Program music

Program music is music intended to evoke extra-musical ideas, images in the mind of the listener by musically representing a scene, image or mood. By contrast, absolute music stands for itself and is intended to be appreciated without any particular reference to the outside world. The term is almost exclusively applied to works in the European classical music tradition, particularly those from the Romantic music period of the 19th century, during which the concept was popular, but pieces which fit the description have long been a part of music. The term is usually reserved for purely instrumental works (pieces without singers and lyrics), and not used, for example for Opera or Lieder. The purpose of most program music is in creating expression in serving the interests of orchestrated sound as well as the larger purpose of combining literature, poetry, and visual art with similarities to the principle of the dual purposes of all things.

History of program music

Renaissance period

Composers of the Renaissance wrote a fair amount of program music, especially for the harpsichord, including works such as Martin Peerson's The Fall of the Leafe and William Byrd's The Battell. For the latter work, the composer provided this written description of the sections: "Souldiers sommons, marche of footemen, marche of horsmen, trumpetts, Irishe marche, bagpipe and the drone, flute and the droome, marche to the fighte, the battels be joyned, retreat, galliarde for the victorie."

Baroque period

Probably the most famous work of the Baroque era is Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons a set of four concertos for violin and string orchestra that illustrate the seasons of the year with rain, buzzing flies, chilly winds, treading on ice, dancing peasants, and so on[1]. The program of the work is made explicit in a sequence of four sonnets written by the composer. Another well-known Baroque program work is Johann Sebastian Bach's Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother, BWV 992, whose sections have charming descriptive titles ("Friends gather and try to dissuade him from departing," "They picture the dangers which may befall him," "The Friends' Lament," "Since he cannot be dissuaded, they say farewell," "Aria of the Postilion," "Fugue in Imitation of the Postilion's horn.")

Classical era

Program music was perhaps less often composed in the Classical era. At this time, perhaps more than any other, music achieved drama from its own internal resources, notably in works written in sonata form. It is thought, however, that a number of Joseph Haydn's earlier symphonies may be program music; for example, the composer once said that one of his earlier symphonies represents "a dialogue between God and the Sinner". It is not known which of his symphonies Haydn was referring to. A minor Classical-era composer, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, wrote a series of symphonies based on Ovid's Metamorphoses (not to be confused with Twentieth-Century composer Benjamin Britten's Six Metamorphoses after Ovid).

Ludwig van Beethoven felt a certain reluctance in writing program music, and said of his 1808 Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral) that the "whole work can be perceived without description – it is more an expression of feelings rather than tone-painting"[2]. Yet the work clearly contains depictions of bird calls, a babbling brook, a storm, and so on. Beethoven later returned to program music with his Piano Sonata Op. 81a, Les Adieux, which depicts the departure and return of his close friend the Archduke Rudolph.

Romantic period

Program music particularly flourished in Romantic era. As it can invoke in the listener a specific experience other than sitting in front of a musician or musicians, it is related to the purely Romantic idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk describing Wagner's Operas as a fusion of many arts (set design, choreography, poetry and so on), although it relies solely on musical aspects to illustrate a multi-faceted artistic concept such as a poem or a painting. Composers believed that the dynamics of sound that were newly possible in the Romantic orchestra of the era allowed them to focus on emotions and other intangible aspects of life much more than during the Baroque or Classical eras.

Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique was a musical narration of a hyperbolically emotional love story he wrote himself. Franz Liszt did provide explicit programs for many of his piano pieces, but he is also the inventor of the symphonic poem. In 1874, Modest Mussorgsky composed using only the dynamic range of one piano a series of pieces describing seeing a gallery of ten of his friend's paintings and drawings in his Pictures at an Exhibition, later orchestrated by Maurice Ravel. The French composer Camille Saint-Saëns wrote many short pieces of program music which he called Tone Poems. His most famous are probably the Danse Macabre and several movements from the Carnival of the Animals. The composer Paul Dukas is perhaps best known for his tone poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice, based on a tale from Goethe.

Possibly the most adept at musical depiction in his program music was the German composer Richard Strauss, whose symphonic poems include Tod und Verklärung (portraying a dying man and his entry into heaven), Don Juan (based on the ancient legend of Don Juan), Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (based on episodes in the career of the legendary German figure Till Eulenspiegel), Don Quixote (portraying episodes in the life of Cervantes' character, Don Quixote), Ein Heldenleben (which depicts episodes in the life of an unnamed hero often taken to be Strauss himself) and Sinfonia Domestica (which portrays episodes in the composer's own married life, including putting the baby to bed). Strauss is reported to have said that music can describe anything, even a teaspoon!

