Pessimism

[relm1]

I am in a pessimistic mood.  To celebrate, I would like to listen to some deeply satisfying yet pessimistic music.  Unrelentingly pessimistic I find less satisfying (I'm looking at you, Allan Pettersson).  So I don't mind a very dark ending but it should traverse some emotional range otherwise its just brooding.  Any suggestions?

Here are a few I am starting with:
* John Pickard: Channel Firing
* Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 4 and 6
* Halvor Haug: Symphony No. 1
* Shostakovitch: Symphony No. 4

One thing I notice, these seem to end with a great cataclysm or a coda after a great cataclysm. 

[Jo498]

Schubert: Winterreise, Heine settings from "Schwanengesang"
Brahms: Piano quartet c minor #3 op.60

[Mirror Image]

I think Sibelius' 4th applies here, especially the first and third movements. There is a ray of light that appears in the last movement, so it's not all 'a rainy day'.

[Florestan]

Schubert: Winterreise

+ 1

Also:

Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 24
Weber - Piano Sonata No. 4
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 6

[ritter]

Mahler 6 or 9?

[aligreto]

Two from the Tchaikovsky stable namely  Manfred Symphony and Symphony no. 6, Pathetique.

[Mandryka]

The most pessimistic poem I know is Dover Beach, it has been set to music

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turgbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

[Florestan]

When it comes to pessimism in British poetry, the essential is contained in just two verses:

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay.

But I do urge you all to read the following poem by Mihai Eminescu (google him!...) in an exceptionally good English translation.


Glosa

"Days go past and days come still
All is old and all is new,
What is well and what is ill,
You imagine and construe;
Do not hope and do not fear,
Waves that leap like waves must fall;
Should they praise or should they jeer,
Look but coldly on it all".

Things you'll meet of many a kind,
Sights and sounds, and tales no end,
But to keep them all in mind
Who would bother to attend ?...
Very little does it matter,
If you can yourself fulfil,
That with idle, empty chatter
"Days go past and days come still".

Little heed the lofty ranging
That cold logic does display
To explain the endless changing
Of this pageantry of joy,
And which out of death is growing
But to last an hour or two;
For the mind profoundly knowing
"All is old and all is new".

As before some troup of actors,
You before the world remain;
Act they Gods, or malefactors,
'Tis but they dressed up again.
And their loving and their slaying,
Sit apart and watch, until
You will see behind their playing
"What is well and what is ill".

What has been and what to be
Are but of a page each part
Which the world do read is free.
Yet who knows them off by heart ?
All that was and is to come 
Prospers in the present too,
But its narrow modicum
"You image and construe".

With the selfsame scales and gauges
This great universe to weigh,
Man has been for thousand ages
Sometimes sad and sometimes gay;
Other masks, the same old story,
Players pass and reappear,
Broken promises of glory;
"Do not hope and do not fear".

Do not hope when greed is staring
O'er the bridge that luck has flung,
These are fools for not despairing,
On their brows though stars are hung;
Do not fear if one or other
Does his comrades deep enthrall,
Do not let him call you brother
"Waves that leap like waves must fall".

Like the sirens' silver singing
Men spread nets to catch their prey,
Up and down the curtain swinging
Midst a whirlwind of display.
Leave them room without resistance,
Nor their commentaries cheer,
Hearing only from a distance,
"Should they praise or should they jeer".

If they touch you, do not tarry,
Should they curse you, hold your tongue,
All your counsel must miscarry
Knowing who you are among.
Let them muse and let them mingle,
Let them pass both great and small;
Unattached and calm and single,
"Look but coldly on it all".

"Look but coldly on it all,
Should they praise or should they jeer;
Waves that leap like waves must fall,
Do not hope and do not fear.
You imagine and construe
What is well and what is ill;
All is old and all is new,
Days go past and days come still". 

[relm1]

Thanks for that Glosa poem by Eminescu.  I haven't heard of him before and thought it was excellent (and very musical).  I am also loving Schubert Winterreise which perfectly fits my mood right now. 

How could I ever forget Sibelius No. 4.  Also feel No. 6 fits my mood well.

I will seek out musical settings of Dover Beach. 

Regarding, Tchaikovsky, I don't see Manfred as pessimistic.  It has moments of dark struggle but is ultimately resolute.  Pathetique though fits.

[Florestan]

Thanks for that Glosa poem by Eminescu.  I haven't heard of him before and thought it was excellent (and very musical).

I am very glad you liked it. Eminescu is THE classical Romanian poet --- in the general European frame he is actually a late Romantic (b. 1850 - d. 1883) --- and yes you are right, his poems are very musical --- here you are some more from him:

http://www.romanianvoice.com/poezii/poeti_tr/eminescu_eng.php

(Excellent English translation by a teenager who died shortly after translating his poems...  )

The original Romanian of "Glosa", for anyone interested:

http://www.romanianvoice.com/poezii/poezii/glossa.php

[Mandryka]

When it comes to pessimism in British poetry, the essential is contained in just two verses:

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay.

Do you think that is what Arnold is saying in the last verse of Dover Beach?

I think this very famous thing is in a way pessimistic

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

- Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues
- Elgar: Violin Concerto
- Elgar: Cello Concerto
- Schubert: Die Winterreise
- Bach: many of the Chorale preludes, even though they are among the greatest music ever written
- Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 1
- Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen (another one of the greatest pieces of music ever written)

[Jo498]

Maybe it's because I know it is "christian" music but I find almost no Bach really pessimist.
Hardly any Beethoven either: Even the few pieces with a "catastrophic" ending are usually far more defiant than pessimist

[amw]

The Passions are probably somewhat "pessimistic" due to omitting the Resurrection. I probably find the final chorus of the St. John more affecting and "darker", even though it is followed by a chorale; the chorale stands outside the overall structure and clearly takes place after the Passion is strictly over.

[EigenUser]

Maybe it's because I know it is "christian" music but I find almost no Bach really pessimist.
Hardly any Beethoven either: Even the few pieces with a "catastrophic" ending are usually far more defiant than pessimist

I agree about Beethoven. It is hard to find much pessimism in his music. I think he goes very well with Messiaen for this reason, actually. Both composers have music with similar life-affirming qualities.

[Mandryka]

The Passions are probably somewhat "pessimistic" due to omitting the Resurrection. I probably find the final chorus of the St. John more affecting and "darker", even though it is followed by a chorale; the chorale stands outside the overall structure and clearly takes place after the Passion is strictly over.

As far as I understand it, and I'm no historian or theologian really,  for Luther and hence for Bach, the crucifixion "contains" the resurrection -- I mean when you think of the former a christian can't help but think of the latter. And I think that a good performance of Bach's music should bring this holism out (because I bet it's there in the music, Bach was like that.)

Same for the Nativity and the crucifixion. So a really sensitive performance of Bach will always be emotionally very complex, made up of mixtures of positive and negative feelings.

[Mandryka]

Hardly any Beethoven either

Op 132 is interesting from this point of view I think, and op 95.

[Heck148]

I am in a pessimistic mood.  To celebrate, I would like to listen to some deeply satisfying yet pessimistic music.  Any suggestions?

Mahler - Sym #6
Shostakovich - Sym #14
Mussorgsky - Songs and Dances of Death

[jochanaan]

Varese: Nocturne.  Completed by Chou Wen-chung after the composer's death, it contains phrases from Anais Nin's House of Incest and is probably the darkest work by Varese.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Mozart: Piano concerto No 20 K466. Fantasia for Piano K397, Symphony No 40 K 550.