Program music ...More information,please!

[Ahmad]

I'll be grateful if you supply me with some information about this subject..
What I know about Program music is:
Music based on a definite subject and Berlioz was the master of it..
I learned from a previous topic here that Beethoven didn't compose any program music ,though his music have a "sense" of program...For me I find that sense obvious in his 5'th symphony ...


What about its exact connotation , origin ...it's masters other than Berlioz ,and what about Beethoven sense of Program...

[This message has been edited by Ahmad (edited October 09, 2003).]

[Peter]

Liszt defined programme music in these terms: "Any preface in intelligible language added to a piece of instrumental music, by means of which the composer intends to guard the listener against a wrong poetical interpretation, and to direct his attention to the poetical idea of the whole or to a particular part of it."

By this definition Beethoven's 5th is not programme music. The 6th however falls into another category defined by Mcdowell as 'suggestive music' where the mood of a piece is defined by a pictorial or literary title, but there is no detailed phrase by phrase association.

Programme music dates back to at least the 16th century - Byrd: 'March before the battle'. 17th century, Kuhnau's 'Biblical histories in 6 sonatas for keyboard). 18th century numerous Couperin keyboard pieces, Handel's Israel in Egypt with references to frogs, flies and hailstones. The most obvious Beethoven example really is Wellingtons victory.

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'Man know thyself'