Most moving melody

[Bella Kemp]

I am devoted to atonality, but sometimes a tune moves one unutterably. A recent Radio 3 trailer suggests that one day we may run out of new tunes. What our are favourite tunes? Dare I suggest that we omit the Ode to Joy from the list because it is inconceivable that anyone might not choose this. And of course we all will have many, so let us limit this to just one - and if a little obscure so much the better.
My offering is the second subject in the second movement of Saint Saens septet. The link is to a slightly clumsy performance which somehow moves me all the more - it is the striving, the trying and perhaps slightly failing that provides us with the greatest musical insight and strange joy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE7uX7RvDJ0

[Serial_Apologist]

One of my favourites is the folk-inflected melody against sustained opposing harmonies that transfers between violin and viola in the slow middle movement of the Bartok String Qt No 4. Decontextualise a melody from normative major-minor diatonic harmonies, because I would venture to suggest one of the reasons one reaches a stage of life in fear that "we may run out of new tunes" is that very conditioning of expectations arising from over-familiarity - haven't I heard that tune somewhere else? - which is why so many find it easy to love the great romantic melodies of composers such as Borodin, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, but find later (eg film) composer's imitations of that style tawdry and corny: it could only have arisen authentically within that time slot of musical evolution when all the ingredients were ready to click into place.

[Barbirollians]

Opening horn tune of the slow movement of Tchaikovsky 5 is quite hard to beat.

[jayne lee wilson]

This could seem impossible to answer and yet.....

It just has to be: Martinu, Piano Concerto No.2, 1st Movement 2nd Subject.....once heard......swooning...

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!

[Quarky]

Russia is the prime candidate for moving melodies, Tchaik., Rimsky, Stravinsky...
My favourite is In the Steppes of Central Asia, Borodin. So suggestive of a completely strange region.

[pastoralguy]

The 'Swan Theme' in the final movement of Sibelius 5 always gets me going!

[kea]

My picks would probably include

https://youtu.be/QMwcmX7bOxo?t=732

https://youtu.be/qdgNQN-PiRA?t=503

https://youtu.be/-Hl_zkSYVGU?t=24

https://youtu.be/6O6Nme3fw5k?t=1216 & https://youtu.be/6O6Nme3fw5k?t=1326

https://youtu.be/fA3ri7xs4BQ?t=780

My mom would add:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ievpSwyvxoE

[Bryn]

The 'Swan Theme' in the final movement of Sibelius 5 always gets me going!

Ah yes.

It does take around 4 minutes to get to it.

[cloughie]

Bella, for me who most of the time has a tune in my head or singing away there, you have posed a very difficult one with this thread - you make assumptions about ‘Ode to joy’ it would not be in my top 100! Across genres there are so many candidates, think of Morte Christe sung by a Male Voice Choir or many ‘standards’ from the so-called American Songbook, eg Manhattan Transfer singing Nightingale in Berkeley Square, then there’s R Strauss 4 Last and other songs!, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei or In Paradisium from the Faure Requiem but if you only want one, then I’ll go orchestral so flip a coin to choose from the end of the second movement bridging to start of the third movement of Elgar 1 or the start of the sixth movement of Mahler 3.

[Alain Maréchal]

Assuming we still have free movement of thought, as a "moving melody" I would offer the middle section of The Garden of Fand by Bax, one of the most beautiful tunes ever composed in those isles.

[MrGongGong]

Ah yes.

It does take around 4 minutes to get to it.

Not forgetting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJFuVhsemVs&frags=pl%2Cwn

and all the others

[Petrushka]

Impossible decision to have to make really but my choice will be the slow movement of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante K297b.

Some say it's not by Mozart at all but it doesn't really matter if it isn't as it's still the most heart easing melody I know and catches the mood of Keats' lines quoted by Jayne perfectly

[LMcD]

Bella, for me who most of the time has a tune in my head or singing away there, you have posed a very difficult one with this thread - you make assumptions about ‘Ode to joy’ it would not be in my top 100! Across genres there are so many candidates, think of Morte Christe sung by a Male Voice Choir or many ‘standards’ from the so-called American Songbook, eg Manhattan Transfer singing Nightingale in Berkeley Square, then there’s R Strauss 4 Last and other songs!, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei or In Paradisium from the Faure Requiem but if you only want one, then I’ll go orchestral so flip a coin to choose from the end of the second movement bridging to start of the third movement of Elgar 1 or the start of the sixth movement of Mahler 3.

The introductions to Ella Fitzgerald's recordings of 'Manhattan' and 'Every Time We Say Goodbye'
'Alma's theme' in Mahler 6.
'Nimrod'.
The opening bars of 'Bailero'
(and many others)

[Pulcinella]

Similarly impossible, and several already mentioned would surely be way up there.
For many people, it could be a song (yes, Strauss or Cantleloube; not Schubert for me though) or a hymn/anthem (Jerusalem, For all the saints to RVW's Sine nomine), or many opera or oratorio arias (I know that my redeemer liveth). Advertising may have done some good tunes to death though (Lakmé wears very thin when you're waiting for BA to answer!).

Possibly for me it would be something like the theme in the slow middle movement of Tippett's Concerto for double strings, a desert island choice if ever there was one.

[gurnemanz]

Cello theme which begins Brahms op 114

Brahms sets the word Melodien beautifully in this song

So many Schubert songs which illuminate my life. Eg Nacht und Träume. Elly Ameling or the incomparable Karl Erb in Du bist die Ruh

Last movement of Franck Violin Sonata.