music that made you cry

[CelticHound]

Along with the others who have mentioned it, I find Barber's Adagio incredibly powerful. There is a choral arrangement - the Agnus Dei - that has moved me to tears. (My recording is by the Dale Warland singers, I think.)

Here's a story involving a different adagio:

http://www.actlab.utexas.edu/~captain/cello.story.html (Vedran Smilovic)

Being a harp player, myself, I'm afraid my tastes in music are a bit skewed, now. Love the harp and cello together, but there are so few recordings. Harps are "pretty", but a cello can be so gorgeously mournful.

You Metallica fans should check out one of the Apocalyptica albums. Four cellists from the Sibelius Institute covering the music of Metallica and Pantera. (Though personally, I wish they'd done "Fade to Black" differently - it should have opened with something more analogous to that sweet, flowing guitar part.)

While I still like hard rock as workout music, for listening nowadays - with just a couple exceptions - I prefer to hear "real" instruments as opposed to electric ones. I'm also getting better at appreciating the silences as well as the sounds.

Occasionally, I toy with the idea of writing a play timed such that William Jackson's "A Scottish Island" makes a perfect soundtrack.

-- CH
(It's a pity that so much of what I seek can no longer be found.)