The most profound piece of classical music is...?

[vandermolen]

Bruckner Symphony 9

Vaughan Williams Symphony 6 (Epilogue)

Sibelius Tapiola/Symphony 4

[btpaul674]

For now, I am going to say Rautavaara's 8th.

[DavidRoss]

Sibelius Tapiola/Symphony 4

Those are the pieces that first came to mind as personal choices.  I would be hard-pressed to choose between them.

Arvo Pärt, Kanon Pokajanen - comes to mind. I've been listening to the whole 90 minutes of it many times, last winter, and it's rather profound indeed. As music about repentence and resurrection should be.

And this post reminded me that it's been too long since hearing this candidate, but I was considering Fratres as a strong contender.

Bach's Goldberg Variations are deep enough to have proven unfathomable for me--likewise the suites for solo cello, the SMP, AoF, solo violin sonatas and partitas.  Beethoven's Hammerklavier, Mozart's 40th and his d minor piano concerto, Debussy's Preludes, Mahler's Song of the Earth...the list could go on and on--and that's what makes classical music such a treasure trove.

BTW, I'm not sure how to measure the depth of a musical piece objectively, but for me it means that I never seem to tire of it, that I can explore it again and again and always find something that moves me, that it's a piece I can get lost in--such that the gap between observed and observer disappears, that it holds up over years and years and still speaks to me no matter how familiar with it I become and no matter how much I've grown.

[greg]

For now, I am going to say Rautavaara's 8th.

really? I'd say for a (just about) 21st century piece, definitetly!

[Kullervo]

Sibelius Tapiola/Symphony 4

This would be my answer too.

[drogulus]

     Tapiola, yes. The 4th symphony I'm still working on.

[schweitzeralan]

Hypothetically, Scriabin's Mysterium. I don't think anything could be more profound than Scriabin's description "There will not be a single spectator. All will be participants. The work requires special people, special artists and a completely new culture. The cast of performers includes an orchestra, a large mixed choir, an instrument with visual effects, dancers, a procession, incense, and rhythmic textural articulation. The cathedral in which it will take place will not be of one single type of stone but will continually change with the atmosphere and motion of the Mysterium. This will be done with the aid of mists and lights, which will modify the architectural contours."  Later he added that after the grand performance the world would come to an end with the human race replaced by "nobler beings."

Theoretically, Mahler's 9 Symphonies listened to back-to-back. I'm not sure if this is actually humanly possible though and would likely have extremely dangerous consequences for the health of any individual trying it.

Practically though, there are many pieces depending on the type of profundity desired. Here are a few that are equally profound in different ways:

Bach - The Art of Fugue
Beethoven - Symphony No. 9
Brahms - Symphony No. 4
Sibelius - Symphony No. 7
Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time
Penderecki - Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
Pärt - Fratres
Górecki - Symphony No. 3
Nørgård - Symphony No. 3

I'd agree regarding the Scriabin. There are so many works that fall into this category. The "Gotterdamerung" is a good possibility.Then there's the Mahler 9th and Sibelius' "Tapiola." Carter's "Variations For Orchestra is another powerful work.

[mahler10th]

Rautavaara 5

Tha Tao of all things.

[offbeat]

Well to be honest not 100 percent know the definition of profound but if i think i know what it means would choose
Bruckner 7th Symphony
Richard Strauss Metamorphosen
Sibelius 6th Symphony - first movement

will that do 

[rappy]

Tristan and Isolde

or

An Alpine Symphony

[karlhenning]

Ought to be a contrabassoon solo, I should think.

[mahler10th]

Well, if not Rautavaara 5, how about the finale to Beethovens 9th?  Profoundly driven or what?

[Carolus]

Debussy's The Sea, of course. It can reach 11.000 metres.

[max]

What's the quality of "Profound" in music anyways. Something which gives you an out of body experience, a contradiction in terms which you haven't yet come to terms with and consequently find fascinating and mystical?
...or is it something more dynamic like a mental journey toward Dante's Paradiso, a revelation whose chords are never resolved...which could also be a journey toward death. Mahler's 9th and Bruckners 8 & 9th remind me of that. Music more than words can lead one to that scenario.

[drogulus]

     I think it must be one of the most difficult things a composer can do to suggest somehow that music has depth in a way unspecifiable in purely technical terms. I've immersed myself in the music of Bax recently and it occurs to me that a great deal of craft goes in to suggesting mystery or the mystical. Does it have anything to do with a composers own beliefs in that direction? Not necessarily. It's probably a goal that can be achieved if it is chosen, regardless of the composers beliefs about what musical profundity actually communicates. There is a confusion between what is delivered and what is evoked. If you can evoke a feeling you can take responsibilty for any profundity associated with it without knowing anything more than the listener does about extramusical meaning. The content, if any, is supplied on the other end by the listener.

     This works because composer and listeners share common feelings and a common tendency to attribute meaning to them, even when they can't actually say what that meaning is. Evocation is taken for communication of far more than music itself can provide. Composer and listener share something primarily by drawing on their own resources, which are sufficiently similar to make this work. It's a little like the mentalist who says a few vague things and you come to believe he knows everything about you. The power of suggestion should not be underestimated.

     

[jochanaan]

So, drogulus, to continue your thought a step, is "the most profound music" the music that evokes the most powerful responses in listeners?  (That's not an argumentative question, because I tend to agree. )

[Elgarian]

Doesn't it depend on whether we think there's anything for music to be profound about? The difficulty about assuming that there isn't is that it pulls the rug out from under the value we place on the experience. The profundity one experiences has to be believed to be a real insight, I think, if it's to continue to have value. Once one 'explains it away', and 'sees through it', the experience becomes of no more significance than eating a chocolate bar. As CS Lewis said somewhere: to see through everything is not to see at all.  

[drogulus]

So, drogulus, to continue your thought a step, is "the most profound music" the music that evokes the most powerful responses in listeners?  (That's not an argumentative question, because I tend to agree. )

   Certainly that, and perhaps more. We also have to think it's profound. That's a kind of strong effect, so the question ought to be how a profound effect differs from a merely strong one.

Doesn't it depend on whether we think there's anything for music to be profound about? The difficulty about assuming that there isn't is that it pulls the rug out from under the value we place on the experience. The profundity one experiences has to be believed to be a real insight, I think, if it's to continue to have value. Once one 'explains it away', and 'sees through it', the experience becomes of no more significance than eating a chocolate bar. As CS Lewis said somewhere: to see through everything is not to see at all.  

   Yes, what we think about what we feel depends on what we think. We just have a hard time inventing meanings for terms when we insist they refer to things, even though we don't really know what, or if, anything outside feelings is actually involved beyond a particular kind of response to a stimulus. We have to think some stimuli are profound, without having the ability to express what profundity is about, probably because of preconceptions that such unknowns are signs of specific entities. What's an unknown specific entity? It might be better to wipe the slate clean and ask what causes feelings of profundity. That would allow a real answer to emerge about why some music can evoke these feelings.

    I don't think any rug is pulled. The feelings are just as strong and maintain their value without the Platonism. You don't give up anything valuable, you just recalibrate causes and effects more efficiently and realistically. "Aboutness" is addressed directly, not just assumed. If I'm sad it may not have to do with a master Sadness entity or a realm of sadness or even particles of sadness in my soup.

     C.S. Lewis must have been an engaging writer, but as a thinker he is positively blithering, an unreconstructed entity monger. There's not a feeling in the world he wouldn't be willing to imagine an entity for, and having imagined it, why, there it is! Escaping this silliness is the entry price for a serious discussion like this.   _0:)

[mahler10th]

This is an oustanding performance of Beet 9, probably the best I've ever heard.  Profound music indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A

[matti]

Very nice answers, though I am sorry about Varg's ass. 

An ancient post, but good literature never dies.