in the OP.

[Quarky]

Beethoven? Furious defiance, awe, the Sublime - but "angst"?

Listening to the opening bars of the 5th Symphony, the first time for a very long time, I felt angst in the background .

Tom Service, in his description of the 5th in a Guardian Article stated: They're notes that are so familiar that we don't even hear them properly today. Quite possibly the only life-forms who now really hear the ambiguities in the opening of Beethoven's 1808 symphony are infants or extra-terrestrials

And:This symphony, Hoffman wrote, "sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain, and awakens that infinite yearning which is the essence of romanticism"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And:This symphony, Hoffman wrote, "sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain, and awakens that infinite yearning which is the essence of romanticism"

Ah, that's interesting. I don't hear it in that way at all. Energy, power, drive, determination (and gentleness & lyricism, too) ... but not "fear, terror, pain".