Most achingly-beautiful music

I love the way that Parnas physically interacts with her instrument. At one point she tosses her hair back to increase the intimacy with her neck.

I generally tend not to have much interest in unorthodox arrangements of familiar music, but I find the following arrangement for cello and piano of Puccini's famous aria "O Mio Babbino Caro," from his opera  "Gianni Schicchi," to be quite beautiful.

The talented young performers are pianist Marnie Laird and cellist Cicely Parnas.  Cicely created the arrangement.

Some may recognize the music from the wonderful 1985 film "A Room with a View," in which the aria was sung by the great Kiri Te Kanawa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAZ2UUlQvbc

Regards,
-- Al

I don’t recall the name of the Pizza place or the Red Lion. But it was the seventies. What can I tell ya? I also lived a couple blocks down from the Biograph theater on Pennsylvania Ave. on Washington Circle, the one with the statue of some dude on a horse. You’re from Jersey? I’m from Jersey. I was born in NJ.

@geoffkait 

I heard her free concert on the mall in 1971 when I was at GWU. Did you ever go to the Red Lion pub? There was also a pizza place we frequented (if you can call anything they served in DC real pizza - I'm from NJ) but I can't recall the name. It began with an N I think. And a great deli down by Watergate.

Also heard Neil Young at a club in Georgetown. Someplace with a horse in it's name. And then there was the all-night bakery, Kumpits, when we got the munchies late at night.

My roommate worked at Mr. Henry’s, no wait, he just drank at Mr. Henry’s. Roberta Flack sang there in the late 60s.

Lucky young man!

Back in the early 70s I lived right across Pennsylvania Ave. from Mr. Henry’s, in DC, where Roberta Flack used to play a couple years earlier.

@mahgister 
Thanks 4 the response.

Pink Floyd's Great Gig in the Sky on the Dark Side of the Moon

I must admit that the album by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway has touch me very much indeed... Then I think that you are right for his "uniqueness"...And I am not a fan of "soul" music tough, but genius is genius... My best to you...

Almost anything by Roberta Flack; but I'll offer "The Impossible Dream" today because her interpretation is so unique. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H24wcLTj0BQ

Lemme know how you feel.

Ones that move me

Gary Moore, Bathory, Overkill, thin Lizzy, Humble Pie, Venom, Sodom, Jackson Browne.

with several runners up.

Beatles. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLk6vqaxU1Y 


Listen to that and you will go into the abyss of the heart with a pianist guide playing as if like perfect playing was only child practice...This god is the best pianist I ever listen to...

Brian Wilson: "God Only Knows" (heard on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album), "Til I Die" (on their Surf's Up album).

All the music from Shindler’s List by John Williams! Almost painful to listen too.

Marcin Wasilewski Trio: Austin
Mary Chapin Carpenter: Come on, Come on
New Queens Hall Orchestra: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
 

Gotta get me some more Gillian Welch!

Here's another, as cosmic as lyrics come. I saw her do it live when she opened for Neil Young on his Greendale tour. What a show!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CywArYObn2U

Emmylou Harris  - The Pearl
This may not be the best version.

Lamentations by Banco de Gaia.

Acquiescence by Banco de Gaia. Also, the same song's Tripswitch Remix.

Everything is Free by Gillian Welch.  A great song about how most artists are left with almost nothing in the age of free downloads.

I'm Not Afraid to Die by Gillian Welch.

April the 14th Part 1 by Gillian Welch, on the live Music from the Revelator album.  If this song doesn't get you, nothing will.

Revelator by Gillian Welch, also on the live album.  Exquisite guitar work by Dave Rawlings.

Coming up for Air by Patty Larkin.  Beautiful.

Make Me a Temple by Yael Illah.  Achingly beautiful is a fitting description.  Nearly everything on this album is like that.

Desert Tranquility by Michael Keck, on the Islam album.  Many beautiful songs on this album.

I've broadened my music horizons in recent years.

My favorite musician is Robert Rich.  I would describe a lot of his music as haunting, such as Beyond Part 1.  Not beautiful, but mesmerizing.  I think of that song as symbolizing a descent into hell or into a human-created hellish world.

Lucinda Williams' "West".

Leonard Cohen.....If It Be Thy Will... the Webb sisters

The door which opened to me to the world of classical music by hearing Richard Wagners Siefried’s Funeral (Gotterdammerung). This music was so powerful, dramatic, alot of tension and so achingly beautifully put together, not only that, he introduced new musical nuances to the piece. When I heard it (and I listened mostly to heavy rock at the time) I knew I heard a masterpeice written by a musical genius. As to other ’classical achingly beautiful pieces’ there are to many very good contenders for me to pick second and third choices.

Thank you sir.

@slaw ,

Great call.

Eva Cassidy   Autumn Leaves    makes me cry. Achingly beautiful....

Damien Rice / Lisa Hannigan  "Cold Water

Playing Disraeli Gears this afternoon and decided this song MUST be on the list: Dance The Night Away - Jack Bruce at his finest...

I'm afraid my selection is from the same pianist.
Liszt - Un Sospiro
Beethoven - Piano Sonata Op.109
Chopin - Nocturne in C sharp Minor Op. Posth.

Pianist - Claudio Arrau.
I have to listen to these pieces alone.

Oh, Lang's "Constant Craving" is another fav.

K D Lang  "Wash Me Clean"

Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water
Dusty Springfield-You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Someone earlier had mentioned Alison Krauss' cover of Richard Thompson's Dimming of the Day. I love that version; but I think Bonnie Raitt's version suits me a tad better.
https://secondhandsongs.com/performance/8885/versions

1. Schubert's  String Quintet in C, D956
2. Ralph Vaughn Williams " The Lark Ascending " .
3. Zoltan Kodaly   Cello Sonata Op.8 

Custer LaRue, Amazing Grace.

Aretha Franklin - I never loved a man the way that I love you.
Eva Cassidy - (really anything)
Diana Krall - A case of You
Joni Mitchell - Blue
John Lennon- Imagine
Mozart - (Piano) moonlight sonata
Billy Joel - And so it goes
Natalie Merchant - (also really anything)
The Beatles - Yesterday
Alison Krauss - Ghost in This House

My buddy said the sound of the screen door closing as his mother in-law leaves his house is so beautiful it always moves him to tears.

Just came to mind..
Rachael Yamagata: I Wish You Love. (Prime soundtrack)*
Chet Baker: I’ve Never Been In Love Before.

Iris Dement is another I hadn't heard of. This thread is costing me too much money. ;^)

Wow! 17 years and still going. I gotta chime in
*Harry Belafonte - Take My Mother Home, Turn Turn, Scarlet Ribbons,      Danny Boy, Try To Remember
*Linda Ronstadt - Faithless Love, Long Long Time
*Eva Cassidy - Fields of Gold
*Left Banke - Walk Away, Renee (also Vonda Shepard)
*Indigo Girls - Down By The River (live)
*Many - Summertime, I think I lke Big Brother & the Holding Company best;   but Even Perry Como did a really nice version
* Cowboy Junkies - His Song/Her Song
*Concrete Blonde - Joey
* Isis (the old all girl band) - Rubber Boy
* Candy Stanton - He Called Me Baby
* Teresa Brewer - Let Me Go, Lover
* Bonnie Raitt - I Can't Make You Love Me
* Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Killing The Blues

There are so many great recordings listed here I haven't read them all, so please excuse me if I duplicated any.

In no paricular order:

• Bach, JS: Violin Concerto in D Minor (after Harpsichord Concerto, BWV 1052): III. Allegro - Itzhak Perlman
  
• Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy
  
• Chick Corea/Return To Forever, or Chick Corea and Gary Burton - Crystal Silence
• The Killing Moon by Echo and The Bunnymen in "Donnie Darko"
  
• New Order - Perfect Kiss
  
• Depeche Mode - Suffer Well, M83 remix
• Kachaturian Violin Concerto - Perlman
• Henryk Szeryng - Tchaikovsky Violin concerto
  
• Evgeny Kissin -  Piano Concerto No.1, Karajan and Berlin Philharmonic
  
• Joshua Bell - Meditation, for piano in D major, Op. 72/5, Tchaikovsky
• The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Electric Ladyland - 1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be - requires prior ingestion of LSD-25
  
• Life on Mars? David Bowie

Earlier this morning I wrote the wrong song title. It's actually not even listed on the cover hence my mistake. I think it' Pan Bowl by Sturgill Simpson and not Ain't All Flowers. 

Bliss... "Wish You Were Here"  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nhLWBf6lS0

In no particular order...

Chopin...nocturne op 9, no 2.
Chopin...prelude e minor op 28, no 4.
Schubert...Ave Maria
Bach...orchestral suite no 3 (air on g string)
Van Halen...Hot for Teacher

Allison Krause "Forget About It" (lp)

Bringing this thread back from the dead..

I'm not a big Nick Cave fan, but his new album has some amazing tracks.. This one in particular is hauntingly beautiful, especially when you know that his 11-12 year old son died while he was making this album.. I've never heard such deep and raw emotion portrayed so directly and beautifully.

Anyhow: Nick Cave - 'Distant Sky' off the album Skeleton Tree

https://youtu.be/xCVgsI5h9p0

Thanks for the link, Stan.  Fits the thread's name perfectly.