Wow....I think this post is great for a number of reasons, first of which is the value of melody itself. It's the part of music that you don't learn, in the general sense or relatively speaking....ur born with it. To me, it's my favorite part of music even though, to me, the piano is not a 'melody' instrument as much as it is a harmony instrument with all of the textures and such. It's tone can not be modulated after a note is struck as all the pitch can do is fade away at various rates. The inability to create vibrato makes it more difficult to convey feeling, yet that is not at all the case regarding all of these genius compositions mentioned. And furthermore, what is even more amazing is how many compositions that were not written for the piano lend themselves better to the piano then their native instruments...for example, Rachm's 18th Varriation on Paganini is one of my favorites, and parts of the melody I like best when played on the piano, and other parts sound better in the orchestra. Oh and BTW, Pianocrazy, I think ur right about simplicity being a big factor in many great melodies, my father certainly thinks so.
But I just wanted to mention something that may only be just me, but I wonder if anyone else feels the same. I was amazed at the deversity of taste!!!! As, I was looking at the peices listed of course I aggree with many of them, or if not, I understand why they have been selected.....but two really cool parts where that I saw almost zero of my favorites, and I saw a few that I just completly am missing the boat on. And the point I'm trying to bring up is SIMPLY that this 'diversity' in taste is so wide, that I wonder what the reasons are for this.
Now, first the problem might be me in that, while I do play classical piano, mostly Chopin & a Beetvn Sonata or 2, the music forums that I have participated on until today have not been classical, like this one, so when my 'group' gets together the list looks entirely different, & perhaps this is the largest cause. I'm not used to seeing some of these selections under the heading of most beautiful melodies, just as if I listed some of mine, maybe many of you think the same thing. Well at least in adding my nominations, we'll deversify even more, so, speaking in terms of New York City, my home, we would still journey to Lincoln Center, but we won't find anyone in Avery Fisher or Allice Tulley as the Halls will be empty......but the House will be full, & if we're talking about the most beautiful melody, then The Metropolitan Opera House would be performing La Boheme by the composer that I believe (for me) wrote more beautiful melodies than anyone, then everyone, then anyone & everyone....Giacomo Puccini. So which part of Boheme.....just the parts you can hear...the first note to the last and every single one in between. For anyone who knows the opera, the 'love theme' that appears in Che gelida manina and is used many times in many different forms for the rest of the opera, with no appearence more beautiful, more tender than Puccini's flowering orchestration of it from Act IV when Rudolfo & Mimi are finally left alone to remember better times past. But like I said earlier, this level of beauty (or just a mere fraction below that of Boheme) is achieved by Puccini in almost every thing he ever wrote, and I'm not talking about finding this in every opera, I'm talking about trying to go 5 min within most any of his operas with out hearing something just heart aching'ly beautiful. There are of course, plenty of other operatic sections that are worthy to mention but I've already got carried away, but just a scuttlebut or 2 for any interested...L'Epilogo from Boito's Mefestofele, Vainement ma bien aimee from Lalo's Le Roi D'ys, & the entire opera Andrea Chenier by Giordano, which is considered to be "the best of the bad operas" by 'they', yet before the premier Verdi reviewed the score as a favor to a friend and said "...what man could write such music." and that is not at all taken out of context. Oh yes, the above selections must be from the recordings of tenor Beniamino Gigli & you'll see why.
There are a handful of composers who's music really 'makes sense' to me, understanding the composers musical language, but with Puccini the level and detail of understanding is far deeper, ah....never actully thought of this but how well one understands what the composer is saying/doing must play a huge roll in our preferences/passions simply because we can absorb more of the beauty of the genius. So in closing, I can recall one of the other axioms said of melody/music.....sometimes the melodies that we are to love best, need to be listened to many many times before the magic happens.
Topic: The most beautiful melody ever...