What is your favorite moment? One particular note, chord, pause, or word that you just love? Not an entire song, just one single moment within a song. Just wondering.
The guitar swell that comes on the heels of the line “of course Mama’s gonna help build a wall.”
“Ca-li-for-ni-a” in Velouria by Pixies.
“Eee-ficciency and praw-gress is ours once-a-more…” in Kill the Poor by Dead Kennedys.
The peak at the end of the middle section of Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan and Isolde. Better 'n sex, baby.
The opening drumbeat in “Man in the Box,” especially on the Music Bank DVD. It’s just cool.
The bass opening to “Would?” is one of the best beginnings to a rock song, I’ve decided.
Can you tell I like Alice in Chains?
Hmm, weird. I just answered this in another thread before I saw this one. For me it’s in the track called “Tetsuo” on the soundtrack to the movie Akira. The different “threads” of the gamelon (which are represented in the movie as an indicator of Tetsuo’s psychic power) play in unison through the overture, gradually building in complexity, and then in one moment, the threads break apart and play this much more complicated rhythm. Still makes me gasp when I hear it.
The one that first came to mind is the thundering organ entry in Saint-Saens’ Third sympony.
The opening guitar riff in Pleasant Valley Sunday.
That one moment in “Nothing Else Matters” - Apocalyptica’s version. You know the moment I mean.
When the horns start up in “Days of Future Passed” by “The Moody Blues.” You know, right before the children come out to play. No other notes I know of speak pictures and images to my mind so perfectly and clearly then those notes.
Damn, I was gonna say that one.
I think my second favorite would be the trombone chorale at the end of Tchaikovsky Symph. #6.
It’s a toss-up between that and the Spice Girls.
The opening guitar riff for Ain’t Talking About Love.
Loge’s arrival in Act I of Das Rheingold. His theme played against those of the god’s and giants.
About halfway through the third movement of Bruckner’s 7th. You have been sitting in the concert hall for about 40 minutes, the first two movements are slow. The third movement starts, a muscular waltz, pretty soon the entire orchestra is playing really loud, then the bottom drops out a clock-like theme is heard and the waltz starts again.
A certain part midway through Frank Zappa’s “Watermelon in Easter Hay.” I’ve already nominated it for best song ever in every thread on the subject for the past year, so it’s not like I’m going to stop now.
My Bloody Valentine’s “Soon”, just as the drums kick in.
Sorry, I cannot be restricted to just one.
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In Wagner’s Siegfried, the moment in the “Forest Murmurs” section, the modulation that occurs when the birds (actually flute, oboe, and clarinet) start singing.
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The wonderful transition from E major to C major (with a suspension on an F#) towards the end of the 3rd movement from Mahler’s 4th symphony. The orchestration is what seals the deal - violins have the melody, with the C major chord outlined only by the flutes and basses. Ethereal and spooky. (I have a list of about 8,491 favorite moments in Mahler, but maybe that’s suitable for another thread.)
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Virtually every “moment” of Coldplay’s “Yellow”.
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In the first movement of the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, the calm that comes at the end of the movement, after all that drama and struggle. Genius.
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A moment in Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe - the hushed orchestral interlude before the slow, unaccompanied chorus section. For those of you familiar with the ballet, it is where the shadowy outline of Pan appears before a prone Daphnis.
And oh, there are more.
the end of Birthday, by the Sugarcubes, when its fading out and bjork is going “dum, dum DA DA dadada…”
Barrytown reminded me of another. In the final movement of the Fantastic Symphony the “witch’s round dance section” with those sudden abrupt brass plagal cadences. I can never sit still during that.
In Steve Reich’s “Piece for Mallet Instruments, organ and voices” the change of harmony for the final section. That moment is so striking and such a release.
The instrumental section in Genesis’ Slippermen from The Lamb Lies Down…
labor, correct symphony but wrong passage ;). It is in the first movement of Bruckner’s 7th Symphony, just three minutes before the end. The music dies down, then slowly the original theme softly rises up from deep down in the orchestra by the strings, while the wood instruments answer each time with a slight variation, accompanied by a timpani roll. The music gets stronger, but instead of ending in a grand climax it again dies down.
Your moment is nice, too. 