Most achingly-beautiful music

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.

Try this.....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8NN4fpdm40&NR=1&feature=fvwp

2 more songs;
If I Were A Carpenter
Witchita Lineman

Mozart Violin Concerto #3: Anne-Sophie Mutter (DG set of Mozart violin concertos, 2006)

Beethoven Symphony #5: Herbert Von Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic (DG set of the 9 Beethoven symphonies, recorded in 1963 in the "old" concert hall in Berlin)

"The Girl in the Other Room": Diana Krall (CD by the same name)

Thanks, Tubegroover. Glad you enjoyed it! The text and some of the commentary at the link are a bit misleading, as Al Hibbler's recording of "Unchained Melody" was not the version used in the film. The song was sung in the film by an opera singer named Todd Duncan, as seen here. The Hibbler version, along with a couple of other versions which also became hits, were released around the same time. Innumerable other versions followed in later years and decades.

Best regards,
-- Al

Saw Tom Harrell at the Vanguard this week...he played a song called "Journey to the Stars" (duet - piano and trumpet). It was as close as I've experienced to hearing a person's spirit, rather than his body, playing music...it was as though he disappeared entirely. Profoundly beautiful experience.

First time I heard it Al from a movie score no less. I agree it is a great interpretation of that song, thanks for the link!

Speaking of popular songs from the 1950s, another one that I feel deserves mention in this thread is Al Hibbler's 1955 recording of "Unchained Melody."

The 1965 recording of that song by the Righteous Brothers, BTW, is probably the best known of the countless other covers which have been recorded, but IMO doesn't hold a candle to the Hibbler version.

Regards,
-- Al

I responded in this thread a few years ago, citing Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3. On a very different note, and at the risk of taking some heat for being a sentimentalist, I'll mention "Tammy," by Debbie Reynolds, from 1957.

Regards,
-- Al

Tubegroover---"Don't Worry Baby" is just gorgeous! My first live concert was The Beach Boys in the Summer of '64, and when Brian sang the line "and she makes love to me" in DWB, the girls in the audience went completely insane. But I didn't really know insane until seeing The Beatles the following Summer. The screaming was absolutely deafening! I hate to say it, but The Beatles live were only okay, as far as I could tell. I was pretty close to the P.A. column on John's side of The Cow Palace stage, and could sort of hear the vocals.

Things were changing so rapidly in those times. Two years later I was seeing Cream, Hendrix, The Who, and The Grateful Dead live, and sound systems had come a long way in those two years. The stacks of Marshall and HiWatt guitar and bass amps and speaker cabinets were mostly for show, 'cause there was only one mic put in front of one driver in one cabinet of each player's stack. If you were close enough to the stage at The Fillmore or Winterland, however, you could hear sound directly from all the drivers in all the cabinets. My tinnitus proves I was!

Speaking of the Beach Boys, I've been on a recent binge of their music. Three of their pre Pet Sounds albums contained several really good examples of the progression of their harmonies and Brian's music chops, a real step up from the early Chuck Berry inspired riffs and the simple but lovely "In my Room" and "Surfer Girl" ballads. The first two songs off "Shut Down Volume 2" and last two from "Beach Boys Today" both recently remastered in both Stereo and mono versions. I haven't heard "Kiss me Baby" for 40 years at least, oh those teenage memories flooding back.

"Don't Worry Baby"
"The Warmth of the Sun"

"Kiss me Baby"
"Please let me Wonder"

Yeah Ghosthouse, Brian Wilson wrote quite a few songs that could be nominated, "Til I Die" and "Surf's Up" being a couple more.

Mickey Katz!

Bdp - your mention of the Beach Boys reminded me about "Let's Go Away For A While" from Pet Sounds.

Going for songs here, not pieces:

- God Only Knows, The Beach Boys
- What Becomes of the Brokenhearted, Jimmy Ruffin
- No Time to Cry, Iris Dement

Some of my favorites:

The Lark Ascending, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Cité de la Musique, Dino Saluzzi
Romance in F Minor, Dvorak
I Loves You Porgy, Keith Jarrett (solo)
A State of Wonder - the whole album, especially Gould's more recent take (Gould/Bach)
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face - Roberta Flack
Cavatina – John Williams
Claire de Lune – Debussy
Como un fiore – Ludovico Einaudi (pretty much the whole Una Mattina album, which is exquisite)
Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares - Messetschinko lio Greilivko

So many more, but that's a start...