What are the greatest moments in classical music history? The bits that make you immediately rewind and play them again? Simply, the most surprising, shocking, beautiful or weird bits in classical music? Here are 10 moments that will make you say 'OMG'…
The top C in Allegri's Miserere
There you are, just chilling out with a bit of 17th century choral music like any self-respecting person would do, and then all of a sudden, BAM! High C! Emotional overload! Skip straight to it by pressing play below…
The climax of Beethoven's 9th Symphony Everyone sing along!
"Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium!" This is such a fist-pumping moment. How fist-pumping? Well, it's supposed to encapsulate the joy of humanity, of being alive, Germanic might, the brotherhood of man and basically all worldly positivity, which is a pretty tall order. Does Beethoven manage it? Take a listen… (the answer's 'yes', by the way.)
The opening chords of Elgar's Cello Concerto, played by Jacqueline Du Pré
Few pieces are so iconic that they can be defined by a few chords alone, and few musicians are so iconic that they can be defined by one piece. In a word, 'whoompf'.
The Tristan Chord
How can one chord redefine the way we think about music? Well, it's simple. All Wagner did when he plonked this gorgeous little progression into the opening of his opera Tristan und Isolde was use an augmented fourth, an augmented sixth and an augmented ninth above the root to imply a completely different harmonic relation. Easy, yeah? Oh, just listen to it…
Don Giovanni is dragged to hell
Much of Mozart's Don Giovanni is actually quite humorous, with amorous japes and farce aplenty, but things take an incredibly sinister turn right at the end when the Don himself (think of him as a folkloric version of Russell Brand with comparable dress-sense) is finally forced to atone for his sins. There's a slow knock at the door, Giovanni opens it and is confronted with a stone statue of the Commendatore, who drags the screaming Don into the fiery netherworld. Yikes!
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