Your top ten favourite openings

[DaveF]

Bax: Tintagel - Glorious, majestic in every possible way!

Ah, yes - the most beautiful 20th-century opening I know, for sure.  But earlier centuries were pretty good at it, too:

Dunstaple: Salve scema sanctitatis - lovely intertwinings of the 2 upper voices before the tenors come in to anchor the harmony.   

John Browne - Salve regina - "like a flower opening towards the sun". (That looks like my edition, too!)

Byrd - Infelix ego - the reduced-voice opening to this 6-parter is especially effective.  Love the touch of word-painting on the word "destitutus", whose first syllable is first heard as a single unharmonised note.

Schütz - Schwanengesang. Schütz's openings are often striking, but I love the perfect drooping contour of the first phrase of the melody. 

Hindemith - Mathis der Maler - soft string chords, brass chorales, glockenspiel... - all the right ingredients.

Rosenberg - Symphony no.5, now audible in half-decent sound thanks to this off-air Swedish Radio recording. 

Rubbra 4 - surprised this one hasn't been mentioned.  Many people's first contact with Rubbra, mine included.

Xenakis - Metastaseis.  There's a story that Varèse was at the premiere, and commented afterwards "This is the music of the future".  Terribly moving, if true.

[Mirror Image]

Here is my list of favorite openings (in no particular order):

Mahler: Symphony No. 5
Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony
Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin
Stravinsky: Orpheus
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43
Schoenberg: Gurre-Lieder
Janáček: Sinfonietta
Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra
Nielsen: Symphony No. 3, "Sinfonia espansiva"
Enescu: Orchestral Suite No. 3, "Villageoise"

I feel bad for not including any chamber or choral works as there are many that would certainly qualify as favorites of mine, but oh well, I'm satisfied with these choices.

Edit: I also feel bad for excluding any 19th Century music from this list! I mean Brahms, Berlioz, Dvořák, Mendelssohn, Liszt et. al. all have had works with introductions that have caught my attention immediately.

[Symphonic Addict]

Ravel - Piano Trio: There is something I find magical about the opening melody from this work. The end of this movement is also among my favorite endings to any movement

Bax-- symphony 6

Lutoslawski: Concerto for Orchestra (same comment as Jenufa)

Beethoven: Ninth Symphony (allegro ma non troppo). We might have heard it a gazillion times, but it never ceases to amaze me.

Verdi, Otello storm

Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

Walton Symphony 1

Sibelius: Tapiola. So simple, so powerful. The timps, peremptory yet atmospheric; the strings, searing that runic motive into our minds. I am there in a second.

Rubbra 4 - surprised this one hasn't been mentioned.  Many people's first contact with Rubbra, mine included.

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43

These stunning selections would make another top 10 for me.

[kyjo]

I actually find this question very hard to answer. To me, if a piece really strikes me, then its beginning will be a part of that, and so the candidates are vast. I love Dvorak 3 to a peculiar degree, for example, and listening to its opening bars fills me with a tingle of pleasure at what is to come. So is it a great opening? Well not really, to be honest. It is just inseparable from what follows. The same is true of so many pieces that I find myself flummoxed by this question! Let me try anyway... So, to limit myself, I'm going to stick to some quite unimaginative answers whose openings are a) universal, indubitable classics, b) all be orchestral ones where the instrumental sonority is part of the magic and c) I will only use each composer once, otherwise it'll quickly be all Ravel, or Debussy, or Janacek, or Stravinsky, or someone else...

Schoenberg: Gurrelieder - a single undulating chord of the added sixth so exquisitely orchestrated and extended that it conjures up a whole vista of dusky forests. Speaking of which...

Sibelius: Tapiola. So simple, so powerful. The timps, peremptory yet atmospheric; the strings, searing that runic motive into our minds. I am there in a second.

Ravel: Scheherazade - song cycle version. Asie, Asie, Asie, the voice rising enticingly, drawing us into the exotic picture-book in which We will turn the pages one by one for a series of perfectly imagined images. And, from one French impressionist masterpiece to another...

Debussy: Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune. Has no one said it already? Really? A chromatic scale on the flute; a harp glissando;  a distant horn call over a pool of soft string magic. A bar of complete silence. Musical magic.

