What piece of music stirs emotions in you?
Posted at 5:00 AM on April 25, 2011
by Eric Ringham
(51 Comments)
Filed under: Culture
A discussion on today's Midmorning looks at the ways music can trigger memories and emotional responses for the listener. We'd like to hear about music that you find especially expressive. Today's Question: What piece of music stirs emotions in you?
Comments (51)
Jean-Yves Thibaudet's "Liz on Top of the World" from the movie Pride and Prejudice.
Among many:
The Moody Blues - The Story In Your Eyes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r75XWbsSx-E
Depends on the mood, definitely. Moonlight Sonata, adagio, piano or bass (very particular on that one).
Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G
Barber's Adagio
And here's something wierd:
Green Grass & High Tides by the Outlaws (driving music)
Too many to count, really but the first few will always get goosbumps.
Well I know "Another one Bites the Dust always gets me going." by Queen.
"Doctor 'N the Tardis" by KLF, which was the inspiration to the Twins Rally song. (And predates the rally song.)
"Move Any Mountain" by the Shamen
"Imperial March" from Star Wars always gets me going, well pretty much anything from John Williams...
That's the great thing about music, even mediocre music when paired with a significant event, can become very meaningful.
I remember a family vacation out west when I was a child and Leroy Brown was big and we heard that constantly - in the car, in restaurants, on juke boxes. Another vacation had the constant playing of Afternoon Delight. If I hear either of those songs, it takes me back to Wyoming and Yellowstone and the Tetons as sure as any photo does.
Thunder Road by Springsteen got me through my late teens and early adult years.
My mom just died and we played Softly and Tenderly at her funeral. I had played guitar at a funeral for a friend a number of years back and that is what I played. Now I think of good friends and mom when I hear that song. Sad but good memories.
I am glad so many chose Barber's Adagio for Strings, but the one that gets to me is Alec Wilder's Blackberry Winter.
Artist: Fatboy Slim
Album: Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars
Track: 11 "Song for Shelter"
Yes.
The Planets by G. Holtz
This is a tough question, in a good way! There are so many pieces of music that I find meaningful, and stirring, but one in my Top 5 is Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song." It is a beautiful, sweet, very powerful love song in its own right -- and it is also the song my then-boyfriend, now husband, taught himself to play on guitar so he could surprise me with it on my birthday. PRICELESS!
Prokofiev's Lt. Kije Suite. It's melancholy and happy, and very Russian.
There's a lot of music that does that to me. One that comes to mind is the old show The Wonder years. They did a pretty good job of making a show about life and usually throwing in 60's music that seemed to fit the situation in the show. Quite effective I think even though it is a mixed media.
All Is Well, by Michael W. Smith
Dvorak's American string quartet. It's such an intense moving piece. It's amazing the richness and range of just those four instruments.
"Free Soul" by The Soul Brothers (Jamaica)
"Marquee Moon" by Television
Impromptu Op. 90 No. 4 by Franz Schubert
Driving home one night from class I was listening to Classical NPR and the song "Musica Celestis for cello and orchestra" from Aaron Jay Kernis came on and I was instantly calmed and transported to a different place.
As for a song-song, Sia's "Breathe Me" is very powerful on many levels. It's almost as if the music embraces you.
I had a wonderful experience once with music that caused a emotional reaction in me that I wasn't expecting in the least. But there it was. The piece is "Why Nogales?" from the John Scofield recording "What We Do" - it popped up on my random player one lazy Sunday morning about a year after my father had died. And almost from the start, it brought my dad back to me. Now the odd thing is that the recording was made after his death, we had no "history" with the song - in fact, I'm fairly certain that he wouldn't have particularly liked it. But it's beautiful and sweeping, and intelligent and somewhat stormy - all these feelings and traits that I also associate with my father. I wept, I felt close to him again - it was a wonderful and happy surprise. You should play a little bit of it...
"Manteca" by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo
Inexplicably -- and perhaps absudly, I seem to be hard-wired to tear and choke up at the mere hearing, or singing, the first strains of Your Are My Sunshine,
Barber's Adagio gets me into a somber mood, Beethoven's 7th, Movement 2, energizes me, Handel's Messiah evokes reverence, just about anything by Bach makes me feel like I'm in a positive hypnotic state. Pink Floyd makes me want to have a drink, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan both make me think, Gerry Rafferty and Paul Simon (early Simon, anyway) always have insight into relationships that provoke much reflection, ABBA makes me want to dance, Iron Butterfly, Sultans of Swing, Cat Stevens brings me back to earlier times in mood and recollection. Don McMinn and Eric Clapton elicit the delusion that I am cool. Singers who do not write their own music can be satisfying, but do not reach the depth of those who write their own material.
Samuel Barber, Agnus Dei.
There is nothing quite like the beauty of the human voice.
Electronica, especially music without singers. Some of the disco music from the late 70s has terrific bands playing behind the singers - bands that use pianos, violins, a wide variety of horns. Its like jazz, speeded up.
All of them, some positive, some negative
All of them, some positive, some negative.
Lark Ascending - Ralph Vaughn Williams. Ethereal.
Blackbird
Can I list a second? I'm going to.
Somewhere Over The Rainbow/What a Wonderful World by Isreal Kamakawiwo'ole
"Nulla en Mundo Pax" by vivaldi. I first heard it in the 'Shine' movie, and I had to have it. A soprano even sang it for the procession at my wedding.
healthy human beings biologically want to share emotions and experiences. music is a conversation that you have to want to be involved in. if you don't want to tell it or hear it, there is no way that you will be able to feel it. my favorites depend upon the day, the time of day, the season, the weather, location, health, state of mind, other people, and any other thing that affects the way i feel.
Lensky's Aria (No. 17) from "Eugen Onegin" performed by Mischa Maisky
This piece and they way that Tchaikovsky uses the tempo and key change of the piece to create a feeling of contemplation on the past and the inner conflict Lenksy feels thinking back on his life and his future at the present moment. The use of the clarinet and oboes and the gentle background of the strings gives a feeling of calmness before a storm without losing the ebb and flow which makes the piece seem to breathe.
Quoting Peter Schikele quoting Duke Ellington, "If it sounds good it is good". Almost every type of music has been created because it moved someone to make it. If the music survives the first performance, it has probably moved someone else.
MPR thrives because many different pieces of music move many different people.
Vivaldi's Winter (Allegro) from The Four Seasons. Goosebumps, tears, dancing in my chair, the works. The energy of the piece is almost frenetic (like classical metal!), and though most of the climaxes are in minor key, the vibe is intensely celebratory. I've just listened to it 14 times in a row.
This is incredibly difficult, if I had to pick one I would pick Jupiter from Holt's Planets
Music by the Grateful Dead.
Anything by Weird Al.
Missing by Everything but the Girl. It was March of 1995, I was driving in the desert in Nevada between Las Vegas and Laughlin in a Red Mustang covertible with the top down, my partner was reclined in the passager seat enjoying the sun and this song played on the radio. Everytime I hear this song I think of that moment and how perfect it was with the warmth of the sun on a March day far away from cold Minnesota!
"La Fiesta Mexicana" by H. Owen Reed. It depicts a complete day in a Mexican Village during a festival. As I listen I can here the town waking; attend a mass; and join in on the festival.
I particularly like the Aztec dancers that are protrayed at the end of the first movement. It's easy to imagine the dancers as they move down the street.
I was first introduced to this peice as a member of the Edina HS band back in the 60's Brings back fine memories.
The Marine Corps Band has a new recording of this available. The first widely available recording was, I believe, made by the Eastman Ensemble in the 50's.
It was written for the Marine Corps band and first played in 1958.
I will 2nd both of Paul's comments, emotional response to music is rooted in a particular person's history and experience, and Barber's Adagio for Strings.
George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue; Pink Floyd's The Wall; and tne entire Layla album by Derek & the Dominoes (Eric Clapton).
Uplifting choral work "I Was Glad" by Sir Hubert Parry; dynamite organ toccata from Widor's Fifth Symphony.
this is a really tough one so much music moves me that it is hard to pinpoint 1piece-
but in the recesses of my mind i was driving the forests of northern wisc. with the brandenburgs playing on cassette(pre-2000) car and it was a truly out of body experience!
Two pieces of music come to mind. The late, great Luciano Pavarotti - Nessun Dorma and none other than Wolfgang A Mozart - Wind Serenade No 10 In B Flat Major K 361 III Adagio. The first piece reminds me of Sundays at my grandmothers and the smell of her basement. The latter reminds me of peace.
All music on Peter Gabriel's Passion.
I'd be surprised if two people report finding the same piece of music especially moving. In my experience, it has to do with the setting or experience the music is associated with...like whatever music I had playing in my head during a particularly poignant event in my life.
I'll never the less put in a vote for Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.
Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture.
A lot. But the most current is the new Fleet Foxes album. Lush, gorgeous and coincidentally streaming on npr.org/music
The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughn Williams or Bolero by Maurice Ravel. Both long pieces but both give me a sense of being lifted up, especially Lark. I close my eyes and I'm flying.
'Land of the Living' by Lucy Kaplansky
A couple of disparate pieces of music I find moving are the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th and Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
In My Life/If We Never Meet Again by Selah. I've sung it on All Saints Day.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.....listening to my dad sing that in church always made me smile, singing it at his funeral with my brother made me cry.
Ennio Morricone's "On Earth As It Is In Heaven" from the score of a movie called The Mission
| April 2011 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
Master Archive
Recent Entries
- Have changes to the airline passenger experience affected your willingness to fly?
- Should marijuana be available for medical use in Minnesota?
- Do the struggles of Minnesota's business icons signal trouble for the state's economy?
- Do you know whether insurance would cover your losses in a major storm?
- What kind of recycling program would you be likely to use the most?
- Would you support paying people for organ or tissue donations?
- Have personal relationships in the workplace ever presented a problem for you?
- Do you think Facebook is a passing fad?
- Will you be less likely to visit the Minnesota Zoo without its dolphins?
- Should authorities in the Twin Cities change the way they warn people about tornadoes?
Public Insight Network
The Public Insight Network draws upon your experiences to help shape our coverage.More
Categories
Services
In The Spotlight
-
Sound Learning
Looking for ways to ensure your students are doing quality research from credible sources? Sound Learning is a launching point to Minnesota Public Radio's content on the Web. -
The Current Music Blog
Your daily note for good music, news and pop culture. With attempted jokes.
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock