Program Music

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Program Music

• Romantic Symphonic Genres

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Free Concerts at the University this week

• MONDAY (TODAY), March 12
• Organ Students from the University of Alberta in
  recital Noon, Convocation Hall
• TUESDAY, March 13
• Joys and Sorrows Lieder of Schubert, Schumann
  and Wolf 800 PM, Convocation Hall
• WEDNESDAY, March 14
• Jeanette Comeau, Viola. 5 pm Con Hall
• Leanne Dammann, Viola. 8 pm Con Hall
• SUNDAY, March 18
• Kim Denis, Voice (MMus) 8 pm Con Hall
• Monday March 19
• Wendy Markourski, Organ Lecture Recital Noon
  Con Hall
• Tuesday March 20
• Neil Cockburn, Organ Lecture Recital 1pm Con
  Hall

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Program Music

• orchestral music associated with a literary idea,
  mood, or other extra-musical ideas.

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Four Types Genres of Program Music

• The Concert Overture A single-movement concert
  piece for orchestra based on a literary idea.
  (i.e. Tchaikovskys Romeo and Juliet. Normally
  in Sonata form.
• Incidental Music Usually consists of an
  overture and a series of pieces to be performed
  between the acts of a play and during important
  scenes. (i.e. Mendelssohns music for A
  Midsummer Nights Dream). Similar to todays
  film and TV music).
• Program Symphony The most important offspring
  of Program Music. A multimovement orchestral
  work based on a literary theme, story, or idea.
  (i.e. Berliozs Symphonie Fantastique).
• Symphonic Poem or Tone Poem invented by Franz
  Liszt. A single movement orchestral work, which
  in the course of contrasting sections develops a
  poetic idea, suggests a scene, or creates a mood.
  Differs from the concert overture in that there
  is no set form. (i.e. Smetanas The Moldau or
  Liszts Les Preludes).

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Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique

• Hector Berlioz's musical embodiment of the
  supreme love of his life, Harriet Smithson, was
  the "idee fixe" theme of the autobiographical
  Symphonie Fantastique.

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Idee Fixe

• A reoccurring melody or motif that represents
  either a person, place or mood.
• In the case of Symphonie Fantastique, the idee
  Fixe represents the composers beloved Herriot
  Smithson

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Symphony Fantastique the Program

• I. Reveries -- PassionsA young musician,
  afflicted with that moral complaint which a
  celebrated writer Chateaubriand calls
  "undirected emotionalism," sees the woman of his
  dreams and falls hopelessly in love. Each time
  her image comes into his mind, it evokes a
  musical thought represented by an idee fixe
  that is impassioned in character, but also noble
  and shy, as he imagines her to be.

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Symphony Fantastique the Program

• II. A BallThe artist finds himself in the swirl
  of a party, but the beloved image appears before
  him and troubles his soul.

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Symphony Fantastique the Program

• III. Scene in the CountryIn the distance, two
  shepherds play a ranz des vaches in dialogue
  solo oboe and English horn. The pastoral
  setting, the gentle evening breeze, the hopeful
  feelings he has begun to have--all conspire to
  bring to his spirit an unaccustomed calm, and his
  thoughts take on a more cheerful cast. He hopes
  not to be lonely much longer. But his happiness
  is disturbed by dark premonitions. What if she is
  deceiving him! One of the shepherds resumes his
  playing, but the other makes no response.... In
  the distance, thunder. Solitude. Silence.

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Symphony Fantastique the Program

• IV. March to the Scaffold. Convinced that his
  love is unrequited, the artist takes an overdose
  of opium. It plunges him into a sleep accompanied
  by horrifying visions. He dreams that he has
  killed his beloved, has been condemned and led to
  the scaffold, and is witnessing his own
  execution. The procession advances to a march
  that is now somber and savage, now brilliant and
  solemn. At its conclusion the idee fixe returns,
  like a final thought of the beloved cut off by
  the fatal bow.

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Symphony Fantastique the Program

• V. Dream of a Witches' SabbathHe sees himself in
  the midst of a frightful throng of ghosts,
  witches, monsters of every kind, who have
  assembled for his funeral. Strange noises,
  groans, bursts of laughter, distant cries. The
  beloved melody again reappears, but it has lost
  its modesty and nobilty it is no more than a
  vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque it is
  she, coming to the sabbath. A joyous roar greets
  her arrival.... She joins in the devilish
  orgy.... A funeral knell, a parody of the Dies
  irae. A sabbath round-dance. The Dies irae and
  the round-dance are combined.