1. Romantic Program Music
Instrumental music that has literary or pictorial associations: indicated by the title or by an explanatory note supplied by the composer

2. Program music Concert overture Incidental music
A single-movement concert piece for orchestra based on a literary idea, i.e., Romeo and Juliet
Incidental music
Consists of an overture and a series of pieces to be performed between the acts of a play and during important scenes, i.e., A Midsummer Night’s Dream

3. Absolute Music Music for “music’s sake”
Just because i.e., Symphonies

4. Symphony vs. Program symphony
Classical Period
Most popular form was the symphony
No pictorial idea—merely abstract
Romantic Period
Program Symphony (However, abstract type still composed)

5. Fusion of Program Music/Absolute
Program Symphony
A multimovement orchestral work with a literary or pictorial association
Symphonic Poem (or tone poem)
A one-movement work in which contrasting sections develop a “pictorial” idea, i.e., The Moldau, or Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

6. Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) French composer Studied medicine and music
Among his passions were the creations of Beethoven and Shakespeare

7. Harriet Smithson "...[Let me tell you, you don't know what love is,
whatever you may say about feeling it deeply [for your friend].
For you, it's not that rage, that fury, that delirium which takes
possession of all one's faculties, which renders one capable of
anything. You would not be the man to lose yourself in pleasure
over the person you love. In that you are lucky, and I would never
want you to experience the unbearable suffering to which I have
fallen prey since your departure." Hector Berlioz

8. Hector Berlioz His Music
One of the boldest innovators of the Romantic Period
“Creator of the modern orchestra”
Originality in handling the instruments
Music called for larger orchestras than ever before

9. Symphonie fantastique (A five-movement program symphony) by Hector Berlioz
Written when he was only 27
Story draws from his personal life
A young musician of morbid sensibility and ardent imagination, in lovesick despair, has poisoned himself with opium. The drug, too weak to kill, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by strange visions The beloved one herself becomes for him a melody, a recurrent theme that haunts him everywhere.

10. Idée fixe (Fixed idea) The recurrent theme of the symphony
Symbolizes the “beloved”
Unifies all five movements

11. Symphonie Fantastique Manuscript

12. Symphonie fantastique (5 movements)
I. Reveries, Passions
II. A Ball
III. Scene in the Fields
IV. March to the Scaffold
V. Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath
Contains the Dies Irae (heard with bells)
Combines the Dies Irae with the “dance”
“Ghouls” by Jacqui Grantford

13. Musical Nationalism “I grew up in a quiet spot and was saturated from earliest childhood with the wonderful beauty of Russian popular song. I am therefore passionately devoted to every expression of the Russian spirit. In short, I am a Russian through and through!”
Political unrest stimulated Nationalism
Works written to celebrate national heroes, events, places
Prominent schools arose in:
Russia, Scandinavia, Spain, England, Bohemia
Wrote music containing folk songs or dance types of their country
Wrote dramatic works based on folklore or peasant life
Wrote symphonic poems based on a national hero, a historic event, or their countryside.

14. From Bohemia: Bedřich Smetana ( ) “My compositions do not belong to the realm of absolute music, where one can get along well enough with musical signs and a metronome.”
Political unrest in his country
Successful uprising against Austrian Rule
Wrote 8 operas
Best known for the symphonic poem, Má Vlast (My Fatherland), inspired by the beauty of Bohemia’s countryside

15. The Moldau River

16. The Moldau River “Vltava” in Czech

17. Má Vlast (1874-79) (My Country) [Fatherland]
A series of 6 symphonic poems
No. 2 “The Moldau”
Source of river, two springs, then theme enters
Hunting scene
Peasant wedding
Nymphs in moonlight
St. John Rapids
Ancient castle

18. The Romantic Symphony (“Abstract” form)
Favored genre alongside program music
Increased in size, with new instruments
Multimovement orchestral work, with 3-4 movements in a specific form

19. The “Form” of the Symphony
First Movement – Sonata-allegro form
Second Movement – Usually slow, ternary OR theme and variation
Third Movement – Scherzo/Trio (ABA) – lively movement (scherzo means “joke), with a mood anywhere from elfin lightness to demonic energy.
Fourth Movement – Usually Sonata-allegro form OR rondo

20. Sonata-Allegro Form Exposition Development Recapitulation
Theme I – Home key
Theme II – Contrasting key
Closing section
Development
Anything goes, but one generally hears part of a theme that was heard in the exposition
Recapitulation
Theme I – home key
Theme II – home key
Closing section – home key (So that the piece ends in the home key)