Program Music

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Recommended: Music in the Romantic Period

The romantic era was noted for its portrayal of extreme emotions such as sorrow and anger. The Romantic era saw an increase in program music. Program Music is instrumental music that intends to portray a specific story, image, and concept. The opposite of program music is absolute music. That is music with no specific story or image behind it. Absolute music is “instrumental music that makes no reference to a text, program, image or title.” In other words, it is music without a narrative; music for the sake of music. Music is defined as sounds combined arranged in form for the expression of emotion. Using this definition, I believe all music must have an inspiration behind it.
The term absolute music was initially used by Richard Wagner. …show more content…

It is not associated with extra musical ideas or narrative scheme of emotions. Hence it is always instrumental, although all instrumental music is not absolute. Absolute music is not commonly identified by a descriptive title but by the name of a musical form, such as symphony, sonata, or concerto. The ideas behind the origins of absolute music are closely related to those of abstract art. Both are not intended to represent anything physical. For example, the saying "art for art's sake" became prevalent during the Romantic century. Absolute music became known for its separation from the common music for its lack of representative …show more content…

I believe there is no type of music as “absolute music.” Regardless, if the composer believes there was no influence behind the music; each person may interpret a piece differently. Therefore, they may come up with a meaning to a song, while others don’t. Also, certain music is able to be interpreted just because the composer provides a title or a story behind. Without that title or story many different interpretations may come out of that one piece; possibly different from the composers original definition. For example Vivaldi’s spring, would the listener be able to decipher the violin representative of the birds of spring and the increase of the violins tempo is a storm coming. I believe not. Another example is Liszt’s, Totentanz, the music does sound daunting, and a little terrifying but how is one to know that in his music he is referring to a skeleton dancing with a violin, without him giving us a title and knowing the definition of the song

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