# Mastering programatic elements



## Manuel (Feb 1, 2007)

I went to bed yesterday listening to Glazunov's *Sea*, and I loved the effects of the waves by the initial bars of the work. With this in mind I thought it would be nice to get from you a list of what you think are the most achieving programatic elements in works of any genre. (Being these short elements from a larger work. I.e: from the *1812* I would take not the battle at Borodino but, for example, the cannons represented by the percussion.)

On a maritime view I would nominate Glazunov's Sea and Rachmaninov's Island of the Dead (the rythmic figurations on the bass make me feel I'm in a small boat swaying by the recurrent waves)

From pianistic repertoire I pick up the hunting horns and dogs from Alkan's Festin d'Esope.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Let me put in a word for the closest thing to a consensus selection for "one-hit-wonder" composer/work... Grofe's _Grand Canyon Suite_, especially "On the Trail" and "Cloudburst."
Rather than choose Grofe's selection for "Sunrise," I'll (predictably enough) instead opt for "Dawn" prior to "Siegfried's Rhine Journey" in Wagner's _Gotterdammerung_. As Chicago Symphony program annotator Phillip Huscher said, "There's no sleeping through a Wagnerian daybreak!" Like Kipling said about the morning in his poem "The Road to Mandalay," that "dawn comes up like thunder..." (!)


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## Kurkikohtaus (Oct 22, 2006)

Anything having to do with water in *Smetana's Vltava*. I know, a little obvious, but I have yet to hear another piece of river music that combines a literal graphical depiction of the flow of the stream _and_ is pleasantly melodic.

Another watermusic favourite for me is the storm from *Britten's Four Sea Interludes*.

As far as *Sibelius *is concerned, his tone poems tend to be a little less obviously programatic, they are more about capturing the mood of the moment than blatantly depicting a graphic event. That said, a few nice moments in Sibelius' programmatic pieces:

The actual moment of Sunrise from "Night ride and sunrise"
The call of the cranes from the beautiful little piece called... any guesses?
The (chromatic) wind in the trees in Tapiola


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

When talking about Sibelius, I must mention the very obvious and colourful visualisation of waves and sea-foam in his symphonic poem 'The Oceanides', Op.73.
Listening to it seems like standing at the highest deck of a big ship, with the fresh breeze of sea and salt in your chest!


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## pat09morrison (May 31, 2007)

hi all
Keep this discusssion carry on. I like discussion about study and music.



Check out this.


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## Rod Corkin (Jun 1, 2007)

In his 'Israel in Egypt' Handel used some very effective musical methods to portray the various plagues that befell the Egyptians.


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## Frasier (Mar 10, 2007)

I sometimes wonder if clichés/conventions that represent phenomena gradually develop in a culture. I'm more into moods pertaining to Nature in music... "musical representations of....." sort-of thing. Honneger's Pastorale d'Eté and perhaps more 'graphically' Pacific 231 come to mind but there're loads of pieces from that era. But I suppose one goes back to Beethoven's Pastorale or Berlioz Op 16.... There're probably many examples that predate Beethoven/Berlioz, though.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Rod Corkin said:


> In his 'Israel in Egypt' Handel used some very effective musical methods to portray the various plagues that befell the Egyptians.


Not really related, but too good a story to pass up (apologies to those who've heard this before). Upon the premiere of Rachmaninoff's Symphony 1, Cesar Cui (of Russian 5 fame) wrote the following: "If there was a conservatory in Hell, and one of its talented students were instructed to write a program symphony on the Seven Plagues of Egypt, and the result was a Symphony like Rachmaninoff's, he would be acclaimed to have completed the task brilliantly, to the delight of the denizens of Hell, so fiendish were the dissonances that were visited upon us."

The rest of the story, according to Michael Steinberg's book _The Concerto_, was that it was an ill-prepared orchestra, and the ghastliness the Cui experienced was much more the result of poor playing than any demerit of the work itself.


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## Kurkikohtaus (Oct 22, 2006)

Frasier said:


> There're probably many examples that predate Beethoven/Berlioz, though.


Like the barking dog in Vivaldi's spring, to name one.


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## Handel (Apr 18, 2007)

Rod Corkin said:


> In his 'Israel in Egypt' Handel used some very effective musical methods to portray the various plagues that befell the Egyptians.


I agree.

(10 char.)


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## Manuel (Feb 1, 2007)

The donkey in Mendelssohn's MND overture (which reappers, of course, in the corpus of the work).


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

the beginning minutes of 'the flying dutchman' evokes that stormy, spooky sea for me.
'troika' from lt. kije puts in a sleigh ride mood!

dj


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