theatrical music (wrong music)

[Philoctetes]

Does it ever end with you? There's not a single thing that's "shallow" about Debussy's music, Prokofiev's music, Schumann's music, Mussorgsky's music, Britten's music, Berlioz's music... 

...these are just a few of the composers who've tried their hand at program music.

Mahler.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Mahler.

...and Mahler!

[M forever]

I agree with the OP's feelings. I have a strong aversion to programmatic music, and am no fan of R Strauss or Liszt's symphonic poems. I do like Ma Vlast, which IMO is more mood describing/scene setting (a la Beethoven's 6th) than specifically telling a story.

You are very wrong about that. There are some fairly specific programs behind the pieces, some of them actually very specific.

I am surprised to see Bruckner accused in this area, however! I have read that the finale of the 8th was inspired by the historic Three Emperors meeting, but as that movement includes a funeral march section, I don't think it would follow the historical action very closely.

The music has nothing to do with that (nor is there a funeral march in the finale). Bruckner (allegedly, I think - or is the quote documented?) said that the opening of the movement was inspired by the sight of Russian cavