Do you cry when listening to music?

[Guido]

I was recently talking to a friend who expressed some surprise when I said that I virtually never cried when listening to music. Just wondered how often people cried, if at all, when listening to music. Has it changed as you have grown older? Do different pieces make you cry now than when you were younger? Are there some pieces that always make you cry?

I have only ever cried twice listening to music (when not in a funereal situation). The first time was the final scene of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin when watching a recent Met DVD - exactly what you're meant to do! The other time was also watching a DVD - Janacek's From the House of the Dead - the scene where the young boy is singing about his mother. Something so understated and incredibly touching about that, but there are many places in that score where I was close to tears. All the more remarkable because it's emphatically not a sentimental or weepy piece - about as far from traditional opera as one could expect in 1930.

[Bulldog]

I've never cried when listening to music; don't know what the future might hold.

[DavidW]

Didn't we just have this discussion?

[SonicMan46]

I've never cried when listening to music; don't know what the future might hold.

Don - I agree - but I'll sometimes get tears in my eyes w/ certain movies!

Didn't we just have this discussion?

History always repeats itself - true!  Dave 

[Brahmsian]

On occasion, I have been so swept away and overwhelmed by the power and beauty of the music and my eyes start to water.

Some of these moments have occurred during:

*Schubert's String Quintet (Scherzo, trio portion of the movement).

*Bruckner - 5th Symphony - Adagio

There are others, but it doesn't occur frequently.  It is the combination of the music and simply being in an emotional state, or needing a good cry. 

[DavidW]

Anyway I don't cry when listening to music, but I did get teary eyed recently when listening to Henning's Viola Sonata.

[Daverz]

When I was in my 20s.  Don't think any music has made me more than misty eyed in years.  Perhaps I'm just getting comfortably numb.

[some guy]

I always cry when I'm listening to music while cutting onions.

Always.

There's just something about cutting onions and listening to music that gets me every time. Why even just cutting onions will make me tear up, come to think of it.

[Mirror Image]

Q: Do you cry when listening to music?

A: Only when cutting onions.

[snyprrr]

Not since I've stopped drinking, haha!

Honestly,.. that is sooo funny!

[Luke]

Now I see which thread it was I prompted you to start!

Vey rarely, but as I said on the Ravel-Strauss-Rachmaninov-Grieg thread, the end of L'enfant et les sortileges gets me every time. It has everything, including context - the way the parodies and pastiches are past, the mini-terrors of the nighttime garden fade, the shock of the animals at seeing the humanity of the child, their tenderest, most magical of choruses - il est bon, l'enfant, il est sage... - the return of the opening music, the lights on in the house, and the final, unbelievably brief and gentle 'maman' cadence. The whole opera, and this whole trajectory from brittle parody to unbelievable tender, loving catharsis, sums up Ravel for me, and it always makes me cry! Recently, I listened to it with my daughter and I was trying to describe what was happening on stage to her, but could only do so in brief, hurried sentences before I had to break off for a secret sob! What a wuss...

The only other time that I've cried listening to a piece of music, however,* was once as a 17 or 18 year old listening to Beethoven op 132 - the Heiliger Dankgesang specifically - in a very intense, focused, score-following listening session. The trajectory of that movement drew me in and engrossed me so much, the way it was able to communicate its 'message' (whatever that is) across the centuries, just stunned me and left me in tears.

*apart from when the music has other, extra-musical connotations, of course

[SonicMan46]

I always cry when I'm listening to music while cutting onions.

LOL -    Well, now I have to modify my post; the other day, I was listening to music in my den chair next to the kitchen door; Susan was sauteing some onions in preparation for the night's dinner - that did bring tears to my eyes - 

[Octo_Russ]

Music touches me fairly often, and yes that can mean that a lump in my throat forms, and tears well up in my eyes, if that's what you mean, but i've never broken down and sobbed.

Bruch's Scottish Fantasy seems to always do the trick, the third movement really tugs the heart, otherwise it's Rock songs that are tearjerkers, Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon, Spare Parts and Sinaloa Cowboys by Bruce Springsteen, John Doe No24 by Mary Chapin Carpenter, there are others, but i can't think right now.   

[Scarpia]

Can't say I have ever cried while listening to classical music.  Can tear-up in the occasional tear-jerker movie, though.

[snyprrr]

Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon,

MEDIC!

[Superhorn]

  I sometrimes cry when a performace is really bad.




                                                                      




                                       

[bosniajenny]

Rarely! But Rosenkavalier end of Act I Marschallin "Heut oder morgen".....That gets me every time. But it's the context not the music AS SUCH. I'm an older woman with a younger partner (for the moment) and I know......

[jochanaan]

Like others, there are certain compositions that mist me up, but only one can draw real tears every time: the last scene of Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites.

[Sid]

The only time I can remember was at a live performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto at Sydney University in the '90's. Sometimes I do get teary with pieces that are pretty dark, like Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. But I'm generally more emotionally plugged in when seeing music live at a concert, so sometimes a few tears do come then, but not a whole waterfall...

[Satzaroo]

More than I'd like to in public. I have teared up during a performance of a slow movement of a late Beethoven string quartet and during Puccini arias sung by amateur but polished sopranos. In these cases, I tried to pinch myself hard so that I'd stop crying, but to no avail.

Yesterday, to wow my son and his fiancee, I had them watch parts of the Met's "I Puritani" (the two long arias sung by Netrebko at the end of Act 2 and soon after the beginning of Act 3). After the second ovation, I didn't clap, but I sure wept a little. This time I didn't hide my feelings; after all, it was my birthday--I was entitled.