The least intense ending in a piece of music

[Justin Ignaz Franz Bieber]

Now for the most calm, gentle, etc least intense ending of a piece of music! my vote goes to the 2nd agnus dei from palestrina's pope marcellus mass. even in the first 20 seconds i can tell it's going to be over soon, but i never want it to end. it sounds to me like the choir has nothing left to constrain them, as if at that point they've finally broken free from something.... & then in the last minute they finally say goodbye

[Chaszz]

The first movement of one of Mozart's piano concertos, I think it's No. 24, has an ending which just stops without any grand cadence or pronounced closing chord. It is a cadence, but not emphasized at all, then the movement just sort of stops. Very interesting.

And of course there are the three very gentle closing chords of the "Leibestod" in Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde", providing at long last a final feeling of peaceful serenity, after the unresolved enormously turbulent five hours of wild harmony which precede them.

[Ubloobideega]

check out the ending to my op.4, yo yo yo!!!

"op.4 'Frogs' for string quartet"

[greg]

check out the ending to my op.4, yo yo yo!!!

"op.4 'Frogs' for string quartet"

the ending isn't that exciting, but i have to say that piece does have it's moments

[Brian]

Relative to the rest of the work, Brahms Symphony No. 3 reaches its least intense point at the very ending. But, it's still intense. 

[Bonehelm]

John Cage's 4'33''. Now could it get any "calmer" or "gentler" ? I think not.

[Kullervo]

John Cage's 4'33''. Now could it get any "calmer" or "gentler" ? I think not.

I'm so tired of this joke. 

[techniquest]

Respighi - Fountains of Rome, so so lovely.

[val]

The last moments of Bruckner's 9th (3rd movement) and of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde .

[lukeottevanger]

There's that Chopin Mazurka (can't remember the number off-hand, but it's in A flat) which just ends, in the middle of a phrase; sure, it's on a root-position tonic chord, but it is the least demonstrative thing you can imagine. Come to think of it, there's also the Mazurka (an early one, in C major, but again I can't remember the number and the score's in the car) which is to be repeated senza fine... Those Mazurkas really are phenomenal.

[johnshade]

~
The ending of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6

[BachQ]

The last moments of Bruckner's 9th (3rd movement)

Yep ........

[Kullervo]

Sibelius - Symphony No. 4

Last movement ends with quietly pulsing minor chords. I suppose this could also be considered intense.

[PerfectWagnerite]

C'mon, how about the granddaddy of them all: the final movement of Mahler's 9th.

[BachQ]

The finale/adagio to Haydn's Farewell Symphony (#45 in F-Sharp Minor).

[Brian]

The finale/adagio to Haydn's Farewell Symphony (#45 in F-Sharp Minor).

Haha, winner!

[Mark]

Things don't come much calmer than the long, gentle ending to Gorecki's Totus Tuus.

[jochanaan]

Hmmm...I would have to take issue with the recommendations of Bruckner 9, Mahler 9, Tchaik 6, Tristan und Isolde, and some of the others, which are hugely intense in their long fadeouts.  (I recommended the ending from The Planets in "the other thread" for the same reason.)  But Sibelius 4, now--that's a definite "least intense" by contrast.

Another one is the original ending of Prokofiev's Seventh (before he added the concluding flourish)--it doesn't even "just fade away," but is one of the few mezzo-forte endings I know.

Edit: That Liebestod ending is definitely intense for the oboists.

[Mark]

What about the entire last movement of Vaughan Williams' Sixth Symphony?

[lukeottevanger]

No! That's the very definition of tension, surely - utterly quiet from beginning to end, certainly, but the more intense and effective because of it. Like the musical equivalent of a post nuclear wasteland, I think I once read of this movement.