The most intense ending in a piece of music

[Lethevich]

  I have always found the ending of Puccini´s Tosca to be very intense.  I am surprised no one mentioned this, am I alone on this one?

It's because not many people listen to opera I guess I certainly can't recall much of Tosca...

Edit: Oh, and Bruckner 8, naturally. DUH-DUHH-DUHHH!

[marvinbrown]

It's because not many people listen to opera I guess I certainly can't recall much of Tosca...

Lethe Tosca is not to be missed.  In my opinion it is the darkest, most intense opera Puccini ever wrote. Easily one of the best verissimo operas ever conceived it has intense passages that I find emotionally very overwhelming. 

  marvin 

[Brian]

I would like to nominate Strauss' Eine Alpensinfonie.

There are a lot of other pieces I'd name, but most have already been posted. One which I am fairly sure nobody has thought of is Atterberg's Third Symphony (though of course the clear winner is the Sibelius Fifth...).

EDIT: Also Sibelius 2 and Borodin's Polovtsian Dances (WITH chorus). And it seems to me nobody has mentioned the Sibelius 5 yet!?! 

[12tone.]

Funny, I can hardly ever finish a Bruckner symphony, especially 7 and 8.  I finish the slow movement of those two and I'm done.  They just exhast ya...

[BachQ]

Coda of 1st mvt of Brahms 4th Symphony
Coda of 1st mvt of Brahms 1st piano concerto
Ending of 3rd mvt of Prokofiev's 3rd Piano Concerto

I reassert these as though freshly minted ab initio ..........

[Brian]

I reassert these as though freshly minted ab initio ..........

Indeed, the coda of Brahms 4 first movement certainly qualifies!

[not edward]

How about that final 4/4 bar in La Valse?

[Brian]

How about that final 4/4 bar in La Valse?

It was posted earlier, but definitely yes.

[George]

Forty Six and Two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tja6_h4lT6A

[Tsaraslondon]

Lethe Tosca is not to be missed.  In my opinion it is the darkest, most intense opera Puccini ever wrote. Easily one of the best verissimo operas ever conceived it has intense passages that I find emotionally very overwhelming. 

  marvin 

Personally, though much of Tosca is very intense, particularly Act II, I find the actual ending a bit of a let down. Why on earth does the orchestra blare out the tune of Cavardossi's E lucevan le stelle, when Tosca hurls herself from the parapet? It makes no dramatic sense at all. Scarpia's theme would actually have been more appropriate. When it comes to Italian opera, I find the ending of Otello more intense. The finale of Norma can also be pretty intense.

[marvinbrown]

Personally, though much of Tosca is very intense, particularly Act II, I find the actual ending a bit if a let down. Why on earth does the orchestra blare out the tune of Cavardossi's E lucevan le stelle, when Tosca hurls herself from the parapet? It makes no dramatic sense at all. Scarpia's theme would actually have been more appropriate. When it comes to Italian opera, I find the ending of Otello more intense. The finale of Norma can also be pretty intense.

  I really can't explain why Puccini would end Tosca with the tune of Canardossi's E lucevan le stelle but you have admit that that opera ends with a BANG!  not a wimper and I find myself emotionally drained (exhausted) by the end of it all.

  marvin 

[Renfield]

I don't recall if I've posted again in this thread, but I do second Tosca's ending as a particularly intense one, in my view.

Ditto Strauss' Elektra, of course.

Although Bruckner's 8th symphony comes before anything else in the repertory I can think of, unless the tranquility and "transcendence" in the final bars of Mahler's 9th symphony can also count.

(Mahler's 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th being not that far behind, ditto Beethoven's 9th and Brahms' 4th - in the right hands. In fact, there is a lot of intensity to go around, in symphonic music. )

[Christo]

A couple of near-death experiences expressed in the final bars of a number of symphonies. I recall:

Shostakovich' Fifteenth
Honegger's Fifth
Nielsen's Sixth (well, according to Robert Simpson's interpretation of it)

[helios]

Nobody's mentioned Chopin's Ballade No. 4 yet?    That last page is something else.... 

[max]

Bruckner's Te Deum
Berlioz Requiem - Lacrymosa

[rappy]

Somebody mentioned Prokofiev's 5th yet?

The last 1 - 1 1/2 minutes are like taking a vast portion of Ecstasy.

[PerfectWagnerite]

  I really can't explain why Puccini would end Tosca with the tune of Canardossi's E lucevan le stelle but you have admit that that opera ends with a BANG!  not a wimper and I find myself emotionally drained (exhausted) by the end of it all.

  marvin 

You dig that? I can't take it. I find the ending of La Boheme much more moving and intense.

[Tsaraslondon]

You dig that? I can't take it. I find the ending of La Boheme much more moving and intense.

And indeed the reprise of Mimi's Sono andate? is much more apt an ending than Cavaradossi's E lucevan le stelle at the end of Tosca. So too is the phrase at the end of Madama Butterfly, previously associated with Butterfly's father's suicide and repeated when Butterfly, talking to Sharpless,  describes her shame if Pinkerton were not to return to her.

[marvinbrown]

You dig that?

  Absolutely!  I find Puccini's Tosca the most intense opera he ever composed.  Everything builds up to the finale, the music gets darker and more ominous as we approach the end.  Whether Cavaradossi's E lucevan le stelle is an appropriate ending I can not comment but the emotional effect is quite strong.  To each his own I guess  .

  marvin

[scarpia]

.......anything that Hilary plays. 

In the heat of the moment there's always the hope of a wardrobe malfunction?