10 Works That End Gorgeously With A 'Big Tune'

Ten Works That End Gorgeously With A “Big Tune”

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
Englund: Piano Concerto No. 1
Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5
Strauss: Death and Transfiguration
Elgar: Symphony No. 1
Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
Mahler: Symphony No. 1
Dvorak: Symphony No. 4

[bloodgrss]

Have to say the end of the Mendelssohn Scottish Symphony is a tremendously exciting and unexpected big tune. Love it...

[jamesgensel]

I love Brahms' Academic Festival Overture ending with the glorious "Gaudeamus igitur"

[williammoreing]

The finale of Martinu’s Symphony #1 culminates in a Big Tune as lovely as any I can recall.

[alexanderwalker]

I am breaking the habit of a lifetime in adding something here which you don't mention, but to this video, I cannot resist - my favourite work which (almost) ends with a good tune, because it is such a good tune - Prokofiev 7.

[davidmayhew]

Your singing of the opening melody of the Bartok gave me goose bumps.

[michaelcookson]

Yes, I agree Kalinnikov's First Symphony is one of the best examples.

[janvandeperre]

Great video, Dave. One of the tunes that shine in a glorious way at the end (with a few hours between) is the "Oh hehrstes Wunder " melody from Die Walküre that reappears in the most lyrical way at the very end of the Ring and tells us that love conquers all ...

[MisterPathetique]

Fascinating talk indeed! I've always been very fond of the ending of Dvorák's 4th. I always picture a big sunrise, for some reason. And people who trash the finale should hear the way Thomas Hengelbrock does it, it's exciting as hell.
I think Dvorák's 4th deserves a dedicated talk!

[jamesmeyer]

Ives Symphony no. 2 -- glorious tune at the end!

[erb]

David, you have helped me appreciate great music for years. Thank you! Scriabin’s Piano Concerto has a great big tune in the third movement. Great stuff.

[songsmitha]

The final minutes of Lloyd's 11th Symphony. Never fails to send shivers down my spine.

[musicboiscores]

A work that comes to my mind is Atterberg's Third Symphony. The finale does take a while to get going and it stops and start a lot, but that long tune blasted on the brass at the coda is just glorious!

[stuartnorman]

Don't forget Arthur Bliss' 13 Meditations on a theme by John Blow. Glorious!

[e.i.kiselev]

Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta was actually the first piece that I remembered when I read the title. The ending was so surprising, when I listened to it the first time!

[kylejohnson]

Two symphonies that immediately come to mind are the 3rd and 4th of Braga Santos. They both have endearing and life-affirming endings with an anthem-like big tune that would bring any audience to its feet!

[francescofurlan]

Very nice talk, thanks. Now, I have to hear Englund's Piano Concerto! 😉

[ericleiter]

I think it is the poem that turned many people against the Strauss Death and Transfiguration...but on purely musical terms, I think it is the most effective and moving of all of his great tone poems

[kentan]

This is such a wonderful topic! Peter Maxwell Davies’s “An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise” comes to mind as well! I don’t know if the ending of Shostakovich’s 7th symphony counts, when the theme of the first movement emerges. Tchaikovsky must have loved this device, Swan Lake ends with *the* tune before the coda. Panufnik’s Sinfonia Sacra ends also with the great fanfare of the opening movement… which would lead in Janacek’s Sinfonietta as well. In chamber music I think one of the greatest examples is Taneyev’s Piano Quintet, the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio, Shostakovich’s Quartet No. 2. Thank you again for such a great topic!

[robhaynes]

First thing that came to mind is Roussel's Bacchus et Ariane (either complete or Suite No. 2). Love that big tune!

[KingOufer]

Three come immediately to mind: Brahms Academic Festival Overture, whose big tune hasn’t been heard before; Arnold 5th Symphony, where we are led to believe we are getting the same ending to the big tune that we heard in the second movement, only to have the rug pulled from under our feet; and finally (and this one often gets my tear ducts going) the very end of Haydn’s Symphony No.104.