Top 10 most beautiful pieces you've heard

[USMC1960s]

One of my all time favorite pieces is this. Absolutely beautiful. Normally I just listen to classical music, but this particular piece makes me toss my head back and forth like a conductor

Handel--Concerto Grosso # 6 in G Minor--Op.6/No.6--HWV 324--3. Musette: Larghetto.

[Jo498]

One of my all time favorite pieces is this. Absolutely beautiful. Normally I just listen to classical music, but this particular piece makes me toss my head back and forth like a conductor

Handel--Concerto Grosso # 6 in G Minor--Op.6/No.6--HWV 324--3. Musette: Larghetto.

Yes, this is a favorite. A similar "dreamy pastoral" piece is the polonaise/polacca from op.6#3 e minor. I also love "La paix" from the Royal fireworks. Simple, but very moving.

[USMC1960s]

I just listened to those after your post, did not recognize them by their descriptions. Two beautiful pieces.

[North Star]

Tarquinio Merula: Hor ch'é tempo di morire "canzonetta spirituale sopra alla nanna"
Bach: Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor
Beethoven: String Quartet in c sharp minor, Op. 131
Schubert: Fantasie in F minor, D. 940
Berlioz: Trio for two flutes & harp from L’enfance du Christ
Tchaikovsky - Piano Trio in a minor, Op. 50
Elgar: Sospiri for harp, organ & strings
Suk: About Mother
Sibelius: Symphony no. 5
Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms
Vaughan Williams - Tallis Fantasia
Janáček: On an overgrown path - The Madonna of Frýdek
Ives: The Unanswered Question
Ravel: Ma mère l'oye
Berg: Violin Concerto
Silvestrov: Quiet Songs
Pärt: Stabat Mater

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Korngold: Violin concerto
Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini: "Si la terre aux"
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde: Von der Schönheit
Schumann: Das Paradies und die Peri
Shostakovich: Golden age
Sibelius: Pohjola's daughter
Sibelius: Symphony 4, movement III
Dvorak: String quartet 3
Dvorak: Golden spinning wheel
Haydn: The creation

Schubert: Symphony 5, movement 1
Mozart: K563, movement 4

[Brahmsian]

Shostakovich: Golden age

Interesting!  I love The Golden Age ballet.  I may not necessarily call it one of the most beautiful pieces I've heard, but certainly one of the most fun, thrilling and exciting.  However, the Dance of the Diva Adagio in Act I, Scene II is indeed blissfully beautiful! 

[Mirror Image]

Interesting!  I love The Golden Age ballet.  I may not necessarily call it one of the most beautiful pieces I've heard, but certainly one of the most fun, thrilling and exciting.  However, the Dance of the Diva Adagio in Act I, Scene II is indeed blissfully beautiful! 

+1

[Wieland]

That's difficult, but lets try

Beethoven 9, 3rd movement
Beethoven op. 132 Heiliger Dankgesang
Bruckner 7, 2nd movement
Bruckner 8, 3rd Movement
Mahler 2, final Movement with chorus
Mahler 3, final movement
Mahler 9, final movement
Mahler Lied von der Erde, Der Abschied
Strauss, 4 letzte Lieder
Wagner, Parsifal, Vorspiel und Transformation scene
Schostakowitsch, VC 1, Passacaglia

upps.. already one to many, but I dont know which one to delete

[North Star]

upps.. already one to many, but I dont know which one to delete

That's how we tend to roll, in any case. 

[ludwigii]

Schnittke : Peer Gynt
Prokofiev : Piano Concerto no. 2
Beethoven : Piano Sonata op.109
Schubert : Piano Sonata D 845, op.42
Mozart : Piano Concerto no.23 K. 488
Bach : Concerto BWV 1052 in D minor
Tomas Luis de Victoria : Versa est in luctum (motet)
Shostakovich : Symphony no. 4
William Walton : Symphony no.1
Haendel : Dixit Dominus (1707) HWV 232

[amw]

Beauty you say?

1. Brahms Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 78 - I. Vivace ma non troppo

2-6 in some order
Chopin Nocturne in A-flat Op. 32 no. 2
Brahms String Sextet No. 2, Op. 36 - I. Allegro non troppo
Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 5 in D - III. Romanza
Schubert Quintet D956 - II. Adagio
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 27, K. 595 (complete)

I can't think of anything else that deserves to be considered on the same level.

