# Successful progam music



## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Give us examples of program music that in your opinion exceptionally well fits its title/program and uses exceptionally creative ways to express extra-musical ideas. While this isn't supposed to be so much about "the best of program music" in itself, if you think the work is also high quality otherwise that's definately a bonus.


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## BuddhaBandit (Dec 31, 2007)

I've always liked Pictures At An Exhibition (the piano version! don't want Ravel's!) because I think that the pieces in the suite do an an exceptional job of representing their corresponding paintings. It's hard not to think of grandeur and majesty when listening to the "Great Gate of Keiv", for example, or see the twitting movements of a poor man and the pomposity of a rich man in "Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle".

Mussorgsky's not one of my favorite composers, but Pictures is a tone paining home run.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Beethovens 6th symphony
Griegs Peer Gynt suits


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I've enjoyed *Saint-Saens' Carnival of Animals *and think its tongue in cheek use of cheesy scales during the The Pianists segment is at least innovative.

If you consider the mythological idea of the planets as dieties, then it scarcely gets better than *Holst's The Planets* for program music -- or even if you consider them astronomical bodies.


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## Kuntster (Jun 8, 2009)

1) All the Debussy Preludes are very programmatic. Each title suggests something that can be seen. 
Feux d'artifice- excellent use of color and huge dynamic changes that create an atmosphere of exploding sounds. 

Les Fees sontd'exquises danseuses- very light and invogorating, just as if the fairies where dancing through the forest and leaving just vanishes of colour left behind. 

La cathédrale engloutie- the most popular of all preludes, tells the ancient story of the sunken cathedral that only rises once a year to hold mass. 

Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir- taken from a poem of Baudelaire, Debussy describes sitting in a Paris cafe and enjoying the aromas and sounds coming from within the streets. 

Danseuses de Delphes- My favorite Debussy piece. Short and sweet, Debussy trancends the listener back in time to the ancient Oracle of Delphi, Greece. Motivically this piece amazing.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

Just about anything in Sibelius's catalogue of program music works for me.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Ippolitov-Ivanov: _Caucasian Sketches_
Rimsky-Korsakov: _Scheherazade_

& many things by Vaughan Williams - eg. _The Wasps, A London Symphony, Sinfonia Antartica_, etc.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Sibelius and Debussy.


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## Toccata (Jun 13, 2009)

Here are a few specific suggestions:

Bax - Tintagel

Borodin - In the Steppes of Central Asia

Debussy - La Mer

Delius - On Hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring

Dukas - The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Dvorak - The Noon Witch

Gershwin - Cuban Overture

Honegger - Pacific 231

Liszt - From the Cradle to the Grave

Mussorgsky - Night on Bald Mountain

Rachmaninov - Isle of the Dead

Respighi - Fountains of Rome

Saint-Saens - Danse Macabre

Sibelius - Tapiola

Smetana - Ma Vlast

Strauss (R) - Alpine Symphony

Tchaikovsky - Francesca da Rimini


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## periodinstrumentfan (Sep 11, 2008)

Rebel's Chaos (1737) ... the first tone cluster in the history of Western art music


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## Zuo17 (Jul 8, 2009)

Does ballet count? 

~Tchaikovsky: _The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Romeo and Juliet_
~Copland: _Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, and Lincoln portraits_
~ John Williams: _Star Wars_
~ Howard Shore's:_LOTR_
~ Martin O' Donnel: _Halo series_
~ Mendelssohn :_ A Midsummer's Night Dream
_
Until again,
Zach


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## opus (Jul 10, 2009)

Tchaikovsky likes programmatic music unlike Brahms and many of his compositions fits into that category. But if one have to be specific about Tchaikovsky's catalogue, I think, Francesca da Rimini and his Manfred Symphony fits perfectly into this category. For example, each movement in the Manfred symphony has a story and it is depicted with music perfectly.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

opus said:


> Tchaikovsky likes programmatic music unlike Brahms and many of his compositions fits into that category. But if one have to be specific about Tchaikovsky's catalogue, I think, Francesca da Rimini and his Manfred Symphony fits perfectly into this category. For example, each movement in the Manfred symphony has a story and it is depicted with music perfectly.


I agree about Manfred. It is very "visual" music.


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## JAKE WYB (May 28, 2009)

BAX - SPRING FIRE - the dewy woods glistening and then the sunrise and the beasts and mythical creatures coming to life make it a particulraly vibrant and evocative work and for something more subtle try NYMPHOLEPT - autumnal and fluttery forest orchestration like nobody else - describes its poetic origins perfectly 

DVORAK - WATER GOBLIN - for me dvoraks greatest visual work - follows the folkpoem clearly and non pretentiously and gives a clear a thoroughly dramtic - his most dramatic passages - and the sound world is well evoked consistently througuot

SIBELIUS- LEMMINKAINEN SUITE - for me sibeliu's most atmposhperic music- the way from the first horn notes the mythoical owrld portrayed is powerfully engulfing the storys context and the darkness and the contrasts of the music take you into another world like no other music he or anyrbody else wrote - particularyl in Lemminkainen in Tuonela the colours of the orchestration are so gripping it gives you the strange and distrubing goings on brilliantly


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2016)

Dim7 said:


> Give us examples of program music that in your opinion exceptionally well fits its title/program and uses exceptionally creative ways to express extra-musical ideas. While this isn't supposed to be so much about "the best of program music" in itself, if you think the work is also high quality otherwise that's definately a bonus.


Could you elaborate?


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

dogen said:


> Could you elaborate?


That was posted long time ago, the OP may not visit Talk Classical anymore so you shouldn't expect a reply.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

dogen said:


> Could you elaborate?


Thanks Dogen - you had me "liking" seven-year old posts before I saw it was from the land of the undead.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2016)

Dim7 said:


> That was posted long time ago, the OP may not visit Talk Classical anymore so you shouldn't expect a reply.


I feared I would.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> Thanks Dogen - you had me "liking" seven-year old posts before I saw it was from the land of the undead.


Quality is timeless!


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