Your top ten favourite openings

[Symphonic Addict]

Let's stick to celebrating what each of us like rather than highlighting what we don't! In the words of the great Bing Crosby(c/o Jonny Mercer and Harold Arlen!);

You've got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
E-lim-i-nate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mr. In-Between

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith, or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene

I subscribe to this!

BTW, it's the first time I see you participating in threads like this. I hope it won't be the last one!

[kyjo]

It's time I take a crack at this thread:

Atterberg: Symphony No. 2. It reminds me of waking up on a gorgeous summer morning and looking out the window at some lush mountainous scenery. Those flute murmurings over cello arpeggios, followed by that glorious horn melody - sheer magic! In fact, every symphony this guy wrote has an immediately arresting opening - the mark of a great composer in my book.

Brahms: String Sextet No. 2. Brahms is usually associated with rather "heavy" scoring, but that certainly doesn't apply to the opening of this remarkable work, which is one of the most airy and otherworldly passages in pre-20th century music. An undulating viola line alternating between two notes (like in Nielsen 5!), followed by an almost "exotic" sounding violin melody with its unexpected harmonic progressions.

Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Cello Sonata. Maybe the work as a whole isn't a screaming masterpiece, but oh my, that opening! It's the epitome of Italianate lyrical bliss.

Dvořák: Symphony No. 8. He opens the work in G minor, not the main key of G major, with a melancholy cello melody that never fails to tug at my heart-strings. And then, the clouds part when the horn changes the tonality from minor to major, paving the way for the capricious flute solo and ensuing thrilling crescendo. An almost perfect work in my view, and one which I have a particular soft spot for considering it was the first major orchestral work that I ever performed.

Elgar: Piano Quintet. Upon hearing the opening of this work for the first time, I thought, "this is Elgar?". It's so spooky and ambiguous, with the main tonality of A minor barely even hinted at. Eventually, a yearning yet still ghostly cello motif appears to introduce some humanity to the music. I love Elgar's description of this opening as "the reminiscence of sinister trees"!

Lloyd: Symphony No. 5. That pastoral opening oboe melody, with its distinctive, quasi-Sibelian "blue notes", never fails to give me goosebumps. And then it's answered by an equally entrancing countermelody in the cellos.

Moeran: Symphony in G minor. It suggests to me a windswept, rugged landscape on a chilly late autumn day. There's something so compelling about that opening violin melody with its slightly ambiguous tonality (contrast between F and F# in the context of G minor), underpinned by those rollicking horn chords. On the surface, this music may appear to be of a typical "English pastoral" character, but there's a distinctly unsettled undercurrent in the harmonies and textures.

Poulenc: Piano Concerto. That flowing yet wistful opening melody, with its typically Poulencian twists and turns, is one that haunts my mind from days on end. I could've easily gone with the marvelously scary and Gothic opening of his Organ Concerto as well...

Saint-Saëns: Piano Trio No. 2. The opening piano figuration, with its rapid yet delicate chords which traverse the whole range of the keyboard, is so unique and instantly memorable. It's followed by a melancholy melody in the violin and cello which rather resembles the opening melody of Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio from a few years earlier (and none the worse for that). It's also worth noting that the first movement of this work has one of my favorite codas in the repertoire, with its powerful final plagal cadence.

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 8. Absolutely bewitching in every way, with its mysterious, swirling celesta figurations followed by a plaintive flute solo and then a full-throated melody for the string section. John Williams almost certainly had this piece in mind when composing his scores for a few of the Harry Potter films!

Edit: I'm surprised that 9 out of my 10 picks ended up being mostly lyrical, evocative openings as opposed to powerful, assertive ones, within the exception being the Moeran Symphony.

[Maestro267]

Not gonna lie, the above list is giving me inspiration for what to listen to today. I have all of those in my collection bar the Castelnuovo-Tedesco sonata. Some of the openings I can remember but others I can't. Brahms Sextet No. 2 earlier, now the Poulenc PC.