# Programmatic works and their programs



## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Eine Alpensinfonie is in my opinion an example of a toem poem where the program actually adds something to the work. It really does seem to evoke what it intends to.

On the other hand when I listen to Pelleas und Melisande by Schoenberg I don't really like to think about the story behind it at all. 

I prefer Pelleas, but Eine Alpensinfonie is more succesful to me as a "tone poem". 

What programmatic works are in your opinion actually improved by their programs and on the other hand, what about works where you find the program unnecessary and don't really think about it?


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Smetana - Moldau 

Without the program, it is a delightful orchestra piece, but is all over the place. It's structure is based off of the journey down the river, so without it, the music is just a series of seemingly unrelated episodes, with a few repeating parts


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

The only ones I can think where the program enhances the music and vice versa is perhaps Strauss' Death and Transfiguration (the name alone is all you really need) and Holsts' The Planets if they can be considered mini-tone poems. Sibelius "Nightride and Sunrise" works pretty well for me.

Zarathustra may have spoken thus, but not to me. Les Preludes? Tasso? What are those all about? The Noon Witch? I don't get much program from that.

The funny thing is, I love tone poems, but not program music so much. It's an enigma.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm sure there is some benefit in knowing the program of some of the tone poems of Richard Strauss. It's a little hard to make sense of musical sheep otherwise. But that's just the problem with works like _Ein Heldenleben_ and _Also Sprach;_ they're too wedded to their "stories," and tend to be musically episodic and full of "effects." If I need the program - more than an evocative title - to make sense of the music, I probably won't care for the music.

To my mind, Sibelius took just the right approach to program music. He tells us the idea that inspired the piece, then relies on the music to find its own form and make its own statement. Another favorite is Rachmaninoff's _Isle of the Dead._ Have a look at Boecklin's magical painting - or don't - then just sit back and listen.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Little known fact: Haydn actually invented program music in 1785. It was to be a jolly piece, and he had the program all set. "Fox's raid on the henhouse, with episodes including the rampaging predator, and the complacent prey strutting through the barnyard." But an angel appeared to him and said "Do not do this, Joseph, for if thou dost, then people will forever after say your work is too wedded to the story, and that they can't make sense of musical chickens without the program."

So he used the program to line his birdcage (could have burned it, but peasant thrift dies hard), called the composition "symphony in G minor," and that was that.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Wranitsky: Grand Characteristic Symphony For Peace With French Republic, Op. 31 (1797)
I The Revolution
I English March
I March of the Austrians And Prussians
II The Fate and The Death of Louis
II Funeral March
III English March
III March of the Allies
III The Tumult of a Battle
IV The Prospects of Peace
IV Rejoicing at the Achievement of Peace


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I like Erik Satie's programmatic pieces, like Sports et Divertissements. Underneath the music is a running commentary. Sports even has a picture of the piece next to the piece. You don't have to guess about when anything happens. It's pretty funny as well, which is a plus.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I think the first ever tone poem and the finest is actually Beethoven's sixth symphony. It's sublime. Though not recognized as such by the composer, it has all the qualities (retrospectively speaking) of a tone poem.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Enrico Chapela's piece "Inguesu" is a detailed record of a soccer match based solely on a newspaper account.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> I think the first ever tone poem and the finest is actually Beethoven's sixth symphony. It's sublime. Though not recognized as such by the composer, it has all the qualities (retrospectively speaking) of a tone poem.


Eh. If that counts, so does Vivaldi's _Summer_, among other things.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Eh. If that counts, so does Vivaldi's _Summer_, among other things.


Well, come to think of it, the Four Seasons does have an accompanying commentary.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Peter Maxwell Davies' _An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise_
_"...depicts the riotous celebrations after a wedding on Orkney. The piece closes with the entry of the bagpipes, which Davies describes as symbolic of the rising sun over Caithness."_

Carl Nielsen's _An Imaginary Journey to the Faroes_, also _Saga-Drøm_

And then their are Dvorak's group of tone poems, _The Golden Spinning Wheel, The Noon Witch, The Water Goblin _and_ The Wild Dove_.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Eh. If that counts, so does Vivaldi's _Summer_, among other things.


Beethoven very specifically wrote poems to describe the movements of the great Pastoral symphony - music conveying emotions. Vivaldi's first four concertos from opus 8 did no such thing other than labeling the four concertos as spring, summer, autumn, winter.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Vivaldi's first four concertos from opus 8 did no such thing other than labeling the four concertos as spring, summer, autumn, winter.


Perhaps not the case. "Vivaldi published the concerti with accompanying poems (possibly written by Vivaldi himself) that elucidated what it was about those seasons that his music was intended to evoke. It provides one of the earliest and most-detailed examples of what was later called program music-music with a narrative element. Vivaldi took great pains to relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines themselves directly into the music on the page." (Wiki)

BTW the movements of Beethoven's Pastoral are accompanied only by very brief comments, certainly not poems.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I agree but it can't be established whether Vivaldi actually wrote it himself or the publisher or both. They published music in "opus" to sell. But it's charming nonetheless. And I think it may well be very early examples of it, and is certainly one of the very well known!


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> Beethoven very specifically wrote poems to describe the movements of the great Pastoral symphony - music conveying emotions. Vivaldi's first four concertos from opus 8 did no such thing other than labeling the four concertos as spring, summer, autumn, winter.





ArtMusic said:


> I agree but it can't be established whether Vivaldi actually wrote it himself or the publisher or both. They published music in "opus" to sell.


First, that doesn't matter. The text pertaining to Strauss' 100% certified tone poem _Death and Transfiguration_ was written (not by the composer) after the music.

Second, music conveying emotions is way older than Beethoven or Vivaldi.

Third, if you really don't think the first movement of _Spring_ contains a series of musical imitations of thematically related (that is, all spring-related) nature sounds, and if you really don't think the second movement of _Summer_ or the end of the first movement of _Autumn_ conveys, more particularly, a _story_, then I'm guessing you just haven't listened to them in a while.

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To be clear, I'm not saying Vivaldi should be regarded as program music. I'm saying Beethoven shouldn't be either.

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That said, Beethoven's symphony 7 (not 6) is better with the program I made up for it when I was, let's say, 10.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> First, that doesn't matter. The text pertaining to Strauss' 100% certified tone poem _Death and Transfiguration_ was written (not by the composer) after the music.
> 
> Second, music conveying emotions is way older than Beethoven or Vivaldi.
> 
> ...


Interesting...you highlight why Vivaldi's Four Seasons are programatic, but then say that they shouldn't be, along with Beethoven's 6th, another programatic work.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I find that the bizarre and enigmatic titles of Alkan's miniatures often enhance the music for me. He has caused me to laugh many times, which is a tremendous feat out of the middle of the romantic Era.


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## Fortinbras Armstrong (Dec 29, 2013)

No one has mentioned Pictures At An Exhibition?


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