Program Music• Instrumental music that is associated with a story, poem, idea, or scene. • Elements being described are the “Program”• Made known by title of piece, movement or additional notes provided by

the composer• Different ranges of degree to which program will be represented. • For Example:• Title Only:

• Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 “Pastorale”• Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

• Movements:• Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade:

• The Sea and Sinbad's Ship • The Kalendar Prince• The Young Prince and The Young Princess • Festival At Baghdad

Program Music

• Absolute music- Music for its own sake (no program)– Ex. Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto

• Composers will make program music out of forms and genres usually found in Absolute music (i.e. Sonata form, the Symphony, Sonata, etc.)

• Programs will come in varying degrees of representation and specification

• Programmatic music often makes compositions more enjoyable and understandable.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)

• First French Romantic • Studied at Paris Conservatory• 1830- Prix de Rome• Unconventional Music, turned Opera companies etc. away. • Organized concerts at own expense for loyal

audiences. • Music Journalism• Outside of France-in demand as Conductor

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)

• Fascination with Shakespeare– Related to and was inspired by “dramatic truth”– Set Shakespearean plays to music

• Obsession with Harriet Smithson– Shakespearean actress

• Inspired…

Symphonie Fantastique (1830)

• Program Symphony in 5 movements• Berlioz writes detailed description of each

movement’s representation and intent (aka ‘program notes”)

• Meant to tell the story of “an artist gifted with a lively imagination who has poisoned himself with opium in the depths of despair because of hopeless love."

Symphonie Fantastique

• Rêveries - Passions (Dreams - Passions) • Un bal (A ball) • Scène aux champs (Scene in the country) • Marche au supplice (March to the scaffold) • Songe d'une nuit de sabbat (Dream of a witches'

Sabbath)

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