Ship of Fools: Music that makes you cry

Thread: Music that makes you cry Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=022065

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :

A tangent from the favourite/overrated classical composers thread. (Probably it's been done millions of times already but I like hearing about music that moves people.) What music makes you cry?

Here is a random sample of mine:

Dido's Lament
The end of the last movement of Sibelius's fifth symphony
The Crucifixus from Bach's Mass in B Minor
Elgar's Cello Concerto

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

Oh, good thread idea! I'm coming more from the pop music end of things so here are a couple of mine:

Paper Forest by Emmy the Great
Galaxies by Laura Veirs

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

There are a couple of factors in what makes me cry.

The first is the sheer beauty of the music - the second movement of the Emperor Concerto gets me this way, especially for some reason the chords at the end before it romps off into the third movement.

OTOH, I also sob at music that is superhumanly difficult to perform - I find it incredibly moving to listen to absurdly talented people doing the impossible. My most recent trip to the opera was to see the Magic Flute and it was a big effort not to sob audibly during the Queen of the Night aria (I managed it, but it was hard work, and I'm English for goodness sakes and therefore allergic to squishing in public). It amazes me just how gifted people can be. Brava bravissima! [Overused]

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

This - the coda to the third movement of Bruckner's 8th symphony. I find it unbearably sad. It sounds like loneliness.

Posted by Lothiriel (# 15561) on :

Arvo Part's "Spiegel im Spiegel"

Knut Nystedt's "O crux"

Morten Lauridsen's "O nata lux" from "Lux aeterna" (all of "Lux aeterna", really)

Franz Biebl's "Ave Maria"

Peter Vaskis's "Dona nobis pacem"

Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :

The final chorale of Bach's St John Passion (not the final chorus which precedes it, though that is more emotional).

Brahms' German Requiem - particularly "Behold, all flesh is as the grass".

"O Love that will not let me go" - a hymn my aunt chose for her funeral, for personal reasons which she'd told me about a year before and hadn't told anyone else.

"Nearer my God to Thee" - because of Titanic! [Hot and Hormonal]

I don't find the main love story at all moving, but this hymn is being played in the background when some of the other people realise they're going to die - the captain of the ship, the elderly couple on the bed, the string quartet...

"Nkosi sikelele Africa".

I listen to plenty of non-classical and non-religious music, but it doesn't normally make me cry.

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

Fairground organs - oddly - whatever the material.

There's something monumentally and heroically irrelevant about rebuilding an enormous, hugely temperamental and utterly obsolete piece of technology which once wowed people, but now performs badly arranged jaunty airs to general indifference, and perhaps bored incomprehension.

I think its doomed heroism moves me in that it reminds me of faith.

Posted by Macrina (# 8807) on :

I cry at 'Into the West' by Annie Lennox, because it reminds me of someone whose death still affects me due to its swiftness and their relative youth.

I also cry at 'Simply the Best'. It's pretty much the song that reminds me why it's important, life or death important, for me to do my job well. I sang a kareoke of it with a person on a ward when I was a student. They died soon afterwards. I think of them everytime I hear it.

Posted by BalddudeCrompond (# 12152) on :

Pop Music: "Two out of three ain't Bad" by Meatloaf

Classical Music: Schubert's Serenade (first piece I learned by Memory )

Sacred Music: Abide with Me

Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :

Thinking over my choices, I realise I often cry over music I don't like that much (not always, but often). Is it, as Noel Coward said, the potency of cheap music? Is there something particular about tearjerking cadences?

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

THIS from the Queen Symphony.
So sweet, so painful: Who wants to live forever?

Posted by Molopata The Rebel (# 9933) on :

Truly a beautiful piece. Thank you for that.
One piece which greatly enthrals me (although without ever quite being moved to tears) is Vaughan William's A Lark Ascending. It works with similar tensions between extreme high and low notes acted out between the violin soloist and the accompanying orchestra.

