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Programme music orprogrammatic music is a type of instrumental music that attempts to musically render an extramusical narrative or description of some aspect of world. The term was invented in the 19th century byFranz Liszt, who himself composed a great deal of program music.[1] However, as Liszt himself noted, program music had been written for centuries before his time.[2]
To give an example,Ludwig van Beethoven'sSixth Symphony narrates a visit to the countryside, portraying in succession a happy arrival, a quiet moment by a brook, an encounter with dancing peasants, a thunderstorm, and the peasants' song of thankgiving when the storm is over. Program music is often written so that the notes themselves convey, at least to some degree, the meaning of what is portrayed; thus the thunderstorm in Beethoven's symphony includes loudtimpani strokes to convey the thunder and shrillpiccolo music to depict the shrieking winds.
Sung music, such asopera,oratorio, orlieder is not considered program music as such, even when a story is told, since the story is given directly in the lyrics and not the music itself.[3]
Often, program music is accompanied by written material that clarifies the program for listeners. Beethoven's program is given in the subtitles he gave to the movements in the musical score, along with a few notations identifying the bird calls. For hisSymphonie fantastique,Hector Berlioz wrote a detailed program and asked that it be distributed to concert audiences before performances. Each of the four parts ofAntonio Vivaldi'sThe Four Seasons is affiliated with an Italian-languagesonnet that describes what is being portrayed.
Program music has been composed throughout theEuropean classical music tradition, particularly during theRomantic period of the 19th century. Single-movement orchestral pieces of program music, which flourished in the 19th century, are often calledsymphonic poems or tone poems.
The termabsolute music is sometimes used to designate non-program music, intended to be appreciated without any particular reference to the outside world.
Composers of theRenaissance wrote a fair amount of program music, especially for theharpsichord, including works such asMartin Peerson'sThe Fall of the Leafe andWilliam Byrd'sThe 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."[This quote needs a citation]
In the Baroque era, Vivaldi'sThe Four Seasons has poetic inscriptions in the score referring to each of the seasons, evoking spring, summer, autumn, and winter. An example of program music byJ. S. Bach is hisCapriccio on the departure of a beloved brother, BWV 992.[citation needed]
Program music was perhaps less often composed in theClassical era. At that time, perhaps more than any other, music achieved drama from its own internal resources, notably in works written insonata form. Some ofJoseph Haydn's earlier symphonies may be program music for which the program is lost; for example, the composer once said that one of his earlier symphonies represents "a dialogue between God and the Sinner".[This quote needs a citation] It is not known which of his symphonies Haydn was referring to. HisSymphony No. 8 also includes a movement named "La tempesta" that represents a storm. A minor Classical-era composer,Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, wrote a series of programmatic symphonies based onOvid'sMetamorphoses. German composerJustin Heinrich Knecht'sLe portrait musical de la nature, ou Grande sinfonie (Musical Portrait of Nature or Grand Symphony) from 1784–1785 is another 18th century example, anticipating Beethoven's Sixth Symphony by twenty years.
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Program music particularly flourished in theRomantic era.
Ludwig van Beethoven felt a certain reluctance in writing program music, and said of his 1808Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral) that the "whole work can be perceived without description – it is more an expression of feelings rather than tone-painting".[4]. Yet the work clearly contains depictions of bird calls, a flowing brook, a storm, and so on. Beethoven later returned to program music with hisPiano Sonata Op. 81a,Les Adieux, which depicts the departure and return of his friend and patron theArchduke Rudolf.
Hector Berlioz'sSymphonie fantastique was a musical narration of a hyperbolically emotional love story, whose real-life basis was the composer's intense passion for the actressHarriet Smithson.Franz Liszt provided explicit programs for many of his piano pieces and he was also the inventor of the termsymphonic poem. In 1874,Modest Mussorgsky composed for piano a series of pieces describing seeing a gallery of ten of his friend's paintings and drawings in hisPictures at an Exhibition, later orchestrated by many composers includingMaurice Ravel. The French composerCamille Saint-Saëns wrote many short pieces of program music which he calledTone Poems. His most famous are probably theDanse Macabre and several movements fromthe Carnival of the Animals. The composerPaul Dukas is perhaps best known for his tone poemThe Sorcerer's Apprentice, based on a tale fromGoethe.
