Beatles producer George Martin famously called the gigantic crescendo of the Lennon-McCartney song “A Day in the Life” an orchestral orgasm. Last month Rolling Stone named it #1 of the top 10 Beatles songs. By any standards it’s wonderful music, which at the moment you can hear on YouTube if you don’t have the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
24 hours ago I thought I’d make a list of the top 10 orchestra orgasms. It quickly grew to 20. And I dropped “top;” this isn’t something to rank. With your help, kind readers, I’m sure we can get to 50. Please add your favorites in the comments box below.
The List
20. Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs, from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. What an explosion of energy! They didn’t need Viagra at the French court.
19. Franck Symphony in D Minor. The whole thing.
18. Darius Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof). Is there really an orgasm here? It’s a long, elegant session of Franco-Brazilian Carnival dance. And hasn’t dance been called sex standing up?
17. Lutoslawski’s Third Symphony, which builds to a riot of trombone slides.
16. Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Wing on Wing. Most numerous climaxes.
15. Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto in its exquisite second movement.
14. Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. See the Jerome Robbins ballet if you don’t think this is white-one-white, ethereal sex.
13. Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Best post-coital cigarette.
12. The Berg Violin Concerto. Really, any Berg.
11. Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan and Isolde. Fastest climax.
10. Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain. At the moment of greatest intensity he inserts a hint: the Tristan theme.
9. Boulez’ …explosante-fixe… A concerto for two flutes, and flutes figure prominently in several of the twenty.
8. Schumann’s Second Symphony, the lovely third movement. Even the theme alone.
7. Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy. Of course.
6. Richard Strauss’ Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome.
5. Mahler. Pick a Mahler symphony or song cycle at random, any will do.
4. Frank Zappa’s The Perfect Stranger. A door-to-door vacuum salesman and a housewife entertain each other.
3. Webern’s Passacaglia, Op. 1. That’s right, you need to hear it again. Listen to Boulez’ recording.
2. Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, the slow movement, with an attenuated Tristan quote at the two climaxes and a long afterglow.
1. And the number one orchestra orgasm is Ravel’s . . . no, not Boléro, not at all Boléro. Daphnis et Chloé, the Danse Generale.
Please add your choices in the comments box.
21. What about Stravinsky’s rite of spring?
22. La Noche de Los Mayas (S. Revueltas) ;
Le Sacre de Printemps (I. Stravinsky);
23. Anything by Varèse (Désèrts);
24. Ballet Mecanique (G. Antheill);
25. The Prologue in Heaven from Arrigo Boito’s opera Mefistofele. Fab!
26. Mephisto Waltz, Liszt … so sensual
27. Firebird, Stravinsky … great foreplay and explosive orgasm!
28. Orchestral Introduction to Richard Strauss’s opera, Der Rosenkavalier
29. Haydn’s Creation: Introduction and Representation of Chaos.
30) 2nd movement of the Rachmaninoff 2nd symphony and
31) the cadenza of the Prokofieff 2nd piano concerto (lst movement)
Maybe I’m a bit biased, but I think there could be one or two more Baroque pieces on there!
32) Handel’s Zadok the Priest does it for me every time!
33) Berlioz’ Requiem, Dies Irae. 4 brass chorales, full orchestra and chorus.
34) Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, Rêveries. Passions.
35) Samuel Barber Piano Concerto
36) Shostakovich Symphony No. 7, Bernstein w/Chicago, especially the finale.
37) Corigliano Clarinet Concerto (I mean holy crap)