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What piece of music do you think best captures death?

Featured Replies

Title says it all

I have a feeling there might be lots of Mahler posts in this topic but my personal favorite:

 

I mean obviously

 

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# minor.  I remembering first hearing this and having such a sense of foreboding, as if it were the essence of an Edgar Allen Poe story set to music.  I then later learned that it was inspired by a dream Rachmaninoff had where he was at a funeral and as he approached the coffin, he began feeling more and more terrified and anxious until he finally sees who is in it... him of course!  So my initial impression was right after all.

 

I thought for sure someone was going to mention this Mahler Symphony No.5 movement here (I like this one too and it has a section labeled "Trauermarsch" which means "Funeral March" in German):

 

 

This one to me is decent example, especially the ending: 

No one writes in B minor like Tchaikovsky 😭

Or, maybe these ones (Check this guy out, he's pretty amazing): 

 

 

 

Here are 3 pieces that I think illustrate 3 different aspects/types of death well:

Grief after death, no matter how long after the death, the pain will return

Slowly dying

Tragic death

  • 2 weeks later...

Henry Purcel- lament, It has a nice orchestral transcription: 
 

tchaikovsky- elegy for strings; a dramatic introduction, lyrical main theme and a tragic middle part (3:00)
 

 

vivaldi rv 447-2 introduction part 
 

 

 

  • 8 months later...

Mahler, Symphony No. 10, in particular movement 5.

m.337, or 1:12:00 exactly in the below recording, is pure catharsis, but given the context, the relief you feel is a very tragic relief. At least for me, I get the sense that the entire fifth movement is just someone dying, and this moment of release is when they finally come to terms with it.

 

  • 4 months later...

The final movement of Mahler's Ninth Symphony. The ending seems to release itself into oblivion.

The final moments of Sibelius' 7th. The gentle swells and the ultimate release are just so tranquil and moving, like slipping into the embrace of the next life.

 

Edited by Tónskáld

I was in two minds about responding on this topic but since Tónskáld has mentioned Sibelius, the one work that I feel captures death is Sibelius' Valse Triste. 

I once did a piano arrangement of it. 

  • 4 weeks later...

a

Edited by Rômulo Mello

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