Janacek: Sinfonietta. It's far from my favourite Janacek piece, but even so it's still one of the greatest things ever written, and its first bars are unique and a primal blast.

Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms. I mentioned it earlier. What a bizarre but compelling opening, that uniquely spaced E minor chord followed by those mechanically angular scurryings in oboe and bassoon.

Boulez: Pli selon pli. Someone said this one already, but they were correct. An explosion of a chord and we are in the dark recesses of some subconscious state. The soprano enunciates an enigmatic melody and then - a nascent, mysterious state from which musical images will rise up that will haunt your mind forever... The orchestration of all this is so subtle and finely imagined, too.

Respighi: Pines of Rome. I didn't expect myself to be writing this one, but when I think of it, the opening is such an extraordinary piece of orchestration, such an astonishing bit of instrumental imagination, that it would be rude to leave it out.

Tippett: Piano Concerto. A less obvious one, admittedly, and less of a game-changer, but the way this adorable piece unfurls its trademark quartal lines so delicately is a very beautiful thing, and unique, I think.

Brian: Symphony 8. I don't care what the sceptics say. This is Brian's finest symphony, IMO, and the beginning the greatest and most potent example of his trademark juxtapositions, deeply mysterious and evocative: an awkward, jerkily-shuffling idea in low brass (where from? why? what does it mean?); softly held string chords shot through with quiet rising horn calls opening the music up to the meditative and the numinous; odd descending scales slowly picked out on harp and piano. Actually, having written the above, I can see an unexpected link to l'apres midi here!

You write about music in such an eloquent and poetic manner, Luke. I always enjoy reading your posts!

[Luke]

Thank you, that's very kind. This board is full of people whose posts are a joy to read, though - and yours very much included. It's the reason I couldn't stay away, even after my long absence.

[Karl Henning]

I too hesitated to plunge in here, and Luke has offered such a fine list and so well-considered, that I almost allow it to overawe me. But instead, there being after all so very much great music, I'll take it as encouragement.

To start with one which at this point seems to me obvious:
1. The Beethoven Fourth Symphony. A beginning mysterious and wonderfully susceptible to harmonic subtleties, you almost wonder that he created it with the orchestra available to him at the time. An opening so striking that Mahler built on the idea for his own First Symphony.
2. Bartók, Contrasts. How could a clarinetist not at the least consider this in a top ten? It's a stylized recruiting dance, and the ingratiating clarinet suggests at the outset, all the cool kids are signing up.
3. Sibelius Sixth Symphony. Starting out with a glacial coolness immediately bearing out the composer's promise of cold pure spring water.
4. Prokofiev, g minor violin concerto. Probably for such a list, no concerto which starts with the "standard" orchestral exposition would do. The rich warmth of this opening statement on the G string hooked me from the first I heard it.
5.  Prokofiev, f minor violin sonata. Another hooked me from the first I heard it deal. When Prokofiev first played though the newly completed piece for Oistrakh and Myaskovsky the latter called it a "a thing of genius" and asked his friend, Don't you really understand what you've written?
6. Prokofiev Second Symphony. The Allegro ben articolato takes no prisoners and hits us immediately at ramming speed.
7. Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. The Liturgie de cristal starts out in a quietly busy manner which sets the table brilliantly.
8. "Papa," Die Schöpfung. Obvious? Conceded. But, erm, Classic.
9. Langgaard, Sfærernes Musik.
10. Shostakovich Fourteenth Symphony, the violins eerily echoing the Dies irae in the counterintuitive (?) stratosphere. And while we don't know it the first we hear the symphony, there will be an even eerier echo at the end.

Luke's citation of the Symphony of Psalms is so apt, I didn't have the heart to offer a counterexample from Stravinsky. And what should I choose: The Firebird? Le sacre? L'histoire du soldat? The Requiem Canticles? The Canticum sacrum? It's a heckuva rabbit hole.
From Shostakovich, I might have chosen either the Thirteenth (or Fifteenth) Symphony or The Execution of Stepan Razin.
Nielsen's Sixth Symphony was also a temptation.

[Karl Henning]

I too hesitated to plunge in here, and Luke has offered such a fine list and so well-considered, that I almost allow it to overawe me. But instead, there being after all so very much great music, I'll take it as encouragement.

