I note in BBC Music Magazine that a poll in the UK of Radio 4 listerns
determined that Barber's Adagio for Strings got the most votes for the
saddest piece of CM ever written.

One correspondent complained that the designation should have gone to
the second movement of Schubert's Piano Sonata in B flat, D960.

Obviously this is a thoroughly subjective matter.  Also there are issues
of saddest piece vs. saddest movement vs. even the saddest composer
reflected in the music.  For the latter, I would nominate Hans Pfitzner
in the first movement of his Symphony in C# minor, op.  39a.

Barber's Adagio is certainly sad, but I was surprised to hear a version
of it used as part of the athletic processional during the Athens Olympiad
opening ceremony.

I'd be interested in what others consider their "saddest" music and why.

Some of the pieces that strike me most that way are:

Dvorak Trio, op. 65, 3rd mov.
Tchaikovsky: Pathetique Sym
Petterson: Sym 7
Britten: War Requiem
Wagner: Prelude to Act 3, Tristan

But one must be careful of pathos becoming bathos.  Out of context,
Leoncavallo's "Vesti la giubba" can easily evince snickers.  In context,
even a piece in a major key might be profoundly sad.

Then, there's the difference of the sadness of a living vs. a deceased
person.  Somehow, funeral marches aren't quite so sad due to their aspect
of formality and inevitability.  Great a piece as Siegfried's Funeral
March is, I have a tough time bemoaning his tragic loss.  Other than his
fearless dispatch of an agoraphobic dragon, most of his reputation as a
hero seems to be the work of a Rhineland publicity agent spreading rumors
prior to his arrival at the Gibichungs.  Mahler's Kindertotenlieder seem
far sadder.

There should be a lot of nominees out there, considering the "sad" state
of CM today, so we're told!

Jeff Dunn
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