I’m going to vote for the Adagio Cantabile from Beethoven’s Sonata “Pathetique” in C minor, Op. 13.
It’s grown on me ever since I was seduced by the opener to Karl Haas’s weekly broadcasts on F.M. radio. (“Adventures in Good Music”)
And from there, it was ethereal strains of Classical music with inspired, interspersed commentary.
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About the Beethoven middle movement masterpiece:
A melody filled with melancholic emotion in the MAJOR key (Ab), has contrasting relief in the Parallel Ab minor–It starts tepidly in the mid-section but builds to punctuated, angry chordal bursts in the Beethoven style with sudden trademark character shifts. Yet, the composer challenges the player to keep his composure in readiness for the return of the haunting, signature theme that’s cloaked in variation. (a bed of triplets)
Who’s to insist that the the Major Key can’t be filled with pathos and passion?
That’s where musical cliches fall flat despite the bombardment of Major/minor, happy/sad Western Music motifs in childhood jingles and TV commercials.
We music teachers tend to drink the dual tonality Kool-Aid until a composition like this knocks us out of our key-biased comatose complacency.
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And finally, here’s a long lost dose of nostalgia from Karl Haas in soliloquy as he accepts a “Lifetime Achievement Award.” (The man was a student of Schnabel, no less)
A Toast to the Classical Music Ambassador: May his rebroadcasts be forever draped in Beethoven’s Adagio as we, the audience, swoons over every last note.