To start with one which at this point seems to me obvious:
1. The Beethoven Fourth Symphony. A beginning mysterious and wonderfully susceptible to harmonic subtleties, you almost wonder that he created it with the orchestra available to him at the time. An opening so striking that Mahler built on the idea for his own First Symphony.
2. Bartók, Contrasts. How could a clarinetist not at the least consider this in a top ten? It's a stylized recruiting dance, and the ingratiating clarinet suggests at the outset, all the cool kids are signing up.
3. Sibelius Sixth Symphony. Starting out with a glacial coolness immediately bearing out the composer's promise of cold pure spring water.
4. Prokofiev, g minor violin concerto. Probably for such a list, no concerto which starts with the "standard" orchestral exposition would do. The rich warmth of this opening statement on the G string hooked me from the first I heard it.
5.  Prokofiev, f minor violin sonata. Another hooked me from the first I heard it deal. When Prokofiev first played though the newly completed piece for Oistrakh and Myaskovsky the latter called it a "a thing of genius" and asked his friend, Don't you really understand what you've written?
6. Prokofiev Second Symphony. The Allegro ben articolato takes no prisoners and hits us immediately at ramming speed.
7. Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. The Liturgie de cristal starts out in a quietly busy manner which sets the table brilliantly.
8. "Papa," Die Schöpfung. Obvious? Conceded. But, erm, Classic.
9. Langgaard, Sfærernes Musik.
10. Shostakovich Fourteenth Symphony, the violins eerily echoing the Dies irae in the counterintuitive (?) stratosphere. And while we don't know it the first we hear the symphony, there will be an even eerier echo at the end.

Luke's citation of the Symphony of Psalms is so apt, I didn't have the heart to offer a counterexample from Stravinsky. And what should I choose: The Firebird? Le sacre? L'histoire du soldat? The Requiem Canticles? The Canticum sacrum? It's a heckuva rabbit hole.
From Shostakovich, I might have chosen either the Thirteenth (or Fifteenth) Symphony or The Execution of Stepan Razin.
Nielsen's Sixth Symphony was also a temptation.

And, the how did I ever neglect that? afterthought: the Brahms e minor symphony. (Hopefully, someone else has already mentioned it.)

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Stravinsky Petrushka
Stravinsky Firebird
Hindemith Cello concerto
Bartok PC1
Prokofiev SY4
Prokofiev PC3
Scriabin SY1
Walton SY1
Walton SY2
Khachaturian Gayenne

[relm1]

Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra
Strauss: Alpine Symphony
Wagner: Das Rheingold
Schoenberg: Gurre-leider
Stravinsky: Rite of Spring
Atterberg: Symphony No. 3
Debussy: La Mer
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe part 3 (ok, this is a cheat, since it happens midway through but I'll get out on a technicality since it's the opening to part 3).
Williams: Star Wars
Williams: Close Encounters (let there be light)

[Florestan]

In no particular order

Mozart

Symphony No. 40
Symphony No. 41
Le Nozze di Figaro - Overture
Piano Sonata KV 310
Piano Sonata KV 570

Rossini

La gazza ladra - Overture

Johann Strauss I

Radetzky-Marsch

Johann Strauss II

An der Schoenen Blaue Donau

Schubert

Symphony No. 9

Mendelssohn

Symphony No. 4

(I willingly excluded Russian openings...)

[(poco) Sforzando]

We might as well have a thread about ineffectual or ineffective openings, if such exist.

[LKB]

We might as well have a thread about ineffectual or ineffective openings, if such exist.

I believe the OP's intent was to offer a sort of bookend to the " 8 favorite endings " thread.

If that is indeed the case, well... why not? 

So, some favorite openings:

Wagner: Das Rheingold

Mahler: Symphony No. 1

Mahler: Symphony No. 3

Bruckner: Symphony No. 5

Bruckner: Symphony No. 7

Bach: BWV 50

Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D minor

Beethoven: Op. 131

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9

Sibelius: En Saga

[(poco) Sforzando]

I believe the OP's intent was to offer a sort of bookend to the " 8 favorite endings " thread.

I know.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I too hesitated to plunge in here, and Luke has offered such a fine list and so well-considered, that I almost allow it to overawe me. But instead, there being after all so very much great music, I'll take it as encouragement.

