Your top ten favorite middles

[(poco) Sforzando]

Well, we've had favorite beginnings and ends, so how about favorite middles. Such as outstanding development sections in sonata-form works, or whatever else occurs to you.

[Brian]

Well, we've had favorite beginnings and ends, so how about favorite middles. Such as outstanding development sections in sonata-form works, or whatever else occurs to you.

Hmmm, some of my favorite sonata development sections:
- first movement, Beethoven's Fourth Symphony (though he offers a banquet of riches for obsessive development sections that reduce to the bare necessities, as also in the Fifth and Eighth)
- in the finale of Mendelssohn's Octet, when the players work up to such a high froth that you can't help feeling like the piece is about to end
- first movement, Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony
- first movement, Mahler's Fourth (the unison flutes and horns especially)

Some more favorite middles that, episodically, stand out from the music around them:
- the token cor anglais solo to start the recapitulation of Dvorak's Eighth Symphony
- both middle sections of both middle movements of Schubert's String Quintet
- first movement, the quiet part, Mahler Seventh
- the 'C' material in Schubert's piano piece D. 946 No. 2
- the cadenzas in Tchaikovsky's Second Piano Concerto and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto

[SimonNZ]

I'm reminded of the wag who said of "Dawn to noon on the sea" from La Mer that they liked the bit from 9.45 am to 10.30.

[Luke]

That wag was Satie, I believe.

[Jo498]

- Haydn, Symphony 97, trio of the menuet
- Beethoven, Eroica, first mvmt development
- Beethoven, op.135, 2nd mvmt, completely mad central section
- Schubert, central section of slow movement of sonata D 959
- Chopin: percussive/obsessive middle sections of polonaises op.44 and 53 (there are probably more Chopin examples with unexpected contrasts in central sections)
- Brahms, 1st symphony, central section "trio" of 3rd movement
- Brahms, 3rd, symphony, both development of the 1st movement (with "character inversion" of themes) and 2nd movement when the trombones? enter into what began more like a serenade.

[atardecer]

Some that come to mind  (middle movements):

Ravel: Piano Concerto in G - middle movement
Ravel: String Quartet - 2nd movement
Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2 - middle movement
Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle - Lake of Tears
Debussy: Nocturnes - Fêtes
Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez - middle movement
Bach: Mass in B minor - Gloria in excelsis
Brahms: Requiem - Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras
Brahms: Horn Trio - Adagio
Mozart: Requiem - Dies Irae

[Luke]

I can't decide between the middle of the film sequence in Lulu (the Ostinato movement of the Lulu Suite), the middle of the second movement of his Chamber Concerto or the middle of the third movement of the Lyric Suite.

So I'll go for the middle of the central section of Panufnik's Autumn Music.

Other palindromes are available.

[Maestro267]

1st movement development section of Beethoven's 3rd Symphony. For its time it is extraordinary! The Big Bang moment of chromaticism. The sheer audacity to bring in an entirely new theme out of nowhere in E minor of all keys!

[DavidW]

I really like this quiet passage in the middle of the third movement of the Mahler 9th.  Here it is from the awesome Karajan recording:

[atardecer]

For middle sections within a movement, the climax of the D minor section of Bach's Chaconne is among my favorites, the fast changing figurations.

[Brian]

The waltzes thread reminded me of another favorite middle, that I learned about as an impressionable youngster because it's so loved by Sergeant Rock: the waltz in the middle of the first movement of Nielsen's Third Symphony.