The day of the Newtown shootings, I posted a diary entitled Music for consolation.
I could have reposted that diary, or posted a second one with more music, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. Instead, I figured I would wait, in the hopes that I would soon be able to post this diary instead.
Below, you can listen to a few pieces of music that, in my mind at least, exemplify a feeling of relief and/or gratitude.
I'll start with the finale of Steve Reich's Different Trains ( Wikipedia page), "After the War":
Different Trains is a work for string quartet and pre-recorded voices; trains act as a metaphor for the American experience in this work which is worthy of its own diary. For the moment, let me say that the three movements are entitled "America—Before the War," "Europe—During the War," and "After the War." The middle movement in particular is one of the most harrowing seven minutes of music you will ever hear. Admittedly, I wonder if the sense of relief in the excerpt above is quite as palpable without having heard that second movement, but it is nevertheless there.
In this version, you can hear the relief at around the 2 minute mark, shortly before the voice (which happens to be that of Reich's childhood governess Virginia) says "Going to America."
The second piece is the finale of Karol Szymanowski's Stabat Mater (Wikipedia page).
This is, unusually, a setting of the work in Polish. The final movement is a setting of the final two verses of this poem (loose rhythmic translation of the original Latin version, by me, in italics):
Chrystus niech mi będzie grodem,
Krzyż niech będzie mym przewodem,
Łaską pokrop, życie daj!
O Christ who loves like no other,
Grant that through thy Holy Mother,
Thy glory shall with me rise.
Kiedy ciało me się skruszy,
Oczyszczonej w ogniu duszy
Glorię zgotuj, niebo, raj.
When my body hath passed away,
Grant to my soul without delay,
The glories of Paradise.
To me, the finale represents a grateful cry from a supplicant comforted in the knowledge that his or her prayers have been answered.
The final piece is, again, a finale—this time, Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 5 (Wikipedia page).
Vaughan Williams wrote his Fifth Symphony in 1943, in the midst of World War II, at least partly out of fear that he would not be able to complete his magnum opus Pilgrim's Progress; he described the symphony as a "pictorial commentary" on the larger work.
In any case, it was just the balm that an anxious WWII-era Britain needed. The reception it received was so positive that some critics claimed that the applause at the end of performances was a "vulgar intrusion upon the soul."
This finale starts with a repeated theme in the bass (a passacaglia), and while it does reach a major crescendo in the middle, it ultimately ends with a beautiful passage for high strings, befitting the idea of Pilgrim's Progress—the journey of the soul to paradise after death.
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I hope these pieces bring you the same sense of peace that they bring to me, and please feel free to share other works in the comments!