Twentieth century

In the twentieth century, Alban Berg's Lyric Suite was thought for years to be abstract music, but in 1977 it was discovered that it was in fact dedicated to Hanna Fuchs-Robettin. Important leitmotifs are based the melodic series A–B–H–F, which is their combined initials. The last movement also contains a setting of a poem by Baudelaire, suppressed by the composer for publication [3].

Popular music as program music

The word "program music" is not used while speaking of popular music. The tradition of purely orchestral program music is continued in pieces for jazz orchestra, most notably several pieces by Duke Ellington. Instrumental pieces in popular music often have a descriptive title which suggests that they could be categorized as program music, and several instrumental albums are completely devoted to some programmatic idea (for example, China by Vangelis or The Songs of Distant Earth by Mike Oldfield). Some genres of popular music are more likely than others to involve programmatic elements; these include ambient, new age, surf rock, jazz fusion, progressive rock, art rock and various genres of techno music.

Progressive rock groups and musicians during the 1970s in particular experimented with program music, among which was Rush's Jacob's Ladder (1980), which shows clear influences of Smetana's Má vlast ("My Homeland") (1874-1879).

Is all music program music?

Some people and theories argue that there is indeed no such thing as true "absolute music" and that music always at least conveys or evokes emotions. While non-professional listeners often claim that music has meaning (to them), "new" musicologists, such as Susan McClary (1999), argue that so called "abstract" techniques and structures are actually highly politically and socially charged, specifically, even gendered. This may be linked to a more general argument against abstraction, such as Mark Johnson's argument that it is, "necessary...for abstract meaning...to have a bodily basis." (McClary, 1991) However, a more loosely specific definition of absolute music as music which was not composed with a programatic intent or plan in mind may be adopted.

More traditional listeners often reject these views sharply, asserting that music can be meaningful, as well as deeply emotional, while being essentially about itself (notes, themes, keys, and so on), and without any connection to the political and societal conflicts of our own day.

As such, most classical music is absolute music, as is suggested by titles which often consist simply of the type of composition, a numerical designation within the composer's oeuvre, and its key. Bach's Concerto for Two Harpsichords in C Minor, BWV 1060; Mozart's Piano Sonata in C Major, K. 545, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major (Opus 92) are all examples of absolute music.

While the debate is of interest to many, for practical purposes most scholars use the term "program music" in the narrower sense described above.

Program music lives on in movie soundtracks, which often feature ultra-modern sounding atonal programmatic music.

Symphonic poems

Single movement orchestral pieces of program music are often called symphonic poems.

The importance of program music

The concept of program music was particularly attractive to composers who wanted to pair their music to a story, an idea, a scene or a poem. Such music had qualities to suggest or evoke an image, whether it was a mere imitation of natural sounds, i.e. bird calls, or using descriptive melodies, harmonies or rhythms to create a mood, emotion or atmosphere for a story, idea, scene or poetic connotation, i.e. the flowing of a river to the sea. It is the combination of various arts into one which inspires descriptive music from coloristic resources.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Casler, Lawrence, Symphonic program music and its literary sources, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. ISBN 0-773-47489-7
• Haimo, Ethan, Schoenberg's transformation of musical language, Cambridge; NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-521-86542-5
• Marsh, Mary Val, Program music, NY: Macmillan, 1975. OCLC 2405146
• McClary, Susan, Feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991. ISBN 0-816-61899-2
• McClary, Susan, Conventional wisdom: the content of musical form, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. ISBN 0-585-39123-8

External links

• [4].
• Art of the States: programmatic programmatic works by American composers Retrieved September 12, 2007.
• Encyclopedia.com: Program music Retrieved September 12, 2007.
• Essentials of Music: Composers: Vivaldi Retrieved September 12, 2007.
• AllMusicGuide Review of Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, for string quartet by James Reel Retrieved September 12, 2007.
• Amazon.com: Review of Alban Berg: Lyric Suite by Kronos Quarter with Dawn Upshaw Retrieved September 12, 2007.

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