Best One Note Endings/Orchestral or Otherwise

[(poco) Sforzando]

The New World Symphony

That's a full chord, but it does work in the spirit of a slow fade to pianissimo.

I can't think offhand of a lot of pianissimo or fadeout endings on a single note in Beethoven, but one at the very close of a work is in the D minor Tempest Sonata from op. 31.

[imperfection]

Rachmaninoff - Etudes Tableaux, op.33 No.8 in G minor

I'm going to play this for my grade 10 RCM piano exam. Wish me luck, for it is very challenging. 

[Mark G. Simon]

In tonal music, with the exception of works for solo violin or cello or other non-keyboard instrument, the need to spell out the tonic triad is going to make endings which end on a single note pretty rare. Endings with octaves, especially fortissimo, are common, but one single quiet note fading away you're not going to find very much.

[lukeottevanger]

Neptune from the Planets

...and that's a fade-out, but on a set of chords, not single notes.

[techniquest]

Shchedrin's Concerto for Orchestra No.1 "Merrie Ditties" ends on a quick unison note which is totally unrelated to the sequence which leads to it. Ruders' "Concerto in Pieces" does a similar trick with a longer note.
Far more subtle and beautiful is the single C# on the glockenspiel which turns the very end of Shostakovich's 15th from A minor to A major. Fantastic.

[Cato]

Rachmaninoff - Etudes Tableaux, op.33 No.8 in G minor

I'm going to play this for my grade 10 RCM piano exam. Wish me luck, for it is very challenging. 

Indeed it is!  Think positive: G minor is marvelous for Slavic melancholy!   

You will do fine!   0:)

Is Grade 10 the top of the ladder?

[Guido]

Shostakovich's Second Cello concerto, as recently mentioned on another thread has a fantastic ending on the cello's lowest D piano, lasting for maybe 20 bars accompanied by untuned percussion, then crescendoing in one bar to a staccato. Fantastic stuff.

Carter's cello concerto finishes with a skittish and jocular solo cello figure then a pizz harmonic.

Walton's cello concerto finishes on a quiet low cello C. Probably the reason it doesn't get played more often - about as unheroic an ending as you can get!

There might be a few Ives works that do...

[lukeottevanger]

Schnittke's 7th certainly fits the bill...

[imperfection]

Indeed it is!  Think positive: G minor is marvelous for Slavic melancholy!   

You will do fine!   0:)

Is Grade 10 the top of the ladder?

It is, so to speak, but there is always the ARCT ( Associate of the Royal Canadian Conservatory of Music) Piano performance diploma. But that one's for people who want to pursue a career as a concert pianist, which I'm not planning to do. So I guess that will be my last exam. Thanks for your warm encouragement 

[Cato]

It is, so to speak, but there is always the ARCT ( Associate of the Royal Canadian Conservatory of Music) Piano performance diploma. But that one's for people who want to pursue a career as a concert pianist, which I'm not planning to do. So I guess that will be my last exam. Thanks for your warm encouragement 

One of my former students (of German, not music, but music was always involved in the way I taught German)  is now a professor of music at Ohio State in piano.  Not too long ago, when he gave a recital with the Prokofiev Seventh Sonata among other things, he told me he panicked when he saw me in the audience!  Even though he had played in front of jurors at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, he said my presence rattled him.

"He's going to hear every mistake!"

In fact he did quite fine!  But to make up for that, I always want to encourage budding pianists!   0:)

[imperfection]

One of my former students (of German, not music, but music was always involved in the way I taught German)  is now a professor of music at Ohio State in piano.  Not too long ago, when he gave a recital with the Prokofiev Seventh Sonata among other things, he told me he panicked when he saw me in the audience!  Even though he had played in front of jurors at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, he said my presence rattled him.

"He's going to hear every mistake!"

In fact he did quite fine!  But to make up for that, I always want to encourage budding pianists!   0:)

That's very true, often bad performances are due to psychological factors of the musician(s) and not physical ones. I mean, if you are on the level that you play Prokofiev in recitals, you must have practiced the pieces so much you could practically play the thing without the keyboard, in your imagination or dreams. During the recital, muscle memory will take care of almost everything, and no matter how many notes your fingers must execute per second, they will come out fine: only if you feel prepared, however.

[greg]

That's very true, often bad performances are due to psychological factors of the musician(s) and not physical ones. I mean, if you are on the level that you play Prokofiev in recitals, you must have practiced the pieces so much you could practically play the thing without the keyboard, in your imagination or dreams. During the recital, muscle memory will take care of almost everything, and no matter how many notes your fingers must execute per second, they will come out fine: only if you feel prepared, however.

Not that I'm a professional performer or anything, but I know exactly what you mean here- I completely agree; any thought that takes your mind off of actually playing something can make you completely mess up, or forget what comes next.
This is a bit unrelated, but it just brought back to mind the story of this guy who was playing his own piano concerto- more like, practicing it when he stops and forgets the rest of it. Then Prokofiev comes up and finishes the rest of it. 

[Ten thumbs]

In tonal music, with the exception of works for solo violin or cello or other non-keyboard instrument, the need to spell out the tonic triad is going to make endings which end on a single note pretty rare. Endings with octaves, especially fortissimo, are common, but one single quiet note fading away you're not going to find very much.

True. The nearest Beethoven comes is in Op 90, which fades to two notes in unison but they are quiet.
Here is a true single note fade out from that period: Fanny Hensel - Abschied von Rom.

[lukeottevanger]

Of course there are plenty in late Liszt, too - but then the question of tonality in that music is a little more vexed.

[pjme]

Arthur Honegger : Symphony nr 5 "Di tre re".

P.

[Wendell_E]

Other Mahler works have been discussed earlier in the thread, but I don't see any mention of the 4th symphony. 

[Joe_Campbell]

Rachmaninoff - Etudes Tableaux, op.33 No.8 in G minor

I'm going to play this for my grade 10 RCM piano exam. Wish me luck, for it is very challenging. 

Sorry to bring this up again, but I'm looking at my score for the etudes, and I can't figure which one you're talking about. The only piece in G minor I can see is #7 and it ends with a low G in the bass and the 2nd inversion of the triad up higher (though still on the bass clef). #8 is in C#minor and ends with 2 C octaves.

[Joe_Campbell]

To answer the original posters question, I would say Scriabin's 5th sonata with a screeching G#, although it has 4 grace notes!

[donaldopato]

Havergal Brian Symphony # 10, a single Eb on the timpani supported by bass drum.

[Ten thumbs]

Sorry to bring this up again, but I'm looking at my score for the etudes, and I can't figure which one you're talking about. The only piece in G minor I can see is #7 and it ends with a low G in the bass and the 2nd inversion of the triad up higher (though still on the bass clef). #8 is in C#minor and ends with 2 C octaves.

No.8 is indeed in G minor, the C# minor one is No.9. The confusion has arisen because the composer withdrew No.4 and republished it in Op.39. I think it best to stick to the original published numbers. However, I agree that the ending is not a single note. No.3 ends on a single C but with the pedal held down. No.6 ends with a solo phrase over a long bass pedal chord.