pieces with the most unexpected endings?

[stevie]

a few alkan pieces stand out

op38no5 leads into the major key and then end on a completely unexpected unusual minor chord

op39no4 after all hell has broken loose it all dies down into a chord progression that resolves to the tonic major...but no wait...its not finished, theres one more chord - the tonic minor(this one sends shivers down my spine)

op39no12 everything dies down to PPP, then what does alkan do? he chooses to pregnant dog-slap the outer registers of the piano FFF, hilarious, shocking, and wickedly cool.

then theres the end of rach's paganini rhapsody, after a huge climatic buildup, everything drops of and the piano finishes everything off in the most tounge-in-cheek comedy ending imaginable.

schedrin(sp?)'s humoureske - the final pregnant dog-slap chord again, patented by alkan

any more?

[spirithorn]

A couple that come to mind are Liszt HR #17 and Czardas Obstine.

[BoliverAllmon]

Rach's prelude in g min. I have always thought the ending was out of place, but so cool.

[JCarey]

Mendelssohn's Andante and Rondo Capriccioso has a somewhat "unexpected" ending. So does Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum.

Funny... these were the exact same two pieces I mentioned in the thread about pieces that start in major and end in minor.

[danyal]

Poulenc 2 piano concerto. All the movements have the strangest endings. Quick, small, out of character and just very... very... french.

Then there's the Ritual Fire Dance by Falla. Stupidest last chord I've heard in my life. But wonderful.

Oh... and then there's that ending of Chopin's op 10 no 12 etude. Rather odd way to end the etude... or the entire set, for that matter.

[mlsmithz]

Staying with Alkan, the Etude Op.35 No.10, after ten or so placid minutes in G-flat major, suddenly concludes with a sharp, spiky couple of minutes in F-sharp minor using a slight variant on the G-flat major theme.  Meanwhile, the Etude Op.39 No.2, after a coda in D major in which the piece seems to be scrambling to build up the energy to go out in a blaze of glory, ends up surrendering to its inevitable demise with three muted D minor chords.  And then the finale of the Grande sonate Op.33 gets louder and louder as it plods through the final bars, to a crash in first C-sharp minor, then D-sharp major.... followed by three muted G-sharp minor chords, as though the anguish of the preceding bars is destined to carry on past the end of the piece (Alkan's intention, of course).  It's also the only movement of the Grande sonate to end in minor - the first moves from B minor to the parallel major, the second moves from D-sharp minor to the relative major, and the third is in G major.

The three "Perpetual Motion" pieces by Poulenc all have peculiar conclusions as well; each seems to collapse in muted dissonance for the final chords.

The first movement of Beethoven's Sonata Op.10 No.3 in D major cuts off very suddenly; convention would have dictated that it end with three D major chords rather than just two, or at least that there would be a rest between the two chords that are there.  But no, just two chords, right next to each other.

And finally, my personal favourite bizarre conclusion: Dvorak's Humoresque Op.101 No.8 in B-flat minor, the last of the eight Humoresques.  Cuts off very suddenly in the final bar in the middle of a phrase used several times earlier in the piece, with a sudden crescendo to ffz for the final beat, which begins with an unexpected G-natural to end in the Dorian mode rather than Aeolian. (Which brings to mind the surprise Mixolydian conclusion to Chopin's Prelude Op.28 No.23 in F major - he even accents the unexpected E-flat.)

[Etude]

Prokofiev's second concerto, where the piano plays very quietly in irregular rhythms for a long while, then the orchestra comes back in, blasting.

[shasta]

Rach's Paganini.  Such a tiny ending for such a monstrous piece!

[mikey6]

Bartok generally surprises me with his endings, I have to listen to them a few time to get any sort of direction towards a final chord.
Not (specifically)piano, but Prokofiev 6th Symphony (Love this piece ) sort of forces itself into eb major at the end after restating the 1st mov theme, read a great quote - "the most unheroic Eb imaginable!"

[sergei r]

I agree with the people that have suggested the Rach Paganini Rhapsody - definitely my favourite unexpected ending.

[Waldszenen]

The finale of Beethoven's Eroica.

[phil13]

My vote goes to the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata No.1 in F minor, Op.2 No.1. That quick series of chords comes at you, and then leaves you expecting something more before it moves into the second movement, a longer coda.

