Program Music
• Instrumental music that tells a story.
• Absolute music- Music for its own sake (no
program)
– Ex. Bach Toccata & Fugue in d Minor
• Programs will come in varying degrees of
representation and specification
– Made known by title of piece, movement or
additional notes provide by the composer
– Many are autobiographical
Orchestral Program Music
• Programmatic Symphony
- Symphony with a program
• Concert Overture
- One movement, short piece, like an Opera
Overture
• Symphonic Poem (Tone Poem)
- One movement, long piece, very free in form
(compared to a Symphony)
• Incidental Music
- Music before or during a play
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
• Fascination with Shakespeare
– Related to and was inspired by
“dramatic truth”
• Obsession with Harriet Smithson
– Shakespearean actress
• Inspired Symphonie Fantastique
– Program symphony in 5 parts
– Berlioz wrote detailed description of each
movement’s representation and intent (aka
‘program notes”)
Symphonie Fantastique (1830)
• I. Dreams - Passions
– The artist sees a lovely woman
• II. A ball
– A dance where the two meet
• III. Scene in the country
– A peaceful night that turns badly as the lonely artist
realizes that his love is unrequited
• IV. March to the scaffold
– After poisoning himself with opium, the artist dreams that
he has murdered the woman, and is executed
• V. Dream of a witches' Sabbath
– He dreams of a hellish funeral
Idee Fixe (Fixed Idea)
•
“This melodic image and its model keep haunting him ceaselessly like a
double idée fixe. This explains the constant recurrence in all the movements
of the symphony of the melody which launches the first allegro. The
transitions from this state of dreamy melancholy, interrupted by occasional
upsurges of aimless joy, to delirious passion, with its outbursts of fury and
jealousy, its returns of tenderness, its tears, its religious consolations – all
this forms the subject of the first movement.” -Berlioz