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
Fairground organs - oddly - whatever the material... badly arranged jaunty airs... I think its doomed heroism moves me in that it reminds me of faith.

Hmm, that's rather profound - I like it, and shall pay much more attention to fairground organ music in future!

quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
I cry at 'Into the West' by Annie Lennox, because it reminds me of someone whose death still affects me due to its swiftness and their relative youth.

Another good one. I have no such emotional connection to 'Into the West' but I find it very moving, just from its place in the Lord of the Rings film.

Posted by Angel Wrestler (# 13673) on :

Randall Thompson's "Alleluia." Never above a mezzo forte, and mezzo piano for most of it. What an amazing word painter he was. You really get his message, quietly singing alleluia at a time of war until insisting Alleluia! and then coming to a resolution and acceptance, and maybe even belief ... alleluia. (my interpretation)

Posted by Angel Wrestler (# 13673) on :

Alleluia

I came back because I'm not sure how well-known this would be on the other side of the pond.

I hear a bit too much of one soprano, but otherwise a good recording, IMNSHO.

Posted by Enigma (# 16158) on :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-rDRa-5h4s
Powerful, moving - for me anyway, among loads of others already mentioned.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

Scenes From Childhood.. of Far off Places.
Probably because I remember hearing my mother play it when I was 4 or 5.

Eleanor Rigby

Chopin Nocturnes

Posted by PD (# 12436) on :

Most of mine are classical music:

The coda of the third movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony. I am glad to find out that I am not the only one who gets teary over that one.

Elgar Cello Concerto

Final Movement of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony

Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis gets to me as well.

The second Grail scene from Wagner's 'Parsifal'

Several passages from Bach's St John Passion

However, there are a couple from elsewhere. One is ABBA 'The day before you came.' There are also a couple on the Irish/Scottish folk rep. 'She moves through the Fair' being one, and another is 'The Siege of Wexford.'

PD

[ 27. March 2012, 06:04: Message edited by: PD ]

Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :

quote:
Originally posted by PD:

Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis gets to me as well.

It is one of may favourite pieces as well. I can lose myself in it but it does not make me sad

Barber's Adagio for strings can give me a morose mood, I heard it played a lot in association with the sadness that arose from the massacre in Srebrenica.

Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :

Górecki's Symphony No. 3 ("Symphony of Sorrowful Songs")

John Adams' "On the Transmigration of Souls"

Posted by JFBEagle (# 10763) on :

The slow movement from Mahler's 5th.
I can only ever picture the closing sequence of Death in Venice, as the sweat of Dirk Bogarde's fever makes his make up starts running down face as he sits in his deck chair and dies.
I never really understood the film but that scene was so moving and the music so right that any time I hear it I see the picture again in my mind and it makes me weep again.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Something a little more 'popular':

The death of Fantine from Les Miserables.

I think it's the though of a mother knowing she's dying and leaving her daughter behind that is so poignant.

[ 27. March 2012, 15:21: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

Also in a more popular vein: "Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears", sung by Celtic Women. I find it moving, although none of my ancestors came through Ellis Island.

Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :

I at times get very sad and cry quietly, when I hear and see what my husband sang, and played, since he has died, and I also sometimes enjoy to hear it again - and when the family were with me recently we sang together at least and hour and I felt happy and sad at the same time; one e.g. we sang was "Our Father who are in heaven" and my son played and I led that one, missing my husband.

Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :

was used to advertise baked beans, which was inconvenient to me because it makes me cry like a baby for reasons completely unknown.

Posted by cattyish (# 7829) on :

Sorry, This Ladysmith Black Mambaza track

BTW, Niminy Piminy, are you a Japanese young man? Or am I barking up the wrong operetta?

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

SCK, no-one accuses ME of profundity...care to step outside? [Biased]

Pamlimpsest said

quote:
Chopin Nocturnes

I know nothing about proper music at all, and I wouldn't know a nocturne if I met one in broad daylight...but I do have an old LP of Chopin preludes (same kind of thing? Or not?). The Cm one is an especial tear jerker.