Phil

[mcgillcomposer]

My vote goes to the first movement of Beethoven's Sonata No.1 in F minor, Op.2 No.1. That quick series of chords comes at you, and then leaves you expecting something more before it moves into the second movement, a longer coda.

Phil

I like the ending of Beethoven's Op. 31 no. 1 first movement and last movement....so unexpected and so effective!

[mlsmithz]

A couple that come to mind are Liszt HR #17 and Czardas Obstine.

Regarding HR No.17, well, it's certainly a peculiar ending, but I don't know that I'd say it's unexpected since the entire piece is bizarre.  There's no tonal centre of any sort - even though it's classified as being in D minor and the key signature changes to two sharps after a page and a half or so, I don't think there's a D minor or D major chord in the entire piece.  Far and away the most unusual, yet among the most fascinating for that reason, of the Hungarian Rhapsodies.

I have another addition to this list: Lyapunov's Transcendental Etude No.11 in G major, 'Ronde des sylphes'.  Though the ending is something of a parallel to that of 'Feux-follets', its obvious model, the final two chords consist of triad acciacature in the left hand followed by triad eighth notes in the right hand, the last of which comprises a C# diminished fifth second inversion and G major second inversion.  I know it's not alone in not anchoring the final chord with the tonic note in the bass (unless the G at the bottom of the C# diminished fifth chord counts), but it still has an interesting, unexpected effect.

[jbmajor]

The last movement of Beethoven's Appassionata (Op. 57 no. 23) has an abrupt ending and actually sounds like a new movement is about to begin....but that's it.  I think it works well. 

[stevie]

im not sure what you mean by that, you mean the march-like theme comes in and then it whirls off without really developing that part much?

i think its a stunning ending, but i dont think its necesarrily unexpected.

[JCarey]

The first time I heard Busoni's concerto, I thought the ending was "unexpected". I thought it was a bit abrupt, yet it seemed to make perfect sense.

[mrchops10]

If anybody knows their Haydn string quartets, one called the "Joke" ends really wonderfully. Here is an equally weird description, courtesy of allmusic.com: "But now in the coda-here comes the joke-the tune is split into its four tiny components, with a two-bar rest after each one. And just when the melody seems finally to have spurted its final section, Haydn inserts a four-measure rest, suggesting that the work is over, but then has the quartet blurt out the tune's first clause again-taking the audience by surprise, and leaving the movement hanging in mid-air with an unfinished phrase." Crazy dude, that Haydn. Crazy dude.

[ahinton]

What about the closing measures of the first movement of Sorabji's Fourth Piano Sonata, as they suddenly disappear off into the ether? There's no ending quite like it in the whole of Sorabji (and curiously it almost feels similar in effect to the ending of Elliott Carter's Symphonia from nearly six decades later). This sonata is undoubtedly one of the finest - if not THE finest - of Sorabji's pre-Opus Clavicembalisticum piano works. For those unfamiliar with it, check what I mean by listening to it, beautifully recorded, in a stunning and consistently compelling performance by Jonathan Powell (Altarus AIR-CD-9069[3]).

Best,

Alistair

[mikey6]

CPE Bach, rondo in cmin, ends with a great joke.

[mlsmithz]

I kept meaning to mention Haydn's "Joke" quartet, but it kept slipping my mind.  On a similar note (so to speak), Mozart's "Musikalischer Spass" ("Musical Joke") ends in a mess of dissonance - perhaps not unexpected given the humour of the piece but certainly bizarre.  And yet if one looks at the score, it's just a case of each of the six instruments playing in a different key - were they all transposed into the same key, the ending would be rather traditional by Mozartian standards.  Haydn may have been a bit on the crazy side, but I think Mozart outdid him in that department.

Speaking of shifting keys, each of Busoni's seven Elegies shifts home key for its final bars (not least as Busoni wrote them after publishing his essay about the possibility of breaking past the limits of conventional tonality); most striking of all, perhaps, is No.4, which, after a re-iteration of the tranquil G major introduction and an apparent final resolution into that key, suddenly follows it up with the true final chord - in E major.  Listening to the piece again knowing that it has "been in E all along" has a very different effect to listening to it for the first time!

And then I know there are plenty of conclusions like it, but the final chord of the slow movement of Alkan's Sonatine always comes as a bit of a surprise to me - a slow, stately rendition of the theme from the opening bars slows to a pause on C.... and then a sudden crash for the final F major chord (which, again, is not anchored at the bottom by the tonic note).