Thought you might look, Percy Filth!!!

Seriously though, listening to Liebestod and it sounds quite horny - the girlfriend agrees. Am I right in guessing that Wagner is trying to portray the female orgasm??
Any other notable examples of this steamy style??

Adam! Please, this is a family forum! But ... some would argue for Mahler's Adagietto. Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth" has a famous example carrying through to detumescence represented by wilting downward trombone glissandi. I hear the Liebestod as an almost clinical description of the male experience, I think, but it takes two to tango. A French term is "the little death", but one romantic fellow called it a sneeze of the loins. Your girlfriend sounds like a keeper. The principle of tension and relaxation permeates all music: the greater the tension, the greater the relaxation that must ensue, as in the first two movements of Beethoven's Fifth or Appassionata.

The main thing is not to be like the Alzheimerish man who, when his girl asked if he still loved her, said "I can't remember."

[Deleted by the author on 11 Nov 2009 10:57 GMT]

Hi Rob, The opening of Rosenkavalier represents the inexperienced Octavian making love to the Feldmarschallin with horn(y) whoops at the appropriate moment. Strauss wanted this played and acted with the curtain up. A prurient censor forbade this. What better way to fill an opera house if the composer' original wishes were restored. If we can have a seductive Maria Ewing (I believe) ending up naked on stage after the Dance of the Seven Veils in Strauss's Salome, why not? Which of you would refuse tickets. Dirty trenchcoats to be supplied by yourselves. Tom.

Yes, and throw in Charlotte Church & Katherine Jenkins and I will be posting on the What Concerts Or Operas Are You Attending thread!!!!!

Hello Piso/everyone - I've always found THAT trombone representation of Sergei's 'efforts' in Lady Macbeth pretty funny. Wasn't it this scene that nettled Stalin so much (ironic, seeing he could be as vulgar as anyone) and as a result changed Shostakovich's life?

P.S. I'm sure Shostakovich used the trombone in a similar manner to represent a rustic snoring in one of his film scores , so it may have been a favourite device of his.

[Deleted by Amazon on 15 Jun 2009 17:30 BST]

I get rather hot and bothered (but not necessarily organic) when listening to the bridge between the 3rd and 4th movements of Beethoven's 5th symph. Oh so dramatic!

Yes and why not a naked Tom Kent and Adam Jackson while we're at it (so to speak) - oops no I meant Juan Diego Florez, he'll do nicely, and Rolando Villazon...no actually he's a bit hairy-scary.

As for music, well the dreaded Bolero certainly doesn't do it; God know why that piece was chosen for the film 10...it's so long there can't be a man on earth who can...erm...for that length of time (except, allegedly, Sting), and it's so boring that both partners would be asleep before getting anywhere.

Liebestod is surely the best. Maybe some of R.Strauss's songs are pretty powerful too, though I couldn't name which ones.

[Deleted by the author on 15 Jun 2009 22:05 BST]

Adam, Well, I don't know about 'steamy' (in the priapic/orgasmic sense - I tiptoe round the bubbling pool) apart from the obvious candidates nominated so far. Sexual attraction (which may create tension) can be found in much music. In some some sort of descending order of intensity: unusual and unhealthy sexual tension can be seen in Salome, and her obsession with Jokanaan; and later, Herod's obsession with his step daughter Salome that leads to fatal consequences. There's a more platonic, but still essentially sexual element in Verklarte Nacht, where a couple's love for each other will get over the fact that the woman is carrying someone else's child, Then there's the possibly homosexual love in Ravel's Sheherazade - it's not clear. Or what about the yearning love in Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony? Or the love (Verdi's) Otello declares to Desdemona before he takes her to bed (with cello accompaniment - a beautiful moment)?

I had a brief but wonderful fling with a guy who introduced me to the delights of Glenn Gould huffing, mumbling, humming, muttering and wheezing his way through the Well Tempered Klav. It actually did heighten the mood. Sounds barmy, but it worked!

[Deleted by the author on 11 Nov 2009 10:58 GMT]

[Deleted by Amazon on 16 Jun 2009 12:09 BST]

[Deleted by Amazon on 16 Jun 2009 13:16 BST]

More Strauss - Prelude to Act 3 of Arabella. And, of course, the love scene in Sinfonia Domestica. The Act 2 Interlude in Walton's Troilus & Cressida. The Rape in Britten's Rape of Lucretia. Oral sex, for a little variety, in Ades' Powder her Face. More Wagner - the finale of Act 1 of Walkure. And coitus interruptus in the Liebesszene of Tristan. There's a gay seduction (with viola d'amore) in Ginastera's Bomarzo. Etc. Etc.

Whoosh! After all this the Love Scene from "Feuersnot" ... "Lack of, or In Need of, Fire" by Richard Strauss and Tommy Beecham seems quite tame. There must be something in the various Pelleas et Melisandes and Romeos et Juliettes, but those were more innocent times.

[Deleted by the author on 11 Nov 2009 10:58 GMT]

[Deleted by Amazon on 16 Jun 2009 15:31 BST]

[Deleted by the author on 16 Jun 2009 15:39 BST]

Kevin McDermott -- I knew this was going to happen the minute I saw this thread. Same thing happened to Vaslav Nijinsky on stage, dancing either Afternoon of a Faun or Spectre of the Rose. Maybe both.

Crikey, what a dull, tame life I lead!!

[Deleted by Amazon on 17 Jun 2009 00:31 BST]

amazing that noone has yet mentioned Korngold´s Das Wunder der Heliane. Listen to Heliane´s aria (Anna Tomowa-Sintow´s version preferably) Ich ging zu ihm, in Act II. Totally orgasmic. The whole opera is full of the most marvellous music and it doesn´t seem to be very well known.

Robert Pickett: My Glenn Gould afternoons occurred in that hotbed of Bachian passion, Stevenage!

Wildfire: I can't bear to put the Beethoven on again, for fear of what might happen to me as I listen chomping on Garibaldis or chocolate digestives...