The Song Is Over, by the great and powerful Who, especially Townshend’s beautiful tenor on “But it stopped as soon as it began…” Utterly magical.
The bicycle horn in the Beach Boys’ You Still Believe in Me
Merry Clayton’s turn at the vocals on the Stones’ Gimme Shelter
Alex Chilton’s “oh no”'s that end Big Star’s What’s Going Ahn
The apocalyptic fade out-fade in of Helter Skelter
Opening riff of Sleater-Kinney’s Start Together
The opening drum beat to ‘When the Levee Breaks’ and you just know that amazing harmonica is about to come in, and then the part at about 2:30 where Plant sings in an ‘aggresive’ style (going to Chicago) over Page’s lead guitar. - Great Stuff
The intro to ‘like a rolling stone’ with the single drum beat and then complete mash of varied instruments, and the continual ‘aaaah how does it feel…’ in the verses
The intro to Vodoo Child
The hazy solos of Mary Jane on The Vines album followed by a beautifally slow piano and acoustic guitar outro that lasts just long enough to become mellow but not too long to become boring, perfect.
(I’ll second the Murder of One vote, esp the switch to ‘Change Change Change’)
That’s certainly among the most, if not the most, difficult aspect to performing the piece, especially in the second movement where the meter is very complicated (if you get lost there, you have one hell of a time finding your place). Fortunately we had a great conductor (basically a human metronome for a piece like this) who would signal each rehearsal number so if you got lost you just had to wait for the next rehearsal number and join back in. The metric shifts were only an issue in the third movement and once I got comfortable with the feel it actually wasn’t too difficult.
Well, don’t apologize. You seem to have a good ear. (and it’s nearly impossible to tell what’s going on without the score, which is intentional since it’s really supposed to sound like one instrument played by many hands, excepting the bass parts). I think you’re correct that that guitars don’t actually change their notes or rhythm, but simply their accents and phrasing. I’m not sure if the basses actually change patterns or just simply the phrasing as well… wait, hold on, let me go grab the score…
OK. Ahhh this brings me back. The basses seem to change patterns with the metric changes, though I don’t have the patience to really explore exactly how they change right now. Upper guitar parts remain in 3/2 with exact same pattern throughout (changing only with the key signature). I played the “live” guitar part (the part Pat Metheny would play live). Mine was the only guitar part that changed meters with the basses but I had the exact same notes and pattern, so it was simply a matter of shifting the accents from a duple to a triple meter feel.
Yeah, I must admit I was pleasantly surprised with that CD. I was a Reich fan for years and collected almost everything of his, but sorta kept avoiding that CD for some reason, as if just under the assumption that it would be shallow and corny (like most remixes). But it was definitely wonderfully done.
Classical: Any decent version of Maurice Ravel’s “Pavanne for a Dead Princess”
Soul: The Temptations doing “Just My Imagination (Runnin’ Away With Me)”
Jazz: The NY Sound Sensations doing “Stolen Moments” tied with Paul Gonsalves’ sax solo on “Crescendo in Blue/Diminenudo (sp?) in Blue” at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival tied with Trane on “My Favorite Things” tied with Lester Young’s sax solo on “Living for You”
Blues: Howlin’ Wolf doing “Smokestack Lightning”
Rock: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s guitar solo on Steely Dan’s “Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number” tied with the opening to Jimi Hendrix’s live version of “I Don’t Live Today” tied with the full-length version of Chicago’s “Beginnings”
I don’t know quite how to describe it, but it’s the climactic movement near the end of “Blue Danube Waltz” by Strauss. It was the piece of music that as a kid convinced me there was good classical style music. As a young girl I found it so romantic, and envisioned myself in a flowing blue gown, wearing a diamond tiara, dancing with a prince to that music.
Also, it’s hard to beat the final notes of “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” by J.S. Bach. Organ please, not an orchestral arrangement!
In Therion’s “Siren of the Woods,” the last three lines, which are sung around 5:50 into the song (the bit beginning “Nergal allatua…”). Previously in the song, a man and a woman have been trading off vocal sections, and the song has been gradually building in intensity. After an absolutely beautiful guitar solo, the music suddenly becomes a bit quieter and the man and the woman sing the last three lines of the song, in harmony for the first time. It’s an absolutely stunning interlude in the song’s relentless drive towards its climax.
It’s even more moving when you learn what the lyrics mean; the lyrics of the song (in Akkadian) tell the story of Adapa’s being tricked by Ea to not eat the bread and water of immortality. The last bit is the statement of the result of Adapa’s failure: he was able to look into himself and see his mortal nature, and thus mankind lost immortality.
Bruce Springsteen “Live 1975-1985”
Thunder Road
Recorded at the Roxy - October 1975
Some people don’t like this version because it’s live and lacks the full “band” sound. Slighly slower, practically acoustic, very intimate. And the line “You ain’t a beauty, but ay, you’re all right” is so deep with meaning, you could just cry.
As previously mentioned, Beethoven’s 9th, 4th movement, “misterioso” section. Starting with chorus singing “Such’ihn über’m Sternenzelt! Über Sternen muss er wohnen.” “Seek him then beyond the stars! He must dwell beyond the stars!” through the recurrence of the main melody with counterpoint.
Close runners-up:
Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers”, duet “Au fond du temple saint”. The baritone has a simple melody that rises by half and whole steps while the harmony moves around him, finally resolving in singing with the tenor “Oui, c’est elle, c’est la déesse” “Yes, it is she, it is the goddess”.
Debussy’s “Clair de lune”. At the very end, where the harmony resolves back to D major for the last time.
