Program Music

1. Program Music

2. 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

3. 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.

4. Hector Berlioz1803-1869

5. Grenoble, France • Father wanted him to be a doctor, but it didn’t 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)

6. 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.)

7. 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 Berlioz’s 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.

8. 3 characteristics of Berlioz’s 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.

9. 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.)

10. Symphonie Fantastique

11. 5 Movements • Reveries, Passions • A Ball • Scene in the Country • March to the Scaffold • Dream of the Witches’ Sabbath

12. Background Story • A young musician poisons himself with opium in a fit of lovesick despair; it’s 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.”

13. The idee-fixe is also known as a signaturetheme. • 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.

14. 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.

15. 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 • Violin—tremolo • Pay attention to the finale.

16. 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.

17. 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 returns—he sees his loved one in the crowd and then…CHOP the blade of the guillotine strikes.

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

19. 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.

20. 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.