Most achingly-beautiful music

Bach's cello suite no 2. "Famous blue Raincoat" by Leanoard Cohen. "Fly" by Nick Drake.

Great thread! I have just a couple of suggestions. Gorecky's Symphony For Sad Songs, UTE Lemper's BARABARA, Keith Jarrett, Charlie Haden, Jan Garbarek and orchestra on ARBOUR ZENA.

Getz/Gilberto - everything - gentle and romantic

Neil Young - live, alone, acoustic, small intimate venues (mostly bootlegs) - raw, emotional performances

Pink Floyd - early, live recordings, best before Dark Side of the Moon (mostly bootlegs) - cutting edge (but still accessible) experimentation with music that evokes awe and respect for human creativity (like the Beatles, but we all know about what awesome work *they* did).

Two works by R.Straus need mentioning:Death and Transfiguration--and the trio and duet from the last act of der Rosenkavalier.
Other favorites of mine are the Bailero from Songs of the
Auvergne (Canteloube), sung by Kiri te Kanawa; Deux Arabesques (Debussy), for piano; and the Humming Chorus from the second act of Madame Butterfly (Puccini).
The Gorecki Symphony mentioned above is his #3,
nicely performed by London Sinfonietta with soprano Dawn
Upshaw.

Astor Piazzolla's "Death of an Angel"
Astor Piazzolla's "Libertango"
Pat Metheny -- "Offramp".