Emotional/heart wrenching in a more
positive sense: Franck's piano quintet, romantically; Messiaen's Quartet for the End of time, particularly movents 5 and 8 *more spiritural, perhaps*
YouTube - Kyung Wha Chung plays Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time; on another kind of scale, the last choral part of Mahler's 8th symphony if you can take that much bombast, this one also scores pretty spectacularly on the dramatic front
YouTube - Mahler - Symphony No. 8 - Ending (Rattle, NYOGB)
Tragic: Babi Yar symphony by Shostakovich, 1st movement in particular, though you probably need to understand more russian than me to get the full effect
YouTube - Babi Yar Requiem
* pretends to know Franck's piano quintet *
Yes, of course. An obvious choice, but it needed to be said, anyway.
* Plans to look it up *
The Messiaen/Chung piece was great, as was the Mahler "bombast".
( Is that like "Vinnie Boom-Bahhss" ? ) I was familiar with much of Messiaen, but hadn't heard that one, but there is a lot of Mahler I know nothing about. Interesting to watch the pictogram translations appear on the screen.
The Babi Yar Requiem stole a bit of my thunder, as this is actually an Albinoni adagio that I love, and was planning on posting.
I've stated on other threads my favorite sad songs, which include "Danny Boy" , and at least two Tom Waits songs ( "The House Where Nobody Lives" and "Georgia Lee" ) and some Neil Young songs ( "Winterlong" and "Expecting to Fly" and "Long May You Run" and "The Old Laughing Lady" ) and so I suppose I should find some others to trot out. Here's one that comes to mind.
YouTube - Ennio Morricone "Deborah's Theme", live in Warsaw
A clip from the movie to put the theme in perspective.
YouTube - Once Upon a Time in America - Best Scene Ever Made
I can never understand why people suggest songs that are only sad in lyrics, but not in music, in these threads. * shrugs *
On the subject of whether a slow lulling minor key song is more sad than an intense song ( if I can put the earlier question in those words ? ) I thought I knew the answer when I began to think about creating this post. I wondered at first if the person was referring to the difference between crying due to sadness versus crying due to rage, which is a difference I can understand; but I couldn't understand sadness due to intensity, versus the more traditional definition of it. After listening to the Mahler piece I'm no longer so sure of myself on that point, however. Hmmm
The song that is both most intense and nearly saddest, too, is Peteris Vasks "Musica Dolorosa", but there is no Youtube performance of it, unfortunately. ( It is 14 minutes or so long. )
A composer who often goes well beyond sadness in intensity, and then off into some unnameable areas, is Penderecki. I have included his requiem or dirge for Hiroshima in my thread "The Real Indiana". I've also heard his "The Entombment of Christ" and some other pieces.
I need to explore Ligeti more....