The saddest music I know

It is not my intention to 'Steal the thunder' of Ian by starting my own thread. I am posting an mp3 and I did not want it to get lost
http://members.aol.com/ansermetniac6/sadsadsad.mp3

Here is some notes notes I wrote to my former partner's shrew last year. I will stick with that

Abbedd

I only posted the first mvt

Track 8-12

Mozart-Piano Sonata K 282

Claudio Arrau-Piano

Recorded Sept 1985-Arrau was in his middle 80's.He has since passed away

The first movement is the saddest music I know. When I used to get extremely low, I would listen to this. Mozart and Arrau would express for me what I was feeling and I would feel better. At 1:12 the piano hits a low note and then proceeds into what I can only describe as a beer drinking song. I can actually see a pour soul at a bar, swinging his glass of beer and singing this melody. It comes back a few times. In the second strain, the low note is an octave lower. It is very impressive. This is the only recording of this music that does it for me. It is marked adagio. Arrau is the only one to realize this. He takes both repeats. He gives us 10+ minutes of blissful sadness.

Usually the slow movement comes second. Here Mozart switches it. He must have known he wrote a masterpiece. He was under 20 when he wrote this.

Das Lied von der Erde: Der Abschied.

Lenny

Certain portions of the Symphony of Psalms by Stravinsky. Just crushing agony.

*********Val

Scriabin 3rd Sonata. Most sonatas and fairy tales from Medtner. When it comes to sadness, nothing beats the Russians

Cheers, Herman Jurjus

Indeed. You can almost take your pick of late Shostakovich.

Regards,

Ohhh, I forgot this one (in my answer on another thread)! I agree emphatically.

Gerrie C

Funny, that, for three very optimistic and cheerful psalms!

Terry, I hear it that way, too. I've never had the slightest feeling of sadness listening to it. One Psalm setting that should be very, very sad is Lili Boulanger's setting of Ps. 130, 'Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord'. As you may know, she died when she was 24, and knew that she was dying for several years before then. This one should reek of self-pity, but it doesn't. Interestingly, my favorite recording of it is by John Eliot Gardiner, coupled with

The saddest in my CD rack: Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings (L. A. Philharmonic Orchestra, L. Bernstein, Deutsche Grammophon 1983).

Greetings Hartmut

The Dirge from Bloch's Concerto Grosso #1.

Liszt: La Notte (one of the three Funeral Odes; orchestral version) Julius Reubke: Sonata on the 94th Psalm [organ]