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

Bist du bei mir (whoever composed it) from the Anna Magdalena Bach notebook.

I can understand, too, Aravis's feelings about the hymn she mentioned - as much the tune as the words.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

The last few minutes of Mahler's 3rd symphony, if it catches me in a slightly wistful or nostalgic mood, has the power to shred my emotions. Look here - skip forwards to 4:45. (There are a couple of pops and clicks at about 5:40 - ignore those, you haven't got to the good bit yet.) There's a part right near the end (from about 7:05 to 8:00) where the strings are going full pelt, higher and higher till you think they're going to break. They don't, but your heart does.

Posted by Saviour Tortoise (# 4660) on :

In no particular order:

Vaughan Williams "Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis"
Elgar "Dream of Gerontius" - "Praise to the holiest" as Gerontius enters the heavenly court.
James MacMillan "Seven Last Words from the Cross", particularly "Verily, I say unto you..."
REM "Nightswimming"
Barenaked Ladies "Tonight is the night I fell asleep at the wheel"
Lauridson "O magnum mysterium" (although that's probably so overdone now that I've become immune, unfortunately)
David Willocks arrangement of "The infant king"
Gerald Finzi "Serenade for Strings"
Howells Gloucester Service at the "as it was in the beginning" - the first time I heard that my knees genuinely buckled.

I'm sure there are loads more.

I'm a right softy and pretty much anything will get me blubbing if I'm in the right mood!

[ETA the Howells]

[ 28. March 2012, 17:49: Message edited by: Saviour Tortoise ]

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

quote:
Originally posted by JFBEagle:
The slow movement from Mahler's 5th.
I can only ever picture the closing sequence of Death in Venice, as the sweat of Dirk Bogarde's fever makes his make up starts running down face as he sits in his deck chair and dies.
I never really understood the film but that scene was so moving and the music so right that any time I hear it I see the picture again in my mind and it makes me weep again.

Yes, oh yes [Waterworks]

Also Wir setzen uns from Bach's St Matthew Passion (not played too fast, please); Martin Carthy's The Wind that Shakes the Barley here ; almost any slow blues...

Posted by Saviour Tortoise (# 4660) on :

I forgot this recent addition to the long list of things that make me weep:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwxhg2CNb0o

"Home lad, home" sung by Belshazzar's Feast. This pair can segue straight from a silly comic number into something like this that just rips your heart out.

Posted by St Everild (# 3626) on :

It all depends what mood I am in to start with...

The slow movement of the Elgar Cello Concerto (esp the du Pre recording)

Enya - The Celts

"That" Rachmaninov Piano concerto...

The Spirituals from A Child of Our Time by William Walton...

as I said, almost any music can move me to tears providing I am in a susceptible mood...

Posted by Saviour Tortoise (# 4660) on :

quote:
Originally posted by St Everild:

The Spirituals from A Child of Our Time by William Walton...

[pedantry]Michael Tippett not William Walton[/pedantry]

Posted by St Everild (# 3626) on :

Ach, soddit, I'm having One of Those Days. But yeah, him.

Posted by Beethoven (# 114) on :

I very rarely get moved to tears by music, but Ruht Wohl from the end of whichever Bach Passion it is (John?) gets me every time - very inconvenient when I'm singing!

And I suspect that if I hear Hugo Alfen's Midsommar any time soon that'll have a similar effect, no matter that the music itself is rather jolly...

Posted by Melisande (# 4177) on :

Stan Rogers, "Turnaround."

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

"Old City Bar" from the first Trans-Siberian Orchestra album.

Is it okay to put popular music? The posts seem to be mostly about classical pieces but there are a couple of other posts about pop songs.

[ 30. March 2012, 05:44: Message edited by: mousethief ]

Posted by guinness girl (# 4391) on :

Fields Of Gold - either version.
The Cross by Phatfish.

