Program%20Music

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Program Music
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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
  extra-musical phenomenon.
• For example
• A dramatic incident
• A poetic image
• A visual object
• An element in nature

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• 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.

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Hector Berlioz1803-1869
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• Grenoble, France
• Father wanted him to be a doctor, but it didnt
  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)

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• 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.)

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• 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 Berliozs 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.

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• 3 characteristics of Berliozs 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.

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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.)

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Symphonie Fantastique
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• 5 Movements
• Reveries, Passions
• A Ball
• Scene in the Country
• March to the Scaffold
• Dream of the Witches Sabbath

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Background Story

• A young musician poisons himself with opium in a
  fit of lovesick despair its 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 idee-fixe a
  fixed idea or fixation.)
• This melody will appear in all 5 movements when
  the musician thinks of the loved-one.

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• 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.

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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.

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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
• Violintremolo
• Pay attention to the finale.

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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.

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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 returnshe sees his loved one in
  the crowd and thenCHOP the blade of the
  guillotine strikes.

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• Bassoons play the melody
• Sound effects depicting elements of the story
• Listen for the snarling sound made by the
  trombone.

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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.

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• 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.