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Published: Friday, 27 September 2024 at 11:44 AM


For centuries, classical music has been one of our most eloquent mediums for expressing the whole gamut of human emotion And, let’s be honest, some of classical music’s most powerful pieces capture the essence of melancholy, sorrow, and loss.

From delicate, heart-wrenching adagios to perfectly crafted choral expressions of grief, the saddest classical music can transport any listener to profound emotional depths. These are works that can evoke a sense of reflection and of vulnerability, offering great solace and sense of connection in times of grief. Here are some of the most eloquent musical evocations of sadness and melancholy from down the centuries.

Saddest classical music

Miserere Nostri by Thomas Tallis

Setting just three words – ‘Miserere nostri, Domine’ (‘Have pity on us, Lord’) – Tallis’s penitential anthem for seven voices is the arguably most perfectly crafted expression of grief ever set down on the musical stave.

Two upper parts soar in canon above four lower parts each of which reflects the same melody but at different tempos or in inversion (the seventh part, the tenor, is more freely composed), to create the most exquisitely, hauntingly doleful three minutes of music imaginable.