To start with one which at this point seems to me obvious:
1. The Beethoven Fourth Symphony. A beginning mysterious and wonderfully susceptible to harmonic subtleties, you almost wonder that he created it with the orchestra available to him at the time. An opening so striking that Mahler built on the idea for his own First Symphony.
2. Bartók, Contrasts. How could a clarinetist not at the least consider this in a top ten? It's a stylized recruiting dance, and the ingratiating clarinet suggests at the outset, all the cool kids are signing up.
3. Sibelius Sixth Symphony. Starting out with a glacial coolness immediately bearing out the composer's promise of cold pure spring water.
4. Prokofiev, g minor violin concerto. Probably for such a list, no concerto which starts with the "standard" orchestral exposition would do. The rich warmth of this opening statement on the G string hooked me from the first I heard it.
5.  Prokofiev, f minor violin sonata. Another hooked me from the first I heard it deal. When Prokofiev first played though the newly completed piece for Oistrakh and Myaskovsky the latter called it a "a thing of genius" and asked his friend, Don't you really understand what you've written?
6. Prokofiev Second Symphony. The Allegro ben articolato takes no prisoners and hits us immediately at ramming speed.
7. Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fin du temps. The Liturgie de cristal starts out in a quietly busy manner which sets the table brilliantly.
8. "Papa," Die Schöpfung. Obvious? Conceded. But, erm, Classic.
9. Langgaard, Sfærernes Musik.
10. Shostakovich Fourteenth Symphony, the violins eerily echoing the Dies irae in the counterintuitive (?) stratosphere. And while we don't know it the first we hear the symphony, there will be an even eerier echo at the end.

Luke's citation of the Symphony of Psalms is so apt, I didn't have the heart to offer a counterexample from Stravinsky. And what should I choose: The Firebird? Le sacre? L'histoire du soldat? The Requiem Canticles? The Canticum sacrum? It's a heckuva rabbit hole.
From Shostakovich, I might have chosen either the Thirteenth (or Fifteenth) Symphony or The Execution of Stepan Razin.
Nielsen's Sixth Symphony was also a temptation.

I like the Prokofiev Second! Nice opening too.

[Brian]

We might as well have a thread about ineffectual or ineffective openings, if such exist.

Someone (I believe Riccardo Chailly) recently recorded the original idea for the opening of Brahms' Fourth Symphony. (A very brief slow introduction.) It's worth seeking out if only to renew our appreciation for the much better current opening.

[Karl Henning]

Someone (I believe Riccardo Chailly) recently recorded the original idea for the opening of Brahms' Fourth Symphony. (A very brief slow introduction.) It's worth seeking out if only to renew our appreciation for the much better current opening.

He could take it too far, but Brahms knew that the eraser is our friend. 

[Roasted Swan]

We might as well have a thread about ineffectual or ineffective openings, if such exist.

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

[Karl Henning]

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

Joy to the Max! I'm in!

[Iota]

These are the ones that occur at the moment.

Wagner: Parsifal Prelude to Act I
A uniquely beautiful moment in all music for me. It feels like being swept into a world of unfathomable emotion and significance. The sound alone of the opening unison melody is a thing of such sheer beauty that resistance is futile. 

Debussy: Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp
The music starts, time stops and a new and magical world is born. All achieved within a matter of seconds.

Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Am always aware that with the opening of this piece, the world first heard a new kind of music. That's how I feel it anyway, and I always relive that feeling with a sense of awe and wonder, every time I hear it.

Beethoven: Piano Trio in B-Flat Major, Op. 97, "Archduke
The way it flowers gradually into being is wonderful thing.

Mozart: Piano Concerto No.20 in D minor, K.466
That off beat, syncopated opening simultaneously sets up the vivid atmosphere and a momentum that never leaves it. Sort of perfect music.

Bruckner: Symphony No.7
A perfect, irresistible and expansive opening of  curtains on an epic odyssey.

Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit

Bach: St Matthew Passion

Rautavaara: Piano Concerto No.1
Such a great opening to a great concerto. The first time I ever heard it was with the performance below, and it's still my favourite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdNZbbHBX_c&t=453s

[Karl Henning]

Wagner: Parsifal Prelude to Act I

Exquisite!