Transcript Program Music - HCC Learning Web

Program Music
• Program music is a type of art music that
attempts to musically render an extramusical narrative.
• The narrative itself might be offered to the
audience in the form of program notes,
inviting imaginative correlations with the
music.
– The paradigmatic example is Hector Berlioz's
Symphonie fantastique, which relates a druginduced series of morbid fantasies concerning the
unrequited love of a sensitive poet involving
murder, execution, and the torments of Hell.
Absolute Music
• Absolute music, in contrast, is intended to be
appreciated without any particular reference to the
outside world.
• The term is almost exclusively applied to works in the
European classical music tradition, particularly those
from the Romantic music period of the 19th century,
during which the concept was popular, but pieces
which fit the description have long been a part of
music.
• The term is usually reserved for purely instrumental
works (pieces without singers and lyrics), and not used,
for example for Opera or Lieder.
Program Music in the 19th Century
• Program music particularly flourished in
Romantic era.
• Program music during the Romantic Music Period
was purely instrumental and the composer wrote
this type of piece based off of non-musical ideas,
images ,or events.
– Ludwig van Beethoven’s 1808 Symphony No. 6
(Pastoral) is "whole work can be perceived without
description – it is more an expression of feelings rather
than tone-painting.” Yet the work clearly contains
depictions of bird calls, a babbling brook, a storm, and
so on.
Examples of Romantic Program Music
• Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique was a musical narration of a
hyperbolically emotional love story he wrote himself.
• Franz Liszt did provide explicit programs for many of his piano pieces
but he is also the inventor of the term symphonic poem.
• In 1874, Modest Mussorgsky composed using only the dynamic
range of one piano a series of pieces describing seeing a gallery of
ten of his friend's paintings and drawings in his Pictures at an
Exhibition, later orchestrated by Maurice Ravel.
• The French composer Camille Saint-Saëns wrote many short pieces
of program music which he called Tone Poems. His most famous are
probably the Danse Macabre and several movements from the
Carnival of the Animals.
• The composer Paul Dukas is perhaps best known for his tone poem
The Sorcerer's Apprentice, based on a tale from Goethe.
• Possibly the most adept at musical depiction in
his program music was the German composer
Richard Strauss
– symphonic poems include Tod und Verklärung
(portraying a dying man and his entry into heaven),
Don Juan (based on the ancient legend of Don Juan),
Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (based on episodes in
the career of the legendary German figure Till
Eulenspiegel), Don Quijote (portraying episodes in the
life of Cervantes' character, Don Quixote), Ein
Heldenleben (which depicts episodes in the life of an
unnamed hero often taken to be Strauss himself) and
Sinfonia Domestica (which portrays episodes in the
composer's own married life, including putting the
baby to bed).
– Strauss is reported to have said that music can
describe anything, even a teaspoon!
Nationalism
• Musical nationalism refers to the use of musical ideas
or motifs that are identified with a specific country,
region, or ethnicity, such as folk tunes and melodies,
rhythms, and harmonies inspired by them.
• Musical nationalism can also include the use of folklore
as a basis for programmatic works including opera.
• Although some evidence of the trend can be seen as
early as the late 18th century, nationalism as a musical
phenomenon is generally understood to have emerged
part way into the Romantic era, beginning around the
mid-19th century and continuing well into the
twentieth.
• It initially began as a reaction against the
dominance of "German" music (that is, the
European classical tradition) and later developed
alongside the growing movements for national
liberation and self-determination that
characterized much of the 19th century.
• Countries or regions most commonly linked to
musical nationalism include Russia,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Scandinavia,
Spain, UK, Latin America and the United States.
• musical nationalism is a term often used to
describe non-European 20th century music as
well, in particular that originating in Latin
America.
Russia
• Until the 19th century, Russian art music had been
dominated by foreign musicians. Peter the Great (1689–
1725) had begun this trend by importing foreign musicians
to modernize his kingdom. As a result, very few Russian
compositions in the western European art music tradition
exist before Glinka.
• Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)
– Mikhail Glinka was the first Russian composer to give a native
voice to common musical styles of the day.
– After studying music and visiting Italy and Berlin, Glinka
composed an opera about the Russian peasant and hero Ivan
Susanin. The work was titled A Life for the Tsar, and used
several aspects new to Russian music. It used recitative instead
of spoken dialogue, and had recurring themes.
– There were two Russian folk tunes in the opera, and several
more tunes that had the characteristics of folk music.
• The FiveMoguchaya kuchka (The Mighty Handful) is a
phrase coined by Russian music critic Vladimir Stasov to
describe a group of five Russian composers whose purpose
was to compose music in a Russian style.
