The saddest music in a major key

[Brian]

Just catching up the Mozart thread and found this:

The bit that really hit me, given what I'd just been saying on the WAYLT thread, was how Eine kleine Nachtmusik was used absolutely perfectly as the background to a party, only for Hazelwood to completely ruin the effect by linking it to the death of Leopold Mozart and insisting it contained the saddest music anyone had ever written in a major key.

That pundit's absurd opinion made me laugh. But then I thought: hey, what is the saddest music in a major key? Florestan immediately nominated Schubert. My mind actually went to Vaughan Williams, particularly the Fifth Symphony. I bet Brahms has some good candidates.

[Jo498]

"He was despised" from Messiah

"Des Baches Wiegenlied" from Die schöne Müllerin

instrumental:

- Mozart: slow movement of the last piano concerto K 595

- lots of Schubert, e.g. the beginning of the last piano sonata or the trio section of the 3rd movement of the string quintet

- Mahler: first and last movement of the 9th symphony.

[Mandryka]

Satie, Gymnopedie 2
Duparc, chanson triste
Chopin op 10/3

[(poco) Sforzando]

The Dead March from Handel's Saul.

Siegfried's dying monologue from Gotterdammerung.

[DavidW]

Mahler's 9th Symphony

[Opus131]

Florestan immediately nominated Schubert.

I'm going to have to concur here.

I'm getting shivers just thinking about the String Quintet in C major.

[Symphonic Addict]

Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte for starters.

[The new erato]

Schuberts quintet in C major. No contest for me.

[DaveF]

Elgar 2 (in E flat major) comes to mind, although the saddest bits - the slow movement, the central section of the first - are actually in minor keys.  What about the slow movement of the violin concerto? - pure B flat major, pure sorrow.