Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner most haunting and/or longing melodies/motifs

What are some of your guys' picks for this? The melody can be harmonic/polyphonic but in general I'm talking about something you could hum/sing, rather than the atmosphere of a piece being particularly haunting. Searching the board has yielded a lot of "most beautiful piece" threads, but I couldn't find one about simply the melody, where if you took away the entire development of the piece and just played the melody it'd still be powerful.

My picks:

Chopin Nocturne in c# minor (op. posth) - I know musicians sometimes give this piece a lot of crap for being simplistic and such, but I personally think it's Chopin's most longing, heart-wrenching melody.

Chopin Etude Op. 25 no 7

Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, var 18 - maybe more rousing than haunting but it's so beautiful I had to include it

Tabhair dom do lámh (Give Me Your Hand, an old Irish folk song)

Ashokan Farewell

Highland Cathedral

Brahms Intermezzo Op 118 no2, the third melody

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I'm assuming theres something about all these melodies in common or something, does someone more knowledgeable about music theory than I am think this is the case?

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B minor, op. 32.

I think the most haunting piece for piano I've ever heard is Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica The theme from Contrapunctus I in The Art of Fugue is so loaded with emotion.

-Colin

Chopin Waltz in F Minor Op 70 No.2

(Currently learning it myself.)

For melody, you gotta go to Schubert. The Serenade, as a stand alone haunting melody, cannot be beaen.

Try this for a really peculiar rendition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdStu36UAkk

An die Musik is on the same video, but as a haunting melody, it's not in a league with the Serenade.

Tomasino

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000V88FJ4/ref=dm_mu_dp_trk1?ie=UTF8&qid=1200019330&sr=8-4

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http://www.amazon.com/Honegger-Chri...mp;s=music&qid=1200019709&sr=1-1

Track 1

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And of course, the most magnificently haunting of all, Bartok's 89 bar, 8 voice double fugue in retrograde inversion based on the Fibonacci series:

http://www.amazon.com/Bart%C3%B3k-Concerto-Orchestra-Strings-Percussion/dp/B00005MOA4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1200019931&sr=1-1

track 6

(used in the Shining)

Ginistera's Dance of the Beautiful girl. Haunting and beautiful. Here's a snipit!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=tNyOqBP67A0&feature=related
Matt

Mendelssohn's violin concerto's opening melody will always be the top melody of such kind. also, add Beethoven string quartet op.132 last movement theme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOlmxT6Q0uE

The E minor? or the D minor?

For haunting, my favorite has always been Thomas Tallis's "Third Mode Melody," which is the underlying melody behind Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis," itself hauntingly beautiful.

Ed

Chopin - Wiosna (Spring) Liszt's transcription. This one finds its way onto music boxes and into spooky movies from time to time.
Bach 2nd Fugue in WTC -also finds its way into spooky movies
Larghetto Chopin's op 11, E major concerto
Liszt Libestraume nr 3

Does it need to be a piano piece? For haunting and beautiful, I'd nominate Albinoni's adagio and Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade.

And, at the grave risk of getting tomatoes thrown at me, for contemporary music I'd nominate this for a beautiful and longing melody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROKcr2OTgws

I'd pick the 2nd mvmt. from Shostakovich's piano concerto No. 2. When the piano comes in, I swear, it's the sound of the sunrise.

Piano works--

Bach: Keyboard Concerto in F minor, 2nd movement

Bach: French Suite No. 5, Allemande and Gigue

Bach: Partita No. 2, Sinfonia

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23, 2nd movement

Schubert: Impromptus, Op. 142, Nos. 2 and 3

Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor, 2nd movement

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3, 1st movement

Ravel: Piano Concerto in G, 2nd movement

Shostakovich: Prelude and Fugue in D minor
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Non-piano works--

Bach: The Sheep May Safely Graze

Gliere: Concerto for Soprano and Orchestra, opening section

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto, 2nd movement

Elgar: Cello Concerto, 1st movement

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, 1st and 3rd movements

I quite enjoyed that tomasino, though I doubt our friend BruceD would care for it.

As for "haunting/longing":

The opening of Act III of Tristan. Wagner's sublime genius in full flower... and setting the stage for a very shattering close.

And then...

The beginning of Elgar's First Symphony. Marked "Nobilmente", it is more "longing" and "haunting" to me. Anyone thinking that Elgar is all about Empire and Colonel Blimp may wish to reconsider. That stuff is old hat, past bearing.

"Sarajevo" by Max Richter

I quite enjoyed that tomasino, though I doubt our friend BruceD would care for it. [/QUOTE]


I gave my opinion on that video when Tomasino first posted it!

Cheers!

also, Saint Seans Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso openning theme:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD059jkt6bs

I gave my opinion on that video when Tomasino first posted it!

Cheers! [/b][/QUOTE]

Sorry I am not following you guys.

Can you guys tell me what is strange regarding this rendition?

It looks good enough for me.

Well for one thing a boy (horrors!) is singing it.

But whilst we're here, did anyone notice the piano accompaniment? It was very professionally and atmospherically played- one could hear the plucking mandolin.

I've always maintained that this accompaniment is a lot harder to play than it sounds. Throw in Liszt's contributions, and it's a nasty piece of business.

Too many to name, but here's an off-the-wall choice which I find particularly haunting: the third movement of Schoenberg's Fourth String Quartet.

[ducks the tomatoes]