Pieces that make you jump and down with the happiest of joy! :D

[some guy]

Ah, jeez guys. So close. You're so close.

The joy is not in the music. The joy is not in you. The joy is in the listening. When you and the music establish a relationship, there is joy.

It doesn't matter what the putative subject of the music is. Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima makes me happy. Why? Because it's music that's crafted in a way I can appreciate. The subject matter is a horrific event. The music is splendid. Same with Dvorak's Noonday Witch. Horrific subject matter; splendid music.

Mozart's 40th? Um, not so much. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, not at all. Bizet's symphony in C, not so much. Webern's symphony? Oh, yeah. Very much so. And so it goes.

It's not the music. It's the listening.

Repeat after me: it's the listening.

Nice. Good job, grasshopper.

[Opus106]

The joy is not in the music. The joy is not in you. The joy is in the listening. When you and the music establish a relationship, there is joy.

Daniel, please change the title appropriately, or we'll never hear the end of this.

It doesn't matter what the putative subject of the music is. Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima makes me happy. Why? Because it's music that's crafted in a way I can appreciate. The subject matter is a horrific event. The music is splendid. Same with Dvorak's Noonday Witch. Horrific subject matter; splendid music.

I understand what you mean: we still listen to music with a horrific/sad background tale/history -- it's agreeable to our ears (mind) despite these extra-musical associations. But those works don't necessarily make us get up and jump and dance, or at least air-conduct with a big silly grin on our faces. Daniel, if I'm not mistaken, is looking for the latter kind. (And if you claim that you get up and jump in joy listening to Penderecki's Thernody... well, it doesn't matter, as you'll be the odd exception. )

[Elgarian]

The joy is not in the music. The joy is not in you. The joy is in the listening. When you and the music establish a relationship, there is joy.

In the sense of 'getting the philosophy right', it's helpful to point this out (and you know of old that I'm as keen as you are to delve into such stuff); but I don't think this was the road Daniel was wanting to go down. He wanted to know which works triggered this experience of joy for us, and where, and how. A swapping of experiences around the camp fire, rather than an analysis of how and why we do what we do. And if in the course of that discussion we commit the odd pathetic fallacy here and there, and mistakenly attribute emotional qualities to the sounds we hear, I think that's probably OK in the context of this sort of chat (as Navneeth is pointing out above). If it's OK to title a novel 'The Cruel Sea' and still be understood, then it's OK to talk about joyful symphonies.

Incidentally, if I take my example of Handel's 'Dopo notte', we know from the dramatic context (in the opera) and the words themselves, that Handel was trying to express Ariodante's joy and relief; to create some musical equivalent that might inspire similar feelings in a sensitive and attentive listener. The real mystery (for me) is that this strange process can be so successful: that the organisation of a particular series of sounds can generate a listening experience that so many attentive listeners would describe as joyful - to such an extent that they want to experience it again and again, and repeatedly want to jump out of their chair as Daniel does. That's what makes this exchange interesting and potentially helpful: if Peter and Jane find joy when listening to this piece of music (regardless of how accurately they identify the source of the joy in a philosophical sense), maybe I might too.

[knight66]

Well, it is not for me to start telling people their emotions don't fit into the joyful category, though i do think it difficult to envisage at the end of Salome. So taking the op at face value, and happy to do so, yes the overture to Candide is an excellent one. In the Parrot version of the B Minor Mass....et resurrexit is another prime candidate. Joy unconfined brought out there and a superb declaration of faith in what is being depicted.

Singing the Berlioz Te Deum has the hoped for effect and add in the feeling of flying. Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is another piece that makes me want to jump around.

Mike

[madaboutmahler]

What Nav and Alan say is indeed what I intended for the thread, but this is a very interesting concept anyway!

[springrite]

The Rite makes me happy, too. That opening bassoon solo always puts me in a good mood. I guess it's the idea of simpler times, and the way the work relates to nature. I know the work's subject is rather dark, but it doesn't seem like "true" darkness to me.

Can you picture yourself as the a judge on the Elegibility Panel for picking virgins for the sacrifice on the few days before the event? Hummm...

[jochanaan]

Ah, jeez guys. So close. You're so close.

The joy is not in the music. The joy is not in you. The joy is in the listening. When you and the music establish a relationship, there is joy...

Don't forget the playing!  We performers experience the joy too, perhaps even more so--or we wouldn't be playing music.  Even those of us who insist that music is a "thing," that it is "for itself," tend to find joy, if only in a well-played performance.  (And don't be fooled by our expressions!  It's a bit hard to grin when you're blowing the oboe! )

[AdamFromWashington]

Can you picture yourself as the a judge on the Elegibility Panel for picking virgins for the sacrifice on the few days before the event? Hummm...

No comment. 

[bigshot]

Most classical music falls under the category of "appreciate". But there's some stuff that just delights me. Paul Paray's CD of Auber and von Suppe makes me very happy. So does Fiedler's Offenbach Gaetie Parisienne. Khatcaturian's Gayne, Rossini's Boutique Fantastique, the mechanical toy thing in Sylvia, there's a weird little clockwork break in one of Ravel's piano concertos, and of course, I loves me a good Strauss or Waldteufel waltz. All of this is fun fun fun.

[DavidRoss]

Brandenburg Concerto #1?

[madaboutmahler]

Definitely end to Respighi's Feste Romane! And Pini di Roma too. 

[Lisztianwagner]

The second movement of Mahler No.1 and the final part of Berlioz's Hungarian March.

[jochanaan]

And how could I have forgotten to mention Smetana's Bartered Bride Overture?!

[stingo]

An easy one for me...

[asin]B000000AT4[/asin]

[dave b]

Respighi--Ancient Airs and Dances, Suite No. 2, movements III. and IV.
Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Jesus Lopez-Cobos.

[dave b]

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

Pietro Baldassare--Trumpet Sonata in F Major..1.Allegro

[lisa needs braces]

A midsummer night's overture by Felix Mendelssohn.

[Ten thumbs]

Two piano pieces to fill a pianist with joy:

Fanny Hensel - Allegro molto in G, H-U 368 - send yourself soaring high in the sky like a bird.

Stephen Heller - Prelude Op.150 No.20 - release your inhibitions with this wild jubilant outburst.

[starrynight]

Brahms 2 is certainly one of those pieces for me, the whole exposition of the first movement and the finale in particular.

Damn, I was about about to say the finale of Brahms 2 and you said it in the first post!  Other finales I guess like Elgar 1, Schumann 3 (also first movement), Tchaikovsky 5.

As for joy having to be a more subtle individual response or relation to music that can perhaps be the case, but there could also be some music with it's sheer energy that pulls you into it, though even then if you aren't in the right mood it conceivably might not pack the punch it should.

[Ten thumbs]

Another wonderful piano romp is the finale of Elfrida Andrée's Piano Sonata. Somewhat offbeat but well worth seeking out.