Low frequency parts you like

[Maestro267]

Inspired by Dry Brett Kavanaugh's thread about contrabass parts people like. People started talking about general low frequency parts before understanding what the OP intended, however I like the idea of continuing down the line of general low frequency parts. Things like low percussion or organ pedals. So what are your favourite examples of deep deep bass in classical music?

[Peter Power Pop]

I'll just pinch my previous post on Dry Brett Kavanaugh's thread and put it here:

The organ at the end of Holst's "Saturn" in the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal / Charles Dutoit recording is unbelievably wonderful. You can hear it from 8:04 onwards.

https://www.youtube.com/v/v7hFdGnwH1E

[Peter Power Pop]

And another one:

The bass drum in the Seattle Symphony Orchestra / Gerard Schwarz recording of David Diamond's Symphony No. 2 goes incredibly low, and it's fabulous. It's in the secondary theme of the first movement, which begins at 6:08. The bass drum comes in when the theme gets going (the bass drum thwacks begin at 6:33). On a good hi-fi it sounds amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/v/O0L2sWcL9-Q

[Mandryka]

Expressively low sounds are interesting because they seem to signify something primal, primitive. The best examples of this I can think of right now is Wolfgang Rihm's Etude d'après Séraphin ans Giacinto Scelsi's Le Réveil profond from his Nuits.

[Irons]

An obvious candidate is Saint-Saens 3rd "Organ" Symphony. The entry of organ is felt rather then heard in a good recording.

[Maestro267]

I'll just pinch my previous post on Dry Brett Kavanaugh's thread and put it here:

The organ at the end of Holst's "Saturn" in the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal / Charles Dutoit recording is unbelievably wonderful. You can hear it from 8:04 onwards.

https://www.youtube.com/v/v7hFdGnwH1E

I was completely blown away by this recording of The Planets when I heard it! This is EXACTLY what I want from a Planets recording. The organ is the KING OF INSTRUMENTS GODDAMMIT so it needs to be heard above everything. So many times the organ is barely audible.

[DaveF]

The start of Ravel's Left-hand concerto usually gets mentioned in discussions of low sounds - the contrabassoon theme should be too low down for the melodic line to make any sense, but somehow it's audible.

And from 400 years earlier, the elder Alfonso Ferrabosco's fantasia for 6 bass viols is rather nice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD0nwj5iYiE

In fact, the whole disc is a good one, albeit with slightly lazy cover design, as the music is by the two Alfonso Ferraboscos, father and son.  (Not sure how you would express that fact succinctly on a cover.)

[Peter Power Pop]

I'll just pinch my previous post on Dry Brett Kavanaugh's thread and put it here:

The organ at the end of Holst's "Saturn" in the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal / Charles Dutoit recording is unbelievably wonderful. You can hear it from 8:04 onwards.

https://www.youtube.com/v/v7hFdGnwH1E

I was completely blown away by this recording of The Planets when I heard it! This is EXACTLY what I want from a Planets recording. The organ is the KING OF INSTRUMENTS GODDAMMIT so it needs to be heard above everything. So many times the organ is barely audible.

Absolutely.

[Warning: Self-Promotion Alert] I waffled on and on about the Dutoit on my website dedicated to reviewing all available CDs of The Planets:

https://petersplanets.wordpress.com/2015/01/01/dutoit-1986/

[LKB]

I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm not familiar with Dutoit's The Planets, but if the end of " Saturn " is that effective I'll fix that tonight.

My favorite low-frequency music includes:

Also Sprach Zarathustra, beginning

Verdi's Otello, beginning

Frederick Fennell's recording for Telarc of the Holst Suites for Band. The rather infamously prominent bass drum has been one of my guilty pleasures for over four decades.

Just before the end of the Poulenc concerto for organ, timpani and strings, there's a quiet passage ( no. 46 in the score ) featuring solo viola playing over a sustained 32-ft. G. If the balance and registration are correct, it's pure magic.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13. The third and fourth movements ( mostly the fourth ) have some well-placed bass drum solos, perfectly evoking the unspoken but ever- present threat.