Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
PROGRAMME MUSIC
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: PRE-PYR
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:PROGRAMME See also:MUSIC , a musical See also:nickname which has passed into See also:academic currency, denoting instrumental music without words but descriptive of non-musical ideas. Musical sounds lend themselves to descriptive purposes with an ease which is often uncontrollable. A See also:chromatic See also:scale may suggest the whistling of the See also:wind or the cries of See also:cats; reiterated staccato notes may suggest many things, from raindrops to the cackling of hens. Again, though music cannot directly imitate anything in nature except sounds, it has a range of contrast and a See also:power of See also:climax that is profoundly emotional in effect; and the emotions it calls up may resemble those of some dramatic See also:story, or those produced by the contemplation of nature. But chromatic scales, reiterated notes, emotional contrasts and climaxes, are also perfectly normal musical means of expression; and the attempts to read non-musical meanings into them are often merely annoying to composers who have thought only of the music. Some distinguished writers on music have found a difficulty in admitting the possibility of emotional contrasts and climaxes in an See also:art without an See also:external subject-See also:matter. But it is impossible to study the See also:history of music without coming to the conclusion that in all mature periods music has been self-sufficient to this extent, that, whatever stimulus it may receive from external ideas, and however much of these ideas it may have embodied in its structure, nothing has survived as a permanently intelligible classic that has not been musically coherent to a degree which seems to drive the subject-matter into the background, even in cases where that subject-matter is naturally See also:present, as in songs, choral See also:works and operas. In See also:short, since See also:sound as it occurs in nature is not sufficiently highly organized to See also:form the raw material for art, there is no natural tendency in music to include, as a " subject, " any See also:item conceivable apart from its See also:artistic embodiment. Explicit programme music has thus never been a thing of See also:cardinal importance, either in the transitional periods in which it has been most prominent, or in the permanent musical See also:classics. At the same See also:time, artistic creation is not a thing that can be governed by any a priori metaphysical theory; and no See also:great artist has been so ascetic as always to resist the inclination to See also:act on the external ideas that impress him. No composer writes important music for the See also:voice without words; for speech is too See also:ancient a See also:function of the human voice to be ousted by any a priori theory of art; and no really artistic composer, See also:hand-See also:ling a living art-form, has failed to be influenced, sooner or later, by the words which he sets. It matters little if these words be in themselves very poor, for even false sentiment must make some See also:appeal to true experience, and the great composers are quicker to seize the truth than to criticize its verbal presentation or to suspect insincerity. The earliest mature musical art was, then, inevitably descriptive, since it was vocal. So incessant is the See also:minute See also:onomatopoeia of 16th-See also:century music, both in the genuine form of sound-See also:painting (Tonmalerei) and in the See also:spurious forms to which composers were led by the See also:appearance of notes on See also:paper (e.g. See also:quick notes representing " darkness " because they are printed See also:black!) that there is hardly a See also:page in the productions of the "See also:golden See also:age" of music which has not its See also:literary aspect. Programme, music, then, may be expected to derive many of its characteristics from ancient times; but it cannot properly be said to exist until the rise of instrumental music, for not until then could music be based upon external ideas that did not arise inevitably from the use of words or dramatic See also:action. The resources of the See also:modern See also:orchestra have enabled See also:recent composers to attain a See also:realism which makes that of earlier descriptive music appear ridiculous; but there is little to choose between classics and moderns in the intellectual childishness of such realism. - Thunderstorms, See also:bird-songs and See also:pastoral effects galore have been imitated by musicians great and small from the days of the See also:Fitzwilliam See also:Virginal See also:Book to those of the See also:episode of the See also:flock of See also:sheep in See also:Strauss's See also:Don Quixote. And, while the progress in realism has been so immense that the only step which remains is to drive a real flock of sheep across the See also:concert-See also:platform, the musical progress implied thereby has been that from inexpensive to expensive rubbish. What is really important, in the programme music of Strauss no less than that of the classics, is the See also:representation of characters and feelings. In this respect the classical See also:record is of high See also:interest, though the greatest composers have contributed but little to it. Thus the See also:Bible Sonatas of J. Kuhnau (published in 1700) and See also:Bach's See also:early See also:Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved See also:Brother, which is closely modelled on Kuhnau's programme music, show verymarkedly the tendency on the one hand to illustrate characters and feelings, and on the other hand to See also:extract from their See also:pro-grammes every occasion for something that would be a piece of incidental music if the stories were presented as dramas. Thus, though Kuhnau in his naive explanatory See also:preface to his first Bible See also:sonata seems to be trying, like a See also:child, to frighten him-self into a See also:fit by describing the See also:size and appearance of See also:Goliath, in the music it is only le bravate of Goliath that are portrayed. Thus the best See also:movement in the Goliath sonata is a figured See also:chorale (Aus tiefer Noth schrei' ich zu See also:Dir) representing the terror and prayers of the Israelites. And thus the subjects of the other sonatas (See also:Saul cured by See also:David's music; The See also:Marriage of See also:Jacob; See also:Hezekiah; See also:Gideon; and The Funeral of Jacob) are in various See also:quaint ways musical because ethical; though Kuhnau's conceptions are far better than his See also:execution. In the same way Bach makes his Capriccio descriptive of the feelings of the anxious and sorrowing See also:friends of the departing brother, and his utmost realism takes the form of a lively See also:fugue, very much in Kuhnau's best See also:style, on the themes of the See also:postilion's coachhorn and cracking See also:whip. Even Buxtehude's musical illustrations of the " nature and characters of the See also:planets " are probably not the absurdities they have been hastily taken for by writers to whom tl-.eir See also:title seems nonsensical; for Buxtehude would, of course, take an astrological rather than an astronomical view of the subject, and so the planets would represent temperaments, and their motions the music of the See also:spheres. Nearly all the See also:harpsichord pieces of Couperin have fantastic titles, and a few of them are descriptive music. His greater contemporary and survivor, See also:Rameau, was an See also:opera composer of real importance, whose harpsichord music contains much that is ingeniously descriptive. La Poule, with its theme inscribed " co-co-co-co-co-co-cocodai, " is one of the best harpsichord pieces outside Bach, and is also one of the most minutely realistic compositions ever written. See also:French music has always been remarkably dependent on external stimulus, and nearly all its classics are either programme music or operas. And the extent to which Rameau's jokes may be regarded as typically French is indicated by the fact that See also:Haydn apologized for his See also:imitation of frogs in The Seasons, saying that this " franzSsische Quark " had been forced on him by a friend. But throughout the growth of the sonata style, not excepting Haydn's own early See also:work, the tendency towards gratuitously descriptive music is very prominent; and the symphonies of See also:Dittersdorf on the Metamorphoses of See also:Ovid are excellent examples of the way in which external ideas may suggest much that is valuable to a musician who struggles with new forms, while at the same time they may serve to distract See also:attention from points in which his designs break down. (See SYMPHONIC PoEM.) Strict accuracy would forbid us to include in our survey such descriptive music as comes in operatic overtures or other pieces in which the programme is really necessitated by the conditions of the art; but the See also:line cannot be so See also:drawn without cutting off much that is essential. From the time of See also:Gluck onwards there was a natural and steady growth in the descriptive See also:powers of operatic music, which could not fail to react upon purely instrumental music; but of programme music for its own See also:sake we may say there is no first-See also:rate classic on a large scale before See also:Beethoven, though Beethoven himself could no more surpass Haydn in illustrating an See also:oratorio See also:text (as in the magnificent opening of The Creation) than Haydn could surpass See also:Handel. Sozart's Musikalischer Spass is a solitary example of a See also:special See also:branch of descriptive music; a See also:burlesque of incompetent per-formers and incompetent composers. The lifelike absurdity of the themes with their See also:caricature of classical formulas; the inevitable processes by which the " howlers " in See also:composition seem to arrive as by natural See also:laws, further complicated by the equally natural laws of the howlers in performance; and the unfailing See also:atmosphere of See also:good nature with which See also:Mozart satirizes, among other things, his own style; all combine to make this work very interesting on paper. The effect in performance is astonishing; so exactly, or rather so ideally, is the squalid effect of See also:bad structure and performance kept at a
