Your favourite melodies?

[madaboutmahler]

Thought it would be a nice idea for the community here to share their own personal favourite melodies. These melodies can be from any work, and I suppose you could list as many as you want.... If you need to attach a youtube video or something like that to help pinpoint the melody, please do go ahead!

Will be back with mine later!

[Ataraxia]

My favorite album is Those Magnificent Stockhausen Melodies.

[springrite]

A few melodies from the final scene of Salome.

[Ataraxia]

Paging Mr. McCartney...

[Opus106]

Listen to the happiest violin...

http://www.youtube.com/v/ztMgxqVo-2E

[knight66]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lasa3OfxaPQ

La Mort de Cleopatre composed 1829. Listen from 4.48 Berlioz starts one of his long sinuous melodies ending at 5.27. Also don't miss out on the extraordinary performer here.

This melody appears also in alother of his pieces, Carnaval Romain 1843. ! minute in there is that falling melody, shorter, but with the start intact, then reappearing slighly later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xuntt5sEpM

Mike

[madaboutmahler]

Thank you for all your replies so far, keep them coming!

I imagine I'll be posting quite a few posts here - but I'll start off by expressing my love for the "Alma theme" from the first movement of Mahler's 6th. An absolutely beautiful melody - and the magical orchestration makes it even more romantic! Sometimes, I just subconsciously burst out singing this melody, and always recieve a few giggles when I miss the top Bb, even when I have transposed it down what must be 2 - 3 octaves
For me, there are not many more melodies that I would consider more romantic or beautiful. For me, it even beats Tchaikovsky! (whose R+J love melody would probably come second on the list of my favourite most romantic melodies! )

Will continue to post more favourite melodies soon - plenty Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Glazunov, R.Strauss, Brahms, Prokofiev, Debussy etc, coming soon!

Looking forward to seeing more of your posts!

[Sergeant Rock]

Here are three of mine.

I love the trumpet melody that begins Hans Rott's Symphony. It all ends in a glorious Wagnerian climax:

http://www.4shared.com/audio/5Qnej8i0/hrottsymphony.html

Love the string melody after the bombastic opening of Franz Schmidt's First Symphony. And when the trumpet sneaks in....pure magic.

http://www.4shared.com/audio/hGgEvGp3/schmidt1.html

Here's the Tallis melody used so memorably by Vaughan Williams.

http://www.4shared.com/audio/HWXt0-8E/tallis.html


You don't have to download the clips. You can play them at the website.

Sarge

[madaboutmahler]

Here are three of mine.

I love the trumpet melody that begins Hans Rott's Symphony. It all ends in a glorious Wagnerian climax:

http://www.4shared.com/audio/5Qnej8i0/hrottsymphony.html

Love the string melody after the bombastic opening of Franz Schmidt's First Symphony. And when the trumpet sneaks in....pure magic.

http://www.4shared.com/audio/hGgEvGp3/schmidt1.html

Here's the Tallis melody used so memorably by Vaughan Williams.

http://www.4shared.com/audio/HWXt0-8E/tallis.html


You don't have to download the clips. You can play them at the website.

Sarge

Thank you for all those links, Sarge. Excellent choices! Particularly enjoyed the Rott - which I am still yet to listen to!!!! That now goes to my urgent wishlist! And hearing the original Tallis makes me rather desperate now to go and listen to the Vaughan Williams Fantasia!

Keep them coming everyone!
I shall upload some excerpts to the media share website and post some more of my favourite melodies soon! Probably Glazunov Symphony no.4 next!

[Lisztianwagner]

Excellent question!

As I'm an extreme fan of Wagner's music, I'll start from one of my favourite wagnerian parts, the Immolation Scene from Götterdämmerung; it's certainly one of my absolute favourite pieces ever written, so thrilling, intense, passionate and powerful, composed by different melodies wonderfully orchestrated with a sublime of leitmotives, harmony and chromatism!
I definitely love when a fortissimo, the motif which symbolized Wotan's power, merges itself with Loge's theme, to express both the end of that world and of the Gods, then followed by the themes of "Love Redemption" and "Loge" again, spreading in another deep, beautiful fortissimo symbolizing the death of Siegfried and Brunnhild in the pyre. At the same time I absolutely adore the sublime merger of the motives of "Siegfried", "Twilight of the Gods" and "Love Redemption" in the very last part of the finale, with that highly overwhelming orchestration, what a touching and expressive movement!!

[TheGSMoeller]

The melodies from Rameau's "Les Cyclopes"--rondeau in d minor are something I either hum, whistle or hear in my head at least twice a day, this has lately become my favorite keyboard piece.
The melody at minute 1:07 is what gets me every time. 

http://www.youtube.com/v/r9jV4_tEtXQ

[ibanezmonster]

My favorite melody of all time?

The main theme of this:
http://www.youtube.com/v/9gSacDaQxm0

I once did a thread on favorite melodists, regardless of musical genre. I mentioned:
Nobuo Uematsu
Sergei Prokofiev
Joe Satriani
Kurt Atterberg

[Brian]

1. 'The Moldau,' Bedrich Smetana. I doubt this may ever change.


Also in the mix (no particular order):
1. Second subject, scherzo (not trio), Dvorak's string quintet op 77
2. The mezzo's aria, Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky
3. That Theme, Schubert's string quintet in C
4. Finale, Beethoven's Sixth
5. The theme from the variations of Beethoven Op 127
6. Slow movement, Atterberg's Eighth
7. All the melodies in the finale of Atterberg's Third
8. Dvorak, Slavonic Dances Op 72 Nos 2 and 7
9. 'O soave fanciulla,' Puccini
10. Final theme, Joly Braga Santos' Symphony No 4
11. Clarinet theme, first movement, Shostakovich's Tenth
12. 'The Last Spring,' Edvard Grieg
13. First movement, Suk's Serenade for Strings
14. Second theme, adagio of Bruckner's Eighth
15. Johann Strauss' Emperor Waltz

[Opus106]

The melodies from Rameau's "Les Cyclopes"--rondeau in d minor are something I either hum, whistle or hear in my head at least twice a day, this has lately become my favorite keyboard piece.
The melody at minute 1:07 is what gets me every time. 

http://www.youtube.com/v/r9jV4_tEtXQ

It's up to the few of us to stop this thread from becoming a complete late-romantic melody extravaganza.

Here's an arrangement of BWV 659 I just found for cello and piano.

http://www.youtube.com/v/5OIVl6Ri8kw

[val]

I will mention only five:

The 2nd motif of the first movement of Schubert's string Quintet.
The Aria of Rusalka in the first Act, in the opera of Dvorak.
The theme of the Arietta in Beethoven's Sonata opus 111.
The motif in the violin of the Aria Erbarme dich, from Bach's St. Matthew Passion.
The initial motif in the first movement of Brahms 4th Symphony.

[knight66]

The swift opening melody of Beethoven's first Razumovsky string quartet. Stated, then played with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55PIXCQgEfE

Mike

[Opus106]

The opening melody of the cello, which is repeated by the piano, in the second movement of Schubert's second piano trio. I like it even more when it's taken at a slightly faster pace in the last movement.

[knight66]

I don't even have to specify this one, just point to it. A person would have to be deaf not to be able to track this wonderful Bach melody as the voice unfolds it for you.

Cantata 170 movement 1 'Vergnügte Ruh'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B_4w62A5ss&feature=fvsr

Mike

[MDL]

The flute melody from the fifth movement of Mahler's 10th.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUqwILe0tO4

[The new erato]

Le Spectre de la Rose by Berlioz.