Actually I thought of something else:

Schumann Davidsbündlertänze No. 14. Zart und singend

[Sergeant Rock]

I'm going to squeeze this in to my list: Tchaikovsky Pas de deux from The Nutcracker.

https://www.youtube.com/v/hXcCwfymxaY


Sarge

[Florestan]

Besides any 10 randomly picked works by Schubert, OTOMH

Bach - Goldberg Variations, Aria
Bach - The Well Tempered Clavier, Book I, Prelude I
Bach - Cantata BWV 208, Aria: Schafe können sicher weiden
Francois Couperin - Troisieme concert royal, Musette
Vivaldi - The Four Seasons (complete)
Mozart - Eine Kleine Nacht Musik (complete)
Mozart - Don Giovanni, Aria: La ci darem la mano
Mozart - Don Giovanni, Aria: Batti, batti, o bel Masetto
Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro, Aria: Non piu andrai
Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro, Aria: Voi che sapete

(to be continued)

[Mandryka]

Schubert Nachthelle
Scriabin Prelude and Nocturne for the Left Hand, Op.9
Tchaikovsky Méditation, Op.72 No.5
Szymanowsky Etude Op 4 No. 3
Chopin Nocturne Op. 27/1
Albeniz Iberia "Evocacion"
Albeniz/Godowski Tango
Bach - Cello Suite No 2 in D minor, BWV 1008 - Prelude
Granados Mazurka "Escenas Poeticas"

[some guy]

Beauty is indeed a quibblesome creature, but judging from the lists, there's not really that much quibble hereabouts.

Beauty means more or less "pretty."

I much prefer Rilke's sense of things:

"...beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us."

Berlioz, Benvenuto Cellini
Mahler, symphony #6
Yoshihide, Turntable Solo
Bokanowski, L'étoile absinthe
Noetinger & eRikm - What A Wonderful World
Nielsen, symphony #4
Shostakovich, symphony #4
Neumann, inner piano (not a "piece," more like a "set." A video on youtube entitled "inner piano.")
Sachiko M, 1:2
Brümmer, La cloche sans vallees

Again, ten is a silly number.

Really really silly.

(Well, on further reflection, it's "most beautiful" that is truly silly.)

[James]

Beauty means more or less "pretty."

Huh?

[James]

There is an abundance of beauty to be found within the creative outputs of many of the Greats, but to be selective .. 

Bach, Dona nobis pacem
Wagner, Parsifal Prelude
Brahms, Ballades
Grieg, Lyric Pieces
Fauré, Nocturne no. 13
Strauss, Four Last Songs
Debussy, Sonata for flute, viola & harp
Stravinsky, Symphonies of Winds
Bartók, String Quartet no. 6
Webern, Symphony op. 21
Tippett, Piano Concerto
Stockhausen, Kontakte
Ligeti, Melodien
Gubaidulina, Offertorium
Viñao, Son Entero
Dutilleux, The Shadows of Time
Lansky, Ride

[some guy]

Huh?

You realize, do you not?, that "Beauty means more or less 'pretty'" is not what I think, but a conclusion drawn from the pieces listed in previous posts.

Mostly, the word beauty is used to refer to things that are smooth, regular, pleasant, and (relatively) easy to understand.

But only mostly. There are plenty of people--me being one of them--who distinguish between beautiful and pretty, and who consequently see beauty in rough, irregular, harsh, and puzzling things.

Of course, and I wasn't gonna bring this up, again, being a wee bit shy about riding my hobby-horses to death, but "beauty" as I understand it is not a characteristic of objects nor is it, as the expression goes, in the eye of the beholder, but is an experience. It is what happens when an object and a perceiver enter into a relationship. It is not a quality (as in "a characteristic"); it is a consequence of a successful experience.

[amw]

I'm not sure I determine things by "prettiness" in music, since I think of that as a visual quality. Beauty in music is for me the "quality" of how much the piece breaks my heart, haha. It's completely instinctual and, I find, favours pieces that are relatively static—beauty does not seem to be a very developmental thing.

At the same time, part of the reason that e.g. the first movement of Brahms's first violin sonata is for me the most beautiful piece of music ever composed lies in the irregularities, the holes, the way it's not quite enough on its own and one's mind needs to fill in the gaps. For example the main theme on its own is an unanswered whisper of heartache; but the potential "answers"—developments and consequents—one can imagine, but that Brahms never wrote, are more beautiful in the imagination than any actual music could be, in the same way our imagination supplies scarier monsters in horror films than could ever be shown on screen. Maybe that's a bit fanciful.

The same is true of e.g. the Schubert adagio, where we get a unique and deeply immersive texture, but with no melody except the one supplied by our imagination (perhaps derived from the broken, halting first violin phrases), or the Mozart piano concerto, always hinting at beautiful and dissonant things but never actually supplying them (also I think one of his most radical works) and etc. So I sort of get what you're saying, although I still find it really difficult to articulate why Brahms Op. 36/i is "more beautiful" than Op. 18/i or whatever >__>

[James]

You realize, do you not?, that "Beauty means more or less 'pretty'" is not what I think, but a conclusion drawn from the pieces listed in previous posts. Mostly, the word beauty is used to refer to things that are smooth, regular, pleasant, and (relatively) easy to understand. But only mostly. There are plenty of people--me being one of them--who distinguish between beautiful and pretty, and who consequently see beauty in rough, irregular, harsh, and puzzling things.

Man, you are so full of yourself.

Beauty is something we find very attractive .. it entails more than surface.