See also:constant level of comic interest. (In the See also:Leipzig edition of the parts of this work the modern editor has added a new and worthy act to Mozart's glorious See also:farce by correcting and questioning many of the mistakes!) Mozart's burlesque has remained unapproached, even in dramatic music. Compared with it, See also:Wagner's portrait of Beckmesser in See also:Die See also:Meistersinger seems embittered in conception and disappointing in comic effect. Mendelssohn is said to have had a splendid See also:faculty for ex-temporizing similar musical jokes. His Funeral See also: That the slow movement should be a funeral march was, in relation to the heroic See also:tone of the work, as natural as that a symphony should have a slow movement at all. There is no See also:reason in music why the See also:idea of heroic See also:death and See also:mourning should be the end of the representation of heroic ideals. Hence it is unnecessary, though plausible, to hear, in the lively whispering opening of the See also:scherzo, the See also:babel of the fickle See also:crowd that soon forgets its hero; and the See also:criticism which regards the See also:finale as " an inappropriate concession to sonata form " may be dismissed as merely unmusical without therefore being literary. Beethoven's next work inspired from without was the Pastoral Symphony: and there he records his theory of programme music on the title-page, by calling it " rather the expression of . feeling than tone-painting." There is not a See also:bar of the Pastoral Symphony that would be otherwise if its " programme " had never been thought of either by Beethoven or by earlier composers. The See also:nightingale, See also:cuckoo and See also:quail have exactly the same function in the See also:coda of the slow movement as dozens of similar non-thematic episodes at the' See also:close of other slow movements (e.g. in the See also:violin sonata Op. 24, and the See also:pianoforte sonata in D See also:minor). The " merry See also:meeting of See also:country folk " is a subject that lends itself admirably to Beethoven's form of scherzo (q.v.) ; and the thunderstorm, which interrupts the last repetition of this scherzo, and forms an introduction to the finale, is none the less purely musical for being, like several of Beethoven's inventions, without any formal parallel in other works. Beethoven's See also:Battle Symphony is a See also:clever pot-See also:boiler, which, like most musical representations of such noisy things as battles, may be disregarded in the study of serious programme music. His third great ex-ample is the sonata See also:Les Adieux, l'See also:absence et le retour. Here, again, we have a See also:monument of pure sonata form; and, what-ever See also:light may be thrown upon the musical See also:interpretation of the work by a knowledge of the relation between Beethoven and his friend and See also:patron the See also:Archduke See also:Rudolph and the circumstances of the archduke's departure from See also:Vienna during the See also:Napoleonic See also:wars, far more light may be thrown upon Beethoven's feelings by the study of the music in itself. This ought obviously to be true of all successful programme music; the music ought to illustrate the programme, but we ought not to need to learn or guess at quantities of extraneous See also:information in See also:order to understand the music. No doubt much ingenuity may be spent in tracing external details (the end of the first movement of Les Adieux has been compared to the departure of a See also:coach), but the real emotional basis is of a universal and musical kind. The same observations apply to the overtures to Coriolan, See also:Egmont and Leonora; works in which the origin as music for the See also:stage is so far from distracting Beethoven's attention from musical form that the See also:overture which was at first most inseparably associated with the stage and most irregular in form (Leonora No. 2) took final shape as the most gigantic formal See also:design ever embodied in a single movement (Leonora No. 3), and so proved to be too large for the final version of the opera for which it was first conceived. Beethoven's numerous recorded assertions, whether as to the " picture " he had in his mind whenever he composed, or as to the " meaning " of any particular composition, are not things on which it is safe to rely. Many of his friends, especially his first biographer, Schindler, irritated him into putting them off with any nonsense that came into his See also:head. Composers who have much to See also:express cannot spare time for expressing it in other terms than those of their own art. Modern programme music shows many divergent tendencies, the least significant of which is the See also:common See also:habit of giving fantastic titles to pieces of instrumental music after they have been composed, as was the See also:case with many of See also:Schumann's pianoforte lyrics. Such a habit may conduce to the immediate popularity of the works, though it is See also:apt to impose on their interpretation limits which might not quite satisfy the composer himself. But there is plenty of genuine programme music in Schumann's case, though, as with Beethoven, the musical sense throws far more light on the programme than the programme throws upon the music. Musical See also:people may profitably study E. T. A. See also:Hoffmann and See also:Jean See also:Paul See also:Richter in the light of Schumann's Novellettes and Kreisleriana; but if they do not already understand Schumann's music, Jean Paul and Hoffmann will help them only to talk about it. The popular love of fantastic titles for music affected even the most abstract and academic composers during the romantic See also:period. No one wrote more programme music than See also:Spohr; and, See also:strange to say, while Spohr's programme constantly interfered with the externals of his form and ruined the latter part of his symphony Die Weihe der Tone; it did not in any way help to broaden his style. Mendelssohn's Scotch and See also:Italian symphonies, and his See also:Hebrides Overture, are cases rather of what may be called See also:local See also:colour than of programme music. His See also:Reformation Symphony, which he himself regarded as a failure, and which was not published until after his death, is a composite See also:production, artistically more successful, though less popular, than Spohr's Weihe der T One. The overture to the Midsummer Night's Dream is a marvellous musical See also:epitome of See also:Shakespeare's play; and the one point which invites criticism, namely, the See also:comparative slightness and conventionality of its second subject, may be defended as closely corresponding with Shakespeare's equally defensible treatment of the two pairs of lovers. The one composer of the See also:mid-nineteenth century who really lived on programme music was See also:Berlioz, but he shows a characteristic inability to make up his mind as to what he is 'doing at any given moment. Externals appeal to him with such overwhelming force that, with all the genuine power of his See also:rhetoric, he often loses grasp of the situation he thinks he is portraying. The moonshine and the sentiment of the See also:Scene d'amour, in his Romeo and Juliet symphony, is charming; and the agitated sighing episodes which occasion-ally interrupt its flow, though not musically convincing, are dramatically See also:plain enough to anyone who has once read the See also:balcony scene: but when Berlioz thinks of the See also:nurse knocking or calling- at the See also:door his mind is so possessed with the See also:mere incident of the moment that he makes a realistic See also:noise without interrupting the amorous See also:duet. No idea of the emotional tension of the two lovers, of Juliet's artifices for gaining time, and of her agitation at the interruptions of the nurse, seems here to enter into Berlioz's head. Again, if the whole thing is to be expressed in instrumental music, why do we have, before the scene begins, real voices of persons in various be restrained by See also:prohibition. The courts to which it has most frequently issued are the ecclesiastical courts, and See also:county and other local courts, such as the See also:lord See also:mayor's See also:court of See also:London, the court of passage of the See also:city of See also:Liverpool and the court of record of the See also:hundred of See also:Salford. In the case of courts of See also:quarter sessions, the same result is generally obtained by certiorari (see See also:WRIT). The extent to which the ecclesiastical courts were restrainable by prohibition led to continual disputes for centuries between the See also:civil and the ecclesiastical authorities. Attempts were made at different times to define the See also:scope of the writ, the most conspicuous instances being the See also:statute Circumspecte Agatis, 13 Edw. I. st. 4; the Articuli cleri, 9 Edw. II. st. r ; and the later Articuli cleri of 3 Jac. I., consisting of the claims asserted by See also:Archbishop See also:Bancroft and the reply of the See also:judges. The See also:law seems to be undoubted that the spiritual court acting in spiritual matters pro salute animae cannot be restrained. The difficulties arise in the application of the principle to individual cases. Prohibition lies either before or after See also:judgment. In order that proceedings should be restrained after judgment it is necessary that want of See also:jurisdiction in the inferior court should appear upon the See also:face of the proceedings, that the party seeking the prohibition should have taken his objection in the inferior court, or that he was in See also:ignorance of a material fact. A prohibition goes either for excess of jurisdiction, as if an ecclesiastical court were to try a claim by See also:prescription to a See also:pew, or for transgression of clear laws of See also:procedure, as if such a court were to require two witnesses to prove a See also:payment of See also:tithes. It will not as a See also:rule be awarded on a matter of practice. The remedy in such a case is appeal. Nor will it go, unless in exceptional cases, at the instance of a stranger to the suit. The procedure in prohibition is partly common law, partly statutory. Application for a prohibition is usually made ex parte to a See also:judge in See also:chambers on See also:affidavit. The application may be granted or refused. If granted, a rule to show cause why a writ of prohibition should not issue goes to the inferior judge and the other party. In prohibition to courts other than county courts pleadings in prohibition may be ordered. These pleadings are as far as possible assimilated to pleadings in actions. They are rare in practice, and are only ordered in cases of great difficulty and .importance. Much learning on the subject of prohibition will be found in the See also:opinion of Mr See also:Justice See also:Wills delivered to the See also:House of Lords in The Mayor and Aldermen of London v. See also:Cox (1867, L.R. 2 Eng. and Ir. Appeals, 239). In Scots law prohibition is not used in the See also:English sense. The same result is obtained by suspension or reduction. In the See also:United States the Supreme Court has power to issue a prohibition to the See also:district courts when proceeding as courts of See also:admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Most of the states have also their own law upon the subject, generally giving power to the supreme judicial authority in the See also:state to prohibit courts of inferior jurisdiction. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] PROGNOSIS (Gr. apayvcooas, knowledge of recognition... |
[next] PROGRAMME, or PROGRAM |