If someone told you he would be going to commit suicide...

[Carlos von Kleiber]

.. what would you play him, if you had these pieces of music with you?

[MN Dave]

LOL.

1st Man: I'm going to kill myself!

2nd Man: Oh, really? What shall I play for you?

[Carlos von Kleiber]

No!

1st Man: I'm going to kill myself!

2st Man: Listen to that and you will forget all your worries.

[MN Dave]

If the Schubert doesn't help, nothing will.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

My father was mad about music. It didn't help him.

[jochanaan]

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde.

No, I'm serious.  Anyone who's really suicidal won't respond to any "happy" music; it'd probably make him/her more determined to jump.  But Das Lied von der Erde is cathartic enough, it just might bring her/him back from the edge.

[springrite]

What is the purpose of playing music for someone who is going to kill himself? Hastening the process and make it more speedy and less painful?

[not edward]

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde.

No, I'm serious.  Anyone who's really suicidal won't respond to any "happy" music; it'd probably make him/her more determined to jump.  But Das Lied von der Erde is cathartic enough, it just might bring her/him back from the edge.

Agreed.

Of the pieces listed there, I think only the Webern could supply an appropriate shock to the system that might make the person rethink.

[Cato]

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde.

No, I'm serious.  Anyone who's really suicidal won't respond to any "happy" music; it'd probably make him/her more determined to jump.  But Das Lied von der Erde is cathartic enough, it just might bring her/him back from the edge.

The last time I checked research in music therapy, which the psychology department at my alma mater (for the master's degree) specialized in, that finding was quite true.

Stormy passages from Bach had a better effect than something "sunny" on depressed people.

[Opus106]

Maybe just the second movement from Mozart's concerto.

[ChamberNut]

Brahms Lullaby

[Anne]

Whenever I was depressed but not suicidal, I always wanted music that mirrored my mood, then work upward from there.  For me it was always Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony.

[op.110]

I'd play Kevorkian and play him Shostakovich's Viola Sonata (3rd movement)

That should send him right on his way.  0:)

[RebLem]

Whenever I was depressed but not suicidal, I always wanted music that mirrored my mood, then work upward from there.  For me it was always Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony.

The Mahler 9th, Strauss's Metamorphosen, the Shostakovich 12th.  And then, to cheer up, the Shostakovich 9th, the Prokofiev Classical Symphony, Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals.  And then, something sublime and ennobling: Bach Cantatas 8, 140 & 147, Handel's Messiah.

[op.110]

Brahms Lullaby

HA! 

That made me tickle inside.

[MN Dave]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWPkRMxtgVQ

[M forever]

It really depends on how he is planning to kill himself. If he wants to jump from a tall building, I would select the soundtrack to "Superman". If he wants to blow up or set himself on fire, I would recommend "Music for the Royal Fireworks". If he wants to drown himself, I would play "La Mer".

OK, seriously now. If someone is that depressive, than only Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead" can help cheer him up.

[Renfield]

Mahler's 9th, Mahler's 9th... Mahler's 9th, too.

From those listed, I wonder if the Goldbergs wouldn't do the trick, out of sheer profundity of sound. Even if I was suicidal, I wouldn't find it implausible that they'd give me pause enough to reconsider.

[Carlos von Kleiber]

Interesting, only one vote for Zarathustra yet.
IMO that piece is pure beauty, if you listen to it you can even feel how your body regenerates physically.

[hornteacher]

Play a Mahler symphony.  It'll take so long that by the time its finished he will have forgotten he was going to kill himself.