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

Oh my, Fields of Gold - yes! Not heard that for a while, so let's correct that. Click here...

Posted by Siegfried (# 29) on :

"How Great Thou Art"--was sung at my grandmother's funeral

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"--Judy Garland version only--due to the context of the song within the film "Meet Me in Saint Louis"

"Somewhere" (from West Side Story)--same reason as for HYaMLC

"Puff the Magic Dragon"--I start tearing up at the line "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys..."

Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :

The Cars Drive. It always reminds me of the video they showed of the Ethiopian famine during Live Aid.

U2 Stuck in a moment you can't get out of. I made a suicide attempt and never managed to get over it for years. This song helped.

Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :

Anything by the Beegees makes me cry. But I don't think that's what the OP meant.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

I never could understand the idea of music making you sad until I heard Lou Reed's album, Magic and Loss. It took a long time before I could listen to the whole thing without feeling kinda gutted. Beautiful work, though. I imagine it's more the words than the music, though.

All of the other music that people find depressing actually makes me feel better when I am depressed.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

But in other unexpected emotions, I stupidly bought (a used CD of) the Caberet soundtrack because I'd seen the musical a few times and really loved it. I can't listen to it without feeling completely nauseous from knowing what it's all about. But why didn't it have quite that effect on me in the theater? Watching the musical made me feel sad, among other things, but not this nauseating sense of dread I get from just listening to the soundtrack.

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

My choral group is including a number in their spring concert called Waitin' for the Dawn of Peace. It's a compilation of two old Civil War songs that are linked by the word "morning", which becomes "mourning" in the second song. The two together are a poignant cry for peace in a world that has seen far too much war. Listen carefully to the words. I can't listen to this number, let alone sing it, without crying.

Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :

Although I've only lived here for eight years, whenever I sing O Canada and the Ode to Newfoundland I get a bit lumpy round the throat.

Things that have a similar effect:

Nimrod from the Enigma Variations
The hymn Be still, my soul to the tune Finlandia
I have a song to sing, O from The Yeomen of the Guard

Mudfrog, I can see your point about the Queen piece - I remember it being broadcast on Top of the Pops just after it had been announced that Freddie was dying of AIDS, and there was much tear-jerking.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

If I'm alone for any extended period of time, listening to In the Winter by Janis Ian can pretty much drive me to the brink.

Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :

Interesting list of music. But there has to be a reason why music can make someone cry, or for that matter be joyful.

The first thing is the music itself. Music works on a subconscious level. It bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the emotions. Music on its own can do this. But other things can add to the effect.

Second. Add an emotive lyric to this and the effect is much larger than the words alone. Words which may otherwise have not made any impression on their own can have floods of tears happening when delivered to music.

Third. It's personal. We have all had sad experiences, music, by going straight to the emotions can tap into this.

Which is why I like the Blues. It is so positive. Even in the bad times there is a ray of light - Magic Sam singing "I've been down so long, but I'm on my way up again," (Out Of Bad Luck) is a great way of lifting the spirits.

Posted by St.Silas the carter (# 12867) on :

Only This song. It was sung at my Father's, my sister's, and my grandmother's funerals. I can't listen to it at all nowadays, but it used to be my favorite gospel song.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

Hardly profound but 'The Best Is Yet To Come' by Clifford T Ward always affects me. He really had a gift for heartbreaking songs (YMMV).

Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :

We were playing a best of Nina Simone album in the car heading away for Easter and I kept finding myself on the point of bursting into tears. I don't normally cry over music at all.

Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on :

I'll second "Oh Love that will (wilt?) not let me go"

The slow (2nd?) mov of the Bach double violin concerto has been having that effect on me since Christmas - achingly beautiful

Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :

quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:

All of the other music that people find depressing actually makes me feel better when I am depressed.

Leonard Cohen does that for me - makes me feel so good when I am down. Especially his Songs of Love and Hate.

