List of Program Music

List Of Program Music

Program music is a term usually applied to any musical composition in 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 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, Lieder could also trivially be considered program music since they are intended to accompany vocal or stage performances. They will be excluded from this list except where they have been extensively popularized and played without the original vocals and/or stage performance.

The orchestral program music tradition is also continued in some pieces for jazz orchestra. 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 explicit visualizations of a number of 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.

Read more about List Of Program Music:  List of Program Music By Composer

Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, program and/or music:

    I made a list of things I have
    to remember and a list
    of things I want to forget,
    but I see they are the same list.
    Linda Pastan (b. 1932)

    Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives—from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango—with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to- date scripts for actors on the tourists’ stage.
    Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)

    [T]he asphaltum contains an exactly requisite amount of sulphides for production of rubber tires. This brown material also contains “ichthyol,” a medicinal preparation used externally, in Webster’s clarifying phrase, “as an alterant and discutient.”
    State of Utah, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    Since a man must bring
    To music what his mother spanked him for
    When he was two ...
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)