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Brahms Intermezzo Op. 118, No. 2 does it for me...

http://youtu.be/1h4Re5WBEAc

For me, there is something so compelling about this piece. Full of love and longing. Moments of excruciating beauty and tenderness. Gets me every time.

Maybe too obvious... but maybe I'm a too-obvious kind of guy...

... and as others have said, not every time...
the return of "Ist auf deiner Psalter..." in Brahms's Alto Rhapsody

Chopin "Nocturne in D flat Major" - toward the end where those 7 1/2 step intervals fall, (do -fi, ti-fa etc)

There's also a hornpipe in Handel's Water Music that always gets me - maybe not a tear, but def. a throat lump.

I have even been known to break down in a church at hearing "Jesus Saviour Pilot Me".

I am starting to feel a bit odd here. Do you guys really (Really) "tear up" at these passages??? or are we using the term very loosely? or may be I am taking it too literally?

In my situation, the first few times, yes, literally. Now I know what's coming and I don't.

I don't discount the idea (already mentioned) that what was happening in my life at the time may have had as much or more influence on my emotional reaction than the music itself did.

yep.. the first few times, may be. But that must have been a decade or two (?more) ago for most of us here..

I still often tear up at the final cadenza to Ravel's Concerto for the left hand whenever I am listening to a great performance of the piece all the way through, and I am concentrating on the music and letting my mind fall into the bliss.

- The slow section at the end of the first movement of Schumann's Fantasy.
- The "big tune" with variations in the Liszt Second Ballade.
- Brahms' Intermezzo in B minor, Op. 119 No. 1 - the central waltz. Deeply poignant.
- Also Brahms - several passages in the Ballade Op. 10 No. 4, if well played.
- Chopin - the Prelude in F# major, the middle section. Often imitated, never duplicated.

I feel extremely fortunate that I have the ability to play all these pieces and bring out the desired effect.

Elgar Sea Pictures, as sung by Janet Baker. In particular "because your voice has faltered" in Sabbath Morning at Sea and "God surely loved us a little then" in The Swimmer.

All in all a wonderful cd: it's coupled with the Du Pre Elgar concerto with Barbirolli.

Also Elgar: "Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers and a singer who sings no more" in The Music Makers, which surely meant so much to Elgar, his close friend August Jaeger having died 3 years' before.

I had already thought of that sublime moment from Mahler's 3rd when I got to your post. I will confess to being a brass lover, but that is just stunningly beautiful.

One more of many. The final movement of the Vaughn-Williams Hodie, when performed with full orchestra, gets me every time.

YES.

Also, Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna. It gives me goosebumps and brings tears to my eyes at several points .

what gets me sometimes is motion picture scores.. currently listening to the main suite from Forrest Gump and Schindler's List main theme

nothing better than listening to these pieces while, of course watching the movie, and thinking of other things in your life that may have sentimental value.

Too many to be mentioned publicly...
Sometimes when I listen to one of these passages I feel the Weltschmerz shatter me to such a degree that I am unable to resume what I was doing before playing or listening.

Clichéd maybe, but Albinoni's Adagio in G minor, Alkan's Op. 15 and, for some reason, Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated have made me shed tears each and every time I've heard them in their entirety...um...Andromaque...does nothing (music-wise, of course ) make you cry anymore? I find that notion...
Xxx

A lot of the more obscure music I have found, for me (I live for the kinds of pieces that hit you in that place inside...):

Stanchinsky - Prelude en Mode Lyrique
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5fvk5wR-xM&feature=related
(this recording is a bit too slow, and the only other recording I heard cuts a significant part out of the middle and isn't that good, so a special part of it for me is playing it myself the way I actually hear the piece and knowing that I might be one of the only people in the world playing it the way that triggers that feeling in me)

Stanchinsky - 12 Sketches No. 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WefK...C8ABA&index=8&feature=plpp_video
(particularly from 0:34 on)

No. 6 (I think this one uses one of the ancient Greek modes...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8elz...C8ABA&index=9&feature=plpp_video
(from 1:06 on)

No. 7 (whole piece is striking in its fragility, but the transition at 0:56 is great)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uGZ...8ABA&index=10&feature=plpp_video

Vladigerov - Nocturne Op. 59 No. 4 (until 5:05, if I were playing the set I would never do an attaca into the next movement, after all, it's not exactly indicated in the score...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Iui4JrpgIE&feature=related
(this is like the Stanchinsky Prelude, I hear this piece in a way I haven't heard it ever performed, so it's these two pieces are quite special to me in that sense).

Erik Satie: Air du Grand Prieur (simple but timeless. Favourite part at 1:51, but only in context of what came before)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tZX...C8ABA&index=7&feature=plpp_video

As for music people have heard of before... well, nothing beats a solid Ravel - Le Gibet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhpX...8ABA&index=16&feature=plpp_video
(the moment at 4:15 after everything that came before it particularly strikes me)

Finally, something way off the radar (but may be appreciated by those into minimalism)
Ryuichi Sakamoto - In The Red (Rhodes Piano)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCSw...f-OQ&index=21&feature=plpp_video

These pieces have all put a tear in my eye at one moment or another, but the most consistent is the Sakamoto.

The Lauridsen has the same effect on me. Also speaking of Elgar, the Nimrod variation touches me in a very profound way, each and every time I hear it.

That and Elgar's incandescent setting (with divided strings, who would have thought of that?) of Newman's words from Gerontius:

I can no more, for now it comes again;
That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain;
That masterful negation and collapse
Of all that makes me man

Speaking for myself only, yes, I literally tear up at hearing many pieces of music. I just assumed we all meant it literally, but maybe I'm wrong, and I'm the oddball here.

Liszt Consolation No. 3.