Possibly the most adept at musical depiction in his program music was German composerRichard Strauss. His symphonic poems includeDeath and Transfiguration (portraying a dying man and his entry into heaven),Don Juan (based on the ancient legend ofDon Juan),Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (based on episodes in the career of the legendary German figureTill Eulenspiegel),Don Quixote (portraying episodes in the life ofMiguel de Cervantes' character,Don Quixote),A Hero's Life (which depicts episodes in the life of an unnamed hero often taken to be Strauss himself) andSymphonia 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.[5]
Another composer of programmatic music wasNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, whose colorful "musical pictures" include "Sadko", Op. 5, after the Russian Bylina, about the minstrel who sings to the Tsar of the Sea, the famous "'Scheherazade", Op. 35, after theArabian Nights entertainments (where the heroine is depicted by a violin and whose stories include "Sinbad the Sailor") and any number of orchestral suites from his operas, includingThe Tale of Tsar Saltan (which also contains "Flight of the Bumblebee"),The Golden Cockerel,Christmas Eve,The Snow Maiden, andThe Legend of The Invisible City of Kitezh.
In Scandinavia, Sibelius explored theKalevala legend in several tone poems, most famously inThe Swan of Tuonela.
One of the most famous programs, because it has never been definitively identified, is the secret non-musical idea or theme – the "Enigma" – that underliesEdward Elgar'sVariations on an Original Theme (Enigma) of 1899. The composer disclosed it to certain friends, but at his request they never made it public.
In the 19th century, program music served an important role in changing composers' conception of musical form. Their 18th century predecessors often relied on well-defined formal patterns of composition, most notablysonata form. With the new prominence of program music, it became possible to use the program itself as the main, or only, basis for the organization of a musical composition. Indeed, per Scruton, Liszt "considered the idea of exalting the narrative associations of music into a principle of composition to be incompatible with the continuance of traditional symphonic forms".[6]
During the late-nineteenth and twentieth century, the increased influence of modernism and other anti-Romantic trends contributed to a decline in esteem for program music, but audiences continued to enjoy such pieces asArthur Honegger's depiction of a steam locomotive inPacific 231 (1923). Indeed,Percy Grainger's incomplete orchestral fragmentTrain Music employs the same function. This music for large orchestra depicts a train moving in the mountains of Italy.Heitor Villa-Lobos similarly depicted a rural steam-driven train inThe Little Train of the Caipira (1930).
Indeed, an entire genre sprang up in the 1920s, particularly in the Soviet Union, of picturesque music depicting machines and factories. Well-known examples includeAlexander Mosolov'sIron Foundry (1926–27) andSergei Prokofiev'sLe Pas d'acier (The Steel Step, 1926). An example from outside of the Soviet Union isGeorge Antheil'sBallet mécanique (1923–24).
Ottorino Respighi composed a number of tone poems in the 1910s and 1920s, notably three works on different aspects of the city of Rome.Gustav Holst'sThe Planets is another well-known example, as is Russian composerSergei Rachmaninoff'sIsle of the Dead. Although written originally for the filmDangerous Moonlight, British composerRichard Addinsell'sWarsaw Concerto was one of the first pieces of orchestral music composed for a film to achieve popularity in concert halls as well.
Heinrich Ignaz Biber'sSonata representativa (for violin andcontinuo), which depicts various animals (the nightingale, the cuckoo, the cat) in a humoristic manner. This is perhaps program music but perhaps instead illustrates a distinction between "representational" music and program music properly speaking, It is possible for music to depict particular things or events, sometimes quite briefly, without actually having a program.
Music that is composed to accompany a ballet could be considered program music, even when presented separately as a concert piece; many of the classic works of the ballet repertoire, such asTchaikovsky'sSwan Lake, have a storyline that the music serves to illustrate. A similar case isincidental music to stage plays, such asMendelssohn's incidental music toShakespeare'sA Midsummer Night's Dream. While operas themselves are not program music, their overtures often highlight episodes from the plot to come; thus the climax of Beethoven'sLeonore Overture No. 3 (intended originally as the overture toFidelio) involves the trumpet calls that signal the dramatic rescue of Leonora and Florestan in Act II. Mozart's overture toDon Giovanni opens with the terrifying music that much later accompanies the visit of the ghost of the Commendatore, at the climax of the opera.
Film scores could also be considered as program music. Influenced by the late Romantic work ofNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov,Ottorino Respighi,Richard Strauss, and others, motion picture soundtrack composers took up the banner of programmatic music following the advent of "talkies" in the 20th century. Some film scores, such asProkofiev's music forAlexander Nevsky andLieutenant Kijé (film), are arranged by the composer for concert performance, thus becoming mainstream instances of program music.
A good deal of program music falls in between the realm of purely programmatic and purely absolute, with titles that clearly suggest an extramusical association, but no detailed story that can be followed and no musical passages that can be unequivocally identified with specific images. Examples would includeDvořák'sSymphony No. 9,From the New World or Beethoven'sSymphony No. 3,Eroica.
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