Posted by Arnhem Boy (# 16487) on :

It would be "Dance Me to the End of Love" - who else but Leonard Cohen. Especially the clip with the older couples dancing...

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Keren-Happuch:
We were playing a best of Nina Simone album in the car heading away for Easter and I kept finding myself on the point of bursting into tears. I don't normally cry over music at all.

She does it to me, too - it is that amazing smoky voice!

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

quote:
Originally posted by piglet:

I have a song to sing, O from The Yeomen of the Guard

I haven't thought about that song for years, but yes, it would bring a tear to my eye too.

Danny Boy, if it's well sung.

GG

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
Danny Boy

Oh. Hell. Yes.

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

Mercy Now is my current tear jerker.

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

Ella singing Every Time We Say Goodbye - floors me every time!

Im Abendtrot [spelling?] by Richard Strauss - my favourite version is by Jessye Norman.

Posted by Pine Marten (# 11068) on :

This song by Bif Naked about child abuse: Tell on You.

Posted by Bob Two-Owls (# 9680) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
Danny Boy, if it's well sung.

It is a song I only associate with funerals these days so I suppose that doesn't really count for me. No music really makes me cry but Allegri's Miserere raises a lump in the throat and the Allegretto from Beethoven's 7th makes my spine tingle.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Im Abendtrot [spelling?] by Richard Strauss - my favourite version is by Jessye Norman.

I'm more a Gundula Janowitz man myself, though I have fond memories of seeing an entire symphony orchestra struggling to be louder than Jessye Norman in a performance of Beethoven's 9th.

And the one of the Four Last Songs that always gets me is Beim Schlafengehen. I've always been a sucker for what Denis Forman (in his Good Opera Guide) calls an RSV - "Reprehensible Solo Violin".

Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Galloping Granny:
Danny Boy, if it's well sung.

This makes me cry but mainly because my late father used to sing it

Posted by The Intrepid Mrs S (# 17002) on :

The Allegri Miserere, oh yes indeed. And 'If it be your will', another wonderful piece of Leonard Cohen.

The Lachrymose Mrs. S

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:

quote:
Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Im Abendtrot [spelling?] by Richard Strauss - my favourite version is by Jessye Norman.
I'm more a Gundula Janowitz man myself, though I have fond memories of seeing an entire symphony orchestra struggling to be louder than Jessye Norman in a performance of Beethoven's 9th...

My dad was a Janowitz fan and I inherited his copy when he died so I have the best of both worlds.

Jessye Norman was a BIG star in every sense of the word!

Posted by Mary Marriott (# 16938) on :

quote:
Originally posted by St.Silas the carter:
Only This song. It was sung at my Father's, my sister's, and my grandmother's funerals. I can't listen to it at all nowadays, but it used to be my favorite gospel song.

Thank you for this. I did nt know the tune, but it is taking root. Wonderful psalm

Posted by Mary Marriott (# 16938) on :

'I'll second "Oh Love that will (wilt?) not let me go"

Aye Twangist, it is wilt.

A great favourite all my life. Fanny the writer, really was on to something with it. Having senior moment about her full name.

And bringer of tears. The words, the tune and my memories all in the mix together I guess.

Was her surname Crosby ?

Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mary Marriott:
'I'll second "Oh Love that will (wilt?) not let me go"

Aye Twangist, it is wilt.

A great favourite all my life. Fanny the writer, really was on to something with it. Having senior moment about her full name.

And bringer of tears. The words, the tune and my memories all in the mix together I guess.

Was her surname Crosby ?

Yes, but ... Fanny Jane Crosby was responsible for To God be the glory* inter alia. O love that wilt not let me go was written by George Matheson when Parish Minister of Innellan; the tune was composed by Albert Peace, organist of Glasgow Cathedral at the time.

* A while back a reference was made in a thread I now cannot trace to a diverting Marian parody of Fanny Crosby's hymn - does anyone remember this?

[ 13. April 2012, 20:06: Message edited by: Metapelagius ]

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0