Handel’s Messiah, “For unto us a Child is born”. Final appearance of “And the government shall be upon His shoulder”, crescendoing to the last “Wonderful! Counselor!”
Many more.
You and Rob Paravonian. 
<Saturday Review hijack>
Anybody for favorite square inches of art? Mine’s the Venus de Milo’s navel.
</hijack>
Moe, thanks for taking a look at that score for me. It did help unplug a couple of mysteries for me, specifically about the upper guitar parts.
You also answered my other question that I neglected to ask last time…I was wondering if you played the solo guitar that ties all the other parts together.
What provoked my asking about the difficulty in playing it is that I listened closely to the bass guitar sections for the first time and realized how they “bounce the ball” back and forth across the stereo image, and yet if you shift the balance to one side or the other to isolate the parts, each stand-alone bass makes perfect sense even without its partner. That’s when I realized that the story was probably true for most of the other guitars in the piece, which seemed to be the case under scrutiny.
I can imagine that it’s very easy to slip up and start playing two or three parts because one’s brain would want to “continue the thought,” even if it’s not written on a particular section of the score.
If your friend ever uploads that video of your performance, please e-mail me; I’d really like to take a look at it.
There’s one bit a little earlier, where the percussion line goes from “okay” to just “amazing,” and it seems to happen right when that one guy starts in with the cowbell…
Skipping classical: One per band, and sticking to ‘moments’ not more than a bar or two.
Zeppelin: Kashmir, when the Big Riff starts up again with Plant still wailing over the top (is that a quarter tone I hear?)
Floyd (Gilmour): the squeal of feedback at the very very end of Dogs.
The Who: Won’t get Fooled Again The Big-Chord/Scream re-intro after the synth interlude.
King Crimson: Discipline The first time Fripp drops a note out of the patern and things suddenly get very complicated.
The part in Flight of the Valkyries where the helicopters show up. 
Best moment in music? Oh there are so many to choose from.
I totally agree with all of the people who said the end of Carmina Bruana, I love that and it never fails to captivate me entirely.
Also, the final chorus in the song George by The Headless Chickens. There’s somehting about the way Fiona MacDonald screams those final few lines that makes you able to feel the raw emotion coming from her person.
Anytime I hear the bginning of **Sweet Baby ** by Macy Gray, I smile wider and wider untill I end up in maniacal hysterics. It’s so damn happy, I can’t help it.
There’s a wind-up in Push It, by Garbage, after the distorted bit of singing (*this is the noise…), * that sends shivers down my spine, like windwindwind…release!
I love the bit in **Without You I’m Nothing ** by Placebo,just after the tick-tocking, when Brian Molko starts with the *I’m unclean a libertine and everytime you vent your spleen… * makes me want to end up on the floor in a fetal position, so dripping with goodness.
Every single second of Bjork’s rendition of **Gloomy Sunday ** is pure musical genius, I have to stop doing anything if it ever comes on and just sit there and listen to it, same goes for the beginning (long beginning) of **Lightning Crashes ** by Live.
Finally, I love the Vox-Pop-Opera **Emma Shapplin ** sings as The Diva in The Fifith Element. It’s all just neat, and ties in wonderfully with that scene in the film.
That’s one of my favorites too.
Another is Eric Dolphy’s alto saxophone solo in a live performance of “Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting,” recorded in 1960 and released on Mingus at Antibes.
- The tiny “ding” that caps off my favorite album of all time, OK Computer.
- The string-sounding synths rising out of the noise in My Bloody Valentine’s Somtimes.
- The Pixies, Velouria: “We’ll awake in the shine of the ever.”
- The Beatles, Helter Skelter, intro: “…AND I SEE YOU AGAIN!!”
- The first few moments of the intro to Golden Age, by Beck.
Just about every note that Leonard Bernstein ever wrote (and that includes Chichester Psalms, fearlesswinecask).
But if forced to make other choices (I’ll only name a few):
Siegfried’s Rhine Journey
The end of the first part of Mahler’s 8th, with the rushing upward voices in canon, particularly on the Kubelik recording.
Appalachian Spring
The Small House of Uncle Thomas ballet from The King and I, one of the greatest and most thrilling scenes in American dramatic literature.
Sondheim’s scores to Follies, Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd (STORYTELLER 0910, the passage from Sweeney Todd you mention is an almost exact quote from the concluding moments of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by Bernard Hermann, one of Sondheim’s self-acknowledged influences on the score of his thriller).
Is there a more perfect score than Carmen? With Peter Grimes and Turandot bringing up the rear.
I’m also particularly fond of the bombastic, “ode-to-a-tractor” cantatas from Russian composers under the Stalinist regime—you haven’t lived till you’ve heard Prokofiev’s CANTATA FOR THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION with its sirens, recorded speeches of Lenin, and general chaos or Shostakovich’s THE EXECUTION OF STEPAN RAZIN, with its primal choral contributions. You can throw Petrushka, Les Noces and Le Sacre du Printemps in there, too.
And, last but not least, the greatest pop recording of all time (at least for me), the complete 6 minute + epic of AIN’T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH.
It kinda saddens me to see four pages having gone by without a mention of Mozart, a composer capable of creating a moment of such aching beauty your heart melts. There are too many to mention, but since you asked for a particular moment I’ll go with the fourth movement of Mozart’s 41st symphony, the Coda, from bar 371 to 402. A canon, a double fugue, and 5 part invertible counterpoint are all brought to life in this joyously dense piece of music.
The (very) end of the Beatles’ I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
Mahler’s fifth symphony, second mvt. The second ‘premonition’ of the D major finale. Tingles all over ever time, especially with Bernstein conducting