What’s the most beautiful classical music piece ever composed?

[AndTwoFilmsByFrancoisTruffaut]

Pls help me put together a classical playlist for when I give birth in a few weeks and tell me your favourite ‘birth worthy’ piece.

I have many I love but think mine is Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, it’s gorgeously ethereal, so that’s going on there. I also love Camille Saint-Saëns's classical masterpiece, Danse Macabre but probably a little dark for this particular event even if it will be around Halloween!

And that of course is Kalendar... autocorrect!

Tchaikovski - Violin Concerto
Sibelius - 5th Symphony
Borodin - Polovtsian Dances
Rimsky Korsakov - Scherazade
Tchaikovski - Sleeping Beauty
“ - 6th Symphony the Pathetique

That evokes some very intense emotions from me.

My baby monitor played some classic pieces and this was one of them, so i am instantly transported to those very early days.
My baby has just turned 11, by the way!

Barber Adagio for strings is one of my faves. Such a sad chord progression.

The lark ascending, Vaughn williams I think. Gorgeous

Spring 1 by Max Richter

Here's a 1-hour loop. I could listen to this forever.

@AchillesLastStand Saint-Saëns The Swan

I read your post and played this. You're right, it's absolutely, heart wrenchingly beautiful. Tears everywhere.

Morning. Gone brain dead, but it's in a suite with Mountain King.

The Flower Duet from Lakme by Delibes

Ludovico Einaudi's I Giorni. I think it is utterly beautiful but also does kick my emotions into all sorts of heightened states. Might be a bit of a risk for birth!

For appropriateness, how about Faure's Les Berceaux (the cradles) which I think would be lovely and relaxing. The Hadley setting of I sing of a maiden (e.g. ) is lovely. Oh, and Candlelight Carol is beautiful - "how can you measure the love of a mother, how can you write down a baby's first cry". And finally Mozart's Et Incarnatus Est from the C Minor mass is ravishing.

And @PhotoDad why stop at the first movement of the Bach Double!

Elgar's Nimrod
Barber's Adagio for Strings
Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (The Dwarf is my favourite)
I never get tired of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and Rach 3, while an obvious choice, never gets boring.

Everything here but also once heard an experimental piece on Radio 3 called The cracking of the ice and have never been able to hear it again. Very baroque. I'd like to hear it again.

I have this 'thing' with CdL, where if I listen to it to the end, i can 'hear' the bit just when dawn is about to break.

Fanciful stuff, i know, but still...

Beethoven’s 7th.

Smetana’s Vltava.

Kathleen Ferrier, "What is Life". Most Kathleen F is great. Because she has a slightly deeper voice that the true soprano it is more comfortable, I think.
Avoid her versions of English traditional songs, Cannot, understand why she agreed to do that series.

Are you me?

I've been obsessed with this piece since I was 12 or so. The whole Capriol Suite, really, but this in particular.

If you play the piano, there's a good arrangement by Maurice Jacobson.

To add my 2c: Rosa del ciel, from L'Orfeo (Monteverdi); The Gallant Weaver (James MacMillan); almost anything by Vaughan Williams; Courante from the harpsichord suite set 1, no. 1 in A major HWV 426:3 (Handel); Hoe-down from Rodeo (Copland); Sicut cervus (Palestrina).

I could probably add a million more but those are the first things that spring to mind.

Shostakovich Piano Concerto no. 2, the second movement. Absolutely transcendent.

Oh, how lovely. Does your now-11-year-old remember the music from infancy?

Oo thank you for the thread, this is so hard!

I’m a big fan of…
Vangelis’ Rachel’s Song
Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: XII
The Car ical of the Animals: R XIII: The Swan

The Tallis Fantasia has been my favourite since my school took us to a concert when I was 14 (mid 1990s) and it was like going into an altered state listening to it. I wasn’t from a background that listened to much classical music so it was a really significant moment for me.

I memorised the title of the piece and found a CD in a music shop when I was 23 with it on. It’s not like today when I could have found it again on YouTube instantly. But it stayed with me; I never forgot it.

Dives and Lazarus is probably a close second now, and also by Vaughn Williams, if you’re after that ethereal sound.

Try the Tallis 40 part motet Spem in Alium.

@UnaOfStormhold Only for brevity! But then I saw that people were recommending, e.g., all of Messiah for a giving-birth playlist... as well as some works with rather unfitting lyrics!

So, yes, I'll upgrade to the full concerto, please. Preferably in the recording by Manze/Podger.

Well, some of the Messiah clearly isn't appropriate lyrically. But the Hallelujah chorus for when the baby is crowning?!

Hmm...