• Members of the five were Mily Balakirev (1836–1910), the
leader of the group, César Cui (1835–1918), Modest
Mussorgsky (1839–1881), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–
1908), and Alexander Borodin (1833–1887).
– The Five felt that the folk and religious music of the Russian
people should be used a basis for composition.
– They tried to avoid strict counterpoint in the Germanic style, as
well as certain other techniques employed in western Europe.
– They preferred Romanticism and realism over Classical form.
Some of the distinguishing stylistic characteristics of this group
included use of non-functional tonal progressions, asymmetrical
meters, and a coloristic approach to orchestration.
Czechoslovakia
•
•
Czechoslovakia was a country formed in 1918 by the combination of the
Bohemian, Moravian, and Slovakian territories. These territories had been under
the control of the Habsburg Empire. As a result, the imperial language, German,
and the imperial religion, Catholicism, had become a way of life for the Czech
people. To preserve the native language, the Provisional Theater was organized in
Prague. This theater promoted the Czech language, composers, folk music, and
programs using national themes.
Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884)
– the first great Czech nationalist composer.
– He wrote his first nationalist work in 1863, in Czech, as a contest entry to the
Provisional Theater. He learned to read and write Czech to enter the
competition.
– This opera Braniboři v Čechách (The Brandenburgers in Bohemia) has a historic
plot, but the music does not represent folk song.His second opera, Prodaná
nevěsta (The Bartered Bride, 1863–1866), incorporates folk melodies, and was
a success beyond Czechoslovakia. Also included in his nationalistic works are
the six tone poems Má vlast (My Fatherland, 1872–1880).
The Moldau from Má vlast
• Vltava, also known by its German name Die Moldau (or The
Moldau), was composed between 20 November and
8 December 1874 and was premiered on 4 April 1875.
• Smetana uses tone painting to evoke the sounds of one of
Bohemia's great rivers.
– In his own words:The composition describes the course of the
Vltava, starting from the two small springs, the Cold and Warm
Vltava, to the unification of both streams into a single current,
the course of the Vltava through woods and meadows, through
landscapes where a farmer's wedding is celebrated, the round
dance of the mermaids in the night's moonshine: on the nearby
rocks loom proud castles, palaces and ruins aloft. The Vltava
swirls into the St John's Rapids; then it widens and flows toward
Prague, past the Vyšehrad, and then majestically vanishes into
the distance, ending at the Labe (or Elbe, in German).
• Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
– The most successful of the Czech nationalist composers.
He performed viola in the Provisional Theater under
Smetana, and was mentored by Brahms.
– Dvořák included Bohemian themes and elements into
much of his music. In 1871, he left the Provisional Theater
and began to set a libretto by a Czech writer, Lobesky,
titled Král a uhlíř (The King and the Charcoal Burner).
Unfortunately, this opera was not successful.
– More notable for their national content are his sixteen
Slavonic Dances, eight in Op. 46 (1878) and eight in Op. 72
(1886), plus the three Slavonic Rhapsodies, Op. 45 (1880).
– Dvořák was invited to New York to direct the first national
conservatory in America. While abroad, he studied African
American and Native American music. Some say that these
styles are incorporated into his American works: Symphony
no. 9 op. 95 (From the New World), The “American" string
quartet op. 96, and the "American" string quintet, op. 97.
• Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)
• Janáček did a lot of work researching and
cataloguing Moravian folk music.
• His work inspired further research. Because of his
interest in folk music, he was predisposed to
modality and pentatonic scales which appear
frequently in Moravian folk music. He generally
wrote without key signatures to freely move
between modes.
• His most famous opera, Jenůfa (1904), was
originally written in Czech and translated into
German. Janáček supervised the translation
carefully to preserve the integrity of the libretto.
Norway
• Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)
– Grieg began composing national music after
visiting Ole Bull, a violinist and researcher of folk
music.
– His most notable pieces are the incidental music
for plays, including his music for Ibsen's Peer Gynt
(1874–1875). He also composed many piano works
in a national style.
Finland
• Jean Sibelius (1865–1957)
– Jean Sibelius had strong patriotic feelings for Finland.
He chose to write program music rather than base his
works on Finnish folk music. For his contributions, the
government awarded him a pension.
• In 1899, patriotism was running high in Finland.
Sibelius composed the symphonic poem Finlandia
(1899) for a festival, and this rallied the Finnish
citizens into a patriotic fervor. A portion of this
tone poem has been arranged as a chorale; it
remains an important national song of Finland,
and is also present in many Protestant hymnals.