Top 10 most beautiful pieces you've heard

[Florestan]

Oh yes!      For a long time now (nearly 50 years!) it has been a favorite!   0:)

AfaIk, he wrote only 2 symphonies proper. 

[Roasted Swan]

Aaahh ...... beauty....... what does that really mean!?  Quite and interesting question in the context of music I find.  Lots of really interesting and good choices already but for me it is almost totally contextual so a single aching harmonic progression can put a piece onto my list.  Also - and this I realise applies mainly to operatic or vocal music - the dramatic context of the passage in question can give something extraordinary beauty in the way that some kind of objective "analysis" of the passage alone might not suggest.  A specific performance also lift a piece into the realm of remarkable beauty as well which other versions may not achieve....

So by that measure my first thoughts and why.....

Strauss Rosenkavalier - Closing Trio .... achingly sad and redemptive
Strauss - 4 Last Songs - the horn solo in "September".... was anything ever so nostalgic
Fidelio - Act 1 Quartet "Mir ist so wunderbar" .... simply radiant
RVW - 3 Shakespeare Songs ....  No.2 "The cloud capp'd towers" the harmonic progressions opens doors onto the infinite
RVW - Romanza Symphony No.5... the context... Britain on the brink... and RVW writes music drawing on his Pilgrim's Progress opera which seems to embody faith and hope
Mozart - The Adagio from the Grand Partita/Serenade K.361.  In the owrds of Salieri in Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus"......

"On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse - bassoons and basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly - high above it - an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I as hearing a voice of God.

Schubert - Ave Maria....... especially this version sung by Sumi Jo performed in memory of her father who was buried on the morning of this concert..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqoP8rkNIsY
Schubert - String Quintet - 1st movement.... has there ever been a more beautiful tune
Elgar - Nimrod - BUT either as it appears in "The Music Maker's" (one man's vision) or in the choral setting as Lux Aeterna..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSc02pHmyC8
Stanford - The Bluebird ....... such simplicity
Pachelbel - Canon ..... too easy to dismiss this piece because of its popularity.... stunningly perfect in every way
Delius - A Late Lark - the modulation at "so be my passing..." blows me away every time:

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies;
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, grey city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.
 
The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine, and are changed. In the valley
Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night --
Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.
 
So be my passing!
My task accomplished and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gathered to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.
(William Henley)


as soon as I post this I will think of others I know!  Sorry its 12 - can't eliminate any.......

[SymphonicAddict]

Strauss Rosenkavalier - Closing Trio .... achingly sad and redemptive
Strauss - 4 Last Songs - the horn solo in "September".... was anything ever so nostalgic

Definitely Strauss fits this thread very well. The charm on the closing moments in Der Rosenkavalier is simply moving in its  beauty.

[SymphonicAddict]

Richard Strauss  - Elektra

Alexander Zemlinsky - Lyric Symphony

I like these very much, having revisited the Lyric Symphony made me realise of its true grandeur. I would also add Die Seejungfrau.

[SymphonicAddict]

AfaIk, he wrote only 2 symphonies proper. 

Le poème de l'extase and Promethée: Le poème du feu are sometimes considered his 4th and 5th symphonies respectively.

[some guy]

Some nice lists with some surprising and interesting entries -- lots to explore.

I know, it's almost five years later, but I never looked at this thread until today. Bored, I guess.

Anyway, there were some surprising entries, not the least of which was the Cow of God. Really. Page one of the thread, even.