The most intense ending in a piece of music

[PerfectWagnerite]

  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

I never got into Tosca much I am afraid. Sometimes to me it is over-the-top and sappy, and sometimes I feel it is not over-the-top enough. For example in Act II when Scarpia is wooing Floria and they are torturing poor Mario in the next room, the music is surprisingly beautiful as if Pucini takes a cue from Mozart that music must be beautiful at all times. It would make more sense if the music is raucous and ugly, something more Elektra for example. And Mario's famous aria from the final act...what can you say other than that everyone just milks the hell out of that one. To quote Andras Schiff's favorite line you can have breakfast, lunch and dinner by the time that is over.

If you really want something intense AND moving at the same time try Der Rosenkavalier. In a good performance I think you will be reaching for the box of Kleenex quite often.

[marvinbrown]

If you really want something intense AND moving at the same time try Der Rosenkavalier. In a good performance I think you will be reaching for the box of Kleenex quite often.

  For me the most intense (heartaching) scene in Der Rosenkavalier occurs at the end of ACT 1 when The Marschallin, Princess Werdenberg laments the passing of time, growing old and the realization that Octavian will one day leave her for a younger more attractive woman.

  marvin

[PerfectWagnerite]

  For me the most intense (heartaching) scene in Der Rosenkavalier occurs at the end of ACT 1 when The Marschallin, Princess Werdenberg laments the passing of time, growing old and the realization that Octavian will one day leave her for a younger more attractive woman.

  marvin

I wonder what's worse (morally anyway): cheating on your husband with a teenager or knowingly having sex with your twin sister?

[marvinbrown]

I wonder what's worse (morally anyway): cheating on your husband with a teenager or knowingly having sex with your twin sister?

  You must be refering to Wagner's Die Walkure!  They are both just as bad but then again this is opera we are talking about- anything goes  ??

  marvin

[Bonehelm]

I wonder what's worse (morally anyway): cheating on your husband with a teenager or knowingly having sex with your twin sister?

亂論?

[Brian]

I wonder what's worse (morally anyway): cheating on your husband with a teenager or knowingly having sex with your twin sister?

Actually, this is like a moral dilemma posed to some folks for a study (can't remember what book I read it in). They asked people to consider a scenario in which a brother and sister, adults, knowingly and consentingly have completely safe, completely protected sex with each other just to see what it is like and just to share the experience with each other. People reading the scenario were asked, "Is this moral? Why or why not?" The finding was that people could say yes or no easily, but those who classified the scenario as immoral couldn't figure out what exactly was so wrong with it.

Anyways...

[Bonehelm]

Actually, this is like a moral dilemma posed to some folks for a study (can't remember what book I read it in). They asked people to consider a scenario in which a brother and sister, adults, knowingly and consentingly have completely safe, completely protected sex with each other just to see what it is like and just to share the experience with each other. People reading the scenario were asked, "Is this moral? Why or why not?" The finding was that people could say yes or no easily, but those who classified the scenario as immoral couldn't figure out what exactly was so wrong with it.

Anyways...

But they need to get "turned on" first before they can have sex. How the hell can one be sexually aroused by their own siblings? It would just feel awkward as hell, wouldn't it?

[knight66]

I never got into Tosca much I am afraid. Sometimes to me it is over-the-top and sappy, and sometimes I feel it is not over-the-top enough. For example in Act II when Scarpia is wooing Floria and they are torturing poor Mario in the next room, the music is surprisingly beautiful as if Pucini takes a cue from Mozart that music must be beautiful at all times. It would make more sense if the music is raucous and ugly, something more Elektra for example.

I think Puccini is giving you beautiful music for the wooing, while you know that offstage Mario is being tortured. The music is not relaxed at this point, the strings have tension in them. Mario's screams are all the more shocking when they explode against the veneer of supposed civilised behaviour being orchestrated by Scarpia. You suggest that sometimes it is too over the top. Puccini ensures there are contrasts in mood and the feel of the music to ensure it is not a one 'note' piece.

There again, although Elektra has what is often a violent sounding score, there are many passages of beauty in it.

Each composer is making choices and for their own reasons; and each concept works brilliantly.

Mike

[Lethevich]

A further nomination: Dvořák's 7th symphony.

[Tsaraslondon]

I think Puccini is giving you beautiful music for the wooing, while you know that offstage Mario is being tortured. The music is not relaxed at this point, the strings have tension in them. Mario's screams are all the more shocking when they explode against the veneer of supposed civilised behaviour being orchestrated by Scarpia. You suggest that sometimes it is too over the top. Puccini ensures there are contrasts in mood and the feel of the music to ensure it is not a one 'note' piece.


Mike

Yet again, I find myself agreeing with you Mike. This is one of those passages, where both Puccini's musical and dramatic instincts are working perfectly. I find it a masterly piece of musical scene painting and characterisation.

[Philoctetes]

Bruckner's Ninth Symphony

[Norbeone]

Bruckner's Ninth Symphony

Hi, Philo. Good to see you around again.   

[Philoctetes]

Hi, Philo. Good to see you around again.   

Glad to be around.

[Opus106]

This has been mentioned explicitly only once before in this thread, so here's another vote for the ending of the first movement of Bruckner's 9th.

RUN!!! The world's coming to an end!

[donaldopato]

I think someone mentioned the dramatic and intense ending of the Sibelius 7th. I would also like to nominate the end of the completed Mahler 10th. The dramatic sweep and leap of the strings to a full chord that fades to nothing. Breathtaking!

[Lethevich]

Cheating, but the end of the first movement of Bruckner's 9th symphony is like nothing I have heard from even him - immense!

[ezodisy]

Cheating, but the end of the first movement of Bruckner's 9th symphony is like nothing I have heard from even him - immense!

yeah that's amazing, makes me feel all spiritual, which is why I rarely play it. Some political party should adopt it as their entrance song to their annual convention

[Lethevich]

yeah that's amazing, makes me feel all spiritual, which is why I rarely play it. Some political party should adopt it as their entrance song to their annual convention

The thing which turned me on to how ridiculously big that ending is was a recording from Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, which is already an egregiously large building, and only enhanced those aspects of the work. The 10 (audible) seconds of reverb when the movement ended was just crazy stuff.

[pcrespoy]

Hi Bonehelm,it seems the girl in your head picture is a Asian,are you come from China?

[Superhorn]

   The ending of Nielsen's mighty and unique fifth symphony is pure electricity.
After the chaos, confusion and titanic conflict of the first movement, a depiction of the conflict between good and evil, chaos and order, in which the snare drummer is directed to play as if he had gone berserk and improvise a demented cadenza with total disregard for what the rest of the orchestra is doing at the climax, the second and last movement is a resolution of the conflict and an affirmation of order over chaos.
  This finale is in four parts, starting with a vigorous optimistic character, and leads into a fugal section which develops into a an outburst of inexorable whirlwind  force,
almost reverting to the chaos of the first  movement. But it peters out into a slow fugue using the same thematic material, and then there is a return to the opening. The music generates white heat and and there is a modulation into a triumpant e flat major, a key which had never been reached before in the symphony, and there is a triumphant ,determined and defiant ending.
   The modulation into e flat is almost a physical shock !
   There  are  a  number  of excellent  recordings, but I have yet to hear one which surpasses the classic one with Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, one of the best recordings he made with that orchestra.