Wikipedia

List of program music

Program music is a term applied to any musical composition on the classical music tradition in which the piece is designed according to some preconceived narrative, or is designed to evoke a specific idea and atmosphere. This is distinct from the more traditional absolute music popular in the Baroque and Classical eras, in which the piece has no narrative program or ideas and is simply created for music's sake. Musical forms such as the symphonic poem, ballade, suite, overture and some compositions in freer forms are named as program music since they intended to bring out extra-musical elements like sights and incidents.

Opera, ballet, and Lieder could also trivially be considered program music since they are unintended to accompany vocal or stage performances. They will be excluded from this list except where they have been extensively popularised and played without the original vocals and/or stage performance.

The orchestral program music tradition is also continued in some pieces for jazz orchestras. For narrative or evocative popular music, please see Concept Album.

Any discussion of program music brings to mind Walt Disney's animated features Fantasia (1940) and Fantasia 2000 (1999), in which the Disney animators provided graphic visualisation of several famous pieces of program music. However, not all the pieces used in the films were particularly programmatic, and in most cases, the narratives illustrated by the animators were different from whatever programmatic narrative might have existed originally.

List of program music by composer edit

Edmund Angerer edit

Johann Sebastian Bach edit

P. D. Q. Bach edit

Les Baxter edit

Ludwig van Beethoven edit

  • Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 (1807); based on the story of Coriolanus
  • Symphony No. 6, Pastoral, Op. 68 (1808); features titled movements, country dances, bird calls, and a storm.
  • Leonore No. 3 Overture, Op. 72b (1806); one of a series of overtures composed for the opera Leonore, later renamed Fidelio. Leonore No. 3 is well known for portraying some of the major events of the plot in a condensed, purely orchestral form, most notably the distant trumpet fanfares of the finale. Next to the actual, finalized Fidelio overture, this is the most commonly performed version, and still sometimes replaces the Fidelio overture in some productions.
  • Egmont Overture, Op. 84
  • Wellington's Victory, Op. 91 is also known as the Battle Symphony and describes the battle between the French and British armies outside the Spanish town of Vitoria and the subsequent British victory. The work features rifles and cannons as instruments. It also makes use of Rule Britannia, which is used to describe the British, whereas the French side is announced by the French song Marlbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre.
  • Piano Sonata in A flat Op. 26 (3rd movement subtitled "Death of a hero", 4th movement manifestly "Life goes on" in intent)
  • Piano Sonata in D minor Op. 31 Nr. 2 ("Der Sturm", inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest)
  • Piano Sonata in E-flat major Op. 81a "Les Adieux"

Hector Berlioz edit

Benjamin Britten edit

  • Four Sea Interludes, (1945) — Britten extracted four of the six interludes from his opera Peter Grimes for performance as a stand-alone orchestral piece. "I. Dawn," "II. Sunday Morning" (describing a seaside community gathering to worship), "III. Moonlight," and "IV. Storm" were all meant to describe these scenes and images through Britten's music literally.[1][2]

Anton Bruckner edit

  • Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, "Romantic" — The program, involving medieval castles and dawn and royal hunts, appears to have been an afterthought like it was with the other Symphonies, but the validity of it, in this case, is supported by the subtitle given to the work, the only one of Bruckner's Symphonies to have been given a subtitle by the composer himself.

Michael Colgrass edit

Aaron Copland edit

Claude Debussy edit

Debussy wrote more or less entirely in the 'program' style; see List of compositions by Claude Debussy

Paul Dukas edit

Antonín Dvořák edit

Edward Elgar edit

Many of Elgar's works are associated with favourite places, mostly in Herefordshire and Worcestershire where he lived, and his MSS are often noted as such

Duke Ellington edit

Alexander Glazunov edit

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a prolific composer of symphonic poems, independent overtures and fantasias, who often drew his inspiration from history.

