JUNIOR TRINITY
MUSICAL CONNECTIONS
MUSICAL CONNECTIONS
Topic 1: Character and Mood in Music
Part 2: Programme Music
Part 2: Programme Music
Programme music is descriptive, suggesting visual images or 'telling a story'. The descriptive idea or story-line is known as the programme.
Instrumental music that is free of a programme and exists purely for its own sake is known as absolute music. Although descriptive music had always existed, orchestral programme music became very popular during the Romantic period (roughly the 19th century) when music developed close links with literature and painting. |
Musical devices used to express the story or inspiration include:
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Sometimes the programme was suggested by the title alone eg the Scottish and Italian symphonies by Mendelssohn where the title provides the source of inspiration rather than a storyline. At other times composers set out the programme in great detail, eg the Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz.
FOUR PRE-ROMANTIC EXAMPLES
Heinrich Biber is a Baroque composer from Salzburg, Austria. As well as large-scale choral works, he also wrote a great deal of innovative music for violin, including this Sonata which represents different birds and animals.
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Antonio Vivaldi was based at La Pieta in Venice, a girls' orphanage with an exceptional musical reputation. As a priest and in charge of music, he composed works for them including many concerti, including this depiction of a storm at sea.
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Vivaldi is most famous for a group of four concerti, where each one depicts a different season. Each movement of each concerto corresponds to a particular scene, set in a poem.
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Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, composed in 1808, depicts (although not always explicitly) life and scenes in the countryside. This particular movement is a storm.
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