Program Music
Program Music
• Revival of program music in the late 19th
century (late Romantic period.)
• Program music: materials & techniques are
employed with the intent of depicting an extramusical phenomenon.
• For example
– A dramatic incident
– A poetic image
– A visual object
– An element in nature
• These things not only provided the general
suggestive impulses, but also became the
dominating ideas in the musical composition.
• Other music composed during this time was
called absolute music.
– Music conceived by the composer & understood by
the listener without reference to extra-musical
features.
• Program music extends back into the medieval
& Renaissance eras.
Hector Berlioz
1803-1869
• Grenoble, France
• Father wanted him to be a doctor, but it didn’t
happen.
• He spend more time at opera houses & music
halls.
• Berlioz fell in love with Harriet Smithson, an
English actress; she was playing Ophelia in
Hamlet when Berlioz saw her.
• He tried to meet her but was rejected as a
lunatic.
• He continued studying music & on his 5th
attempt, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome.
(1830)
• Also in 1830, he finished his major & only
widely-known composition, Symphonie
Fantastique.
– The “symphony” reflected his passion for Smithson.
– After hearing it, she was so impressed that she
married him.
– Several years later though, they separated (stormy
relationship.)
• Berlioz had difficulty in getting his works
performed.
• He believe in BIG productions (200 instruments
in orchestra; 300 singers in the chorus; rather
impractical.)
• As a conductor, he added new instruments to
the orchestra.
• He wrote some pieces for new & redeveloped
instruments.
• His greatest contribution to music: getting
sound out of an orchestra (orchestration.)
• Many of Berlioz’s ideas were grandiose &
proved to be impractical for the time period.
• Tone color was more prominent in his music
than melody & harmony.
• In 1844, he wrote an important treatise on
orchestration & tone color.
• 3 characteristics of Berlioz’s music
– Passionate emotionalism
– Daring experimentation
– Rich imagination
• Berlioz wrote many dramatic symphonies, many
on the works of Shakespeare & some on the
works of Goethe (story of Faust.)
– Dramatic symphony: similar to the oratorio; not
religious in nature.
• His major works are immense & dramatic.
Major Works
•
•
•
•
•
Symphonie Fantastique
Romeo & Juliet (dramatic symphony)
King Lear Overture
Beatrice et Benedict (opera)
Waverly & Rob Roy Overtures (based on
novels by Sir Walter Scott)
• Harold in Italy (symphony based on a poem by
Byron.)
Symphonie Fantastique
5 Movements
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Reveries, Passions
A Ball
Scene in the Country
March to the Scaffold
Dream of the Witches’ Sabbath
Background Story
• A young musician poisons himself with opium in
a fit of lovesick despair; it’s not enough to kill
him, just make him sick.
• He has strange visions that are transformed
into musical thoughts & images.
• His “loved-one” becomes a melody (an ideefixe: a fixed idea or fixation.)
• This melody will appear in all 5 movements
when the musician thinks of the “loved-one.”
• The idee-fixe is also known as a signature
theme.
• It is a theme (melody) or motto that is repeated,
with or without variation during a musical
composition.
➢The idee-fixe gives the piece musical unity
since it appears in each movement.
✿The orchestra portrays a wide range of images
& emotional states.
Part I: Reveries, Passions
• He recalls the soul-sickness, depressions, &
groundless joys he experienced before he first
saw his love one.
• Music then reflects the volcanic love that she
suddenly inspired in him.
• Swirling sounds indicate the frenzied suffering,
jealous rages he experiences
• The music also shows his returns to tenderness
& his religious consolations.
Part II: A Ball
• Waltz-like flavor
• He encounters his beloved at a party (music
sounds like the tumult of a brilliant party.)
• Harps & percussion
• Violin—tremolo
• Pay attention to the finale.
Part III: Scene in the Country
• Slow, pastoral movement.
• Gentle & calm
• Country scenery, quiet rustling of the trees
gently brushed by the wind
• Gives the young musician an unaccustomed
calm.
• The movement ends on a note of loneliness.
Part IV: March to the Scaffold
• Scaffold = guillotine
• He dreams he has killed his loved one & is
condemned to death.
• Rather somber & fierce then brilliant & solemn
• Has a military sound to it as the young
composer is marched to his death.
• The idee-fixe returns—he sees his loved one in
the crowd and then…CHOP the blade of the
guillotine strikes.
• Bassoons play the melody
• Sound effects depicting elements of the
story
• Listen for the snarling sound made by the
trombone.
Part V: Dream of a Witches’
Sabbath
• Noises represent ghosts, sorcerers, monsters,
witches & other types of ghouls; there are
groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries.
• He sees himself in the midst of this frightful
gathering, which turns out to be his funeral.
• The beloved melody appears again, but it has
no character or nobility; it is trivial, mean, &
grotesque.
• “She” has come to take part in the devilish orgy.
• Listen for the funeral knell (bells tolling at
midnight)
• There is a parody of a Dies Irae (from the
requiem; Day of Wrath)
• The witches dance a “round dance” that is
supposed to sound like a fugue, which
combines the funeral knell & the Dies Irae.