  • To the Memory of a Hero, elegy for orchestra, Op. 8
  • Stenka Razin, Op. 13
  • The Forest, fantasy for orchestra, Op. 19
  • Slavonian Feast, symphonic sketches, Op. 26A
  • The Sea, fantasy for orchestra, Op. 28
  • Oriental Rhapsody, Op. 29
  • The Kremlin, symphonic picture in three parts, Op. 30
  • The Spring, symphonic picture, Op. 34
  • Carnaval, overture for large orchestra and organ, Op. 45
  • From Dark into Light, fantasy for orchestra, Op. 53
  • Solemn Overture, Op. 73
  • From the Middle Ages, suite for orchestra, Op. 79
  • The Song of Destiny, dramatic overture, Op. 84
  • Russian Fantasy for balalaika-orchestra, Op. 86
  • To the Memory of Gogol, symphonic prologue, Op. 87
  • Finnish Fantasy for orchestra, Op. 88
  • Finnish Sketches for orchestra, Op. 89
  • Karelian Legend, Op. 99
  • Poème épique, Op. posth.

George Gershwin edit

Edvard Grieg edit

Ferde Grofé edit

  • Grand Canyon Suite, (1931). Named sections illustrate "Sunrise," "The Painted Desert," "On the Trail," "Sunset" and "Cloudburst." "On the Trail" is the familiar section with a mule's braying and hoofbeats. "Cloudburst," another musical storm, was described by Toscanini as "vivid and terrifying."

Robin Holloway edit

  • Domination of Black op.23, for orchestra after a poem of Wallace Stevens
  • Europa & the Bull op.121, for solo tuba and orchestra after Ovid
  • Phaeton's Journey: Son of the Sun op.131, for solo trumpet and orchestra after Ovid

Alan Hovhaness edit

  • Storm on Mount Wildcat
  • Sosi – Forest of Prophetic Sounds
  • Vision from High Rock
  • Mysterious Mountain (Symphony No.2)
  • Macedonian Mountain Dance
  • Fantasy on Japanese Wood Prints
  • And God Created Great Whales (orchestra with humpbacked whale songs)
  • Vishnu Symphony (Symphony No.19)
  • Majnun Symphony (Symphony No.24)
  • Odysseus Symphony (Symphony No.25)
  • Mount St. Helens Symphony (Symphony No.50)

Augusta Holmès edit

  • Irlande
  • Pologne

Charles Ives edit

Leoš Janáček edit

Albert Ketèlbey edit

Most of the better-known compositions of Ketèlbey are strongly programmatic, including:

Franz Liszt edit

Liszt is considered the inventor of the symphonic poem and his programmatic orchestral works set the framework for several composers of the romantic era. He composed a total of thirteen symphonic poems as well as two programmatic symphonies, drawing his inspiration from a variety of literary, mythological, historical and artistic sources.

Frederik Magle edit

Gustav Mahler edit

Much of Mahler's early work was designed programmatically. However, he made serious efforts to downplay the programmatic reputation of many of these pieces later in his life, including removing some of the programmatic titles from his symphonies.

Felix Mendelssohn edit

Olivier Messiaen edit

Modest Mussorgsky edit

Carl Nielsen edit

Maurice Ravel edit

Ottorino Respighi edit

Terry Riley edit

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov edit

Plus many other works inspired by myths and fairy tales

Gioachino Rossini edit

Camille Saint-Saëns edit

Arnold Schoenberg edit

Peter Seabourne edit

Jean Sibelius edit

Sibelius composed several tone poems throughout his career, often making use of stories and motifs from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. Early in his career he also wrote works on national and historical subjects.

Bedřich Smetana edit

William Grant Still edit

Richard Strauss edit

A major developer of the tone poem as a musical form, Strauss displayed outstanding skill at musical description. He claimed that he was capable of "describing a knife and fork" in music, and said that a sensitive listener to Don Juan could discern the hair color of Don Juan's amorous partners.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky edit

Nobuo Uematsu edit

  • Final Fantasy Many different themes over the video game series representing different characters and situations

Richard Wagner edit

Ralph Vaughan Williams edit

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ "Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op. 33a".
  2. ^ "Four Sea Interludes | LA Phil". www.laphil.com. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012.
  3. ^ Green, Edward (2011). ""Harlem Air Shaft": A True Programmatic Composition?". Journal of Jazz Studies. 7 (1): 28–46. doi:10.14713/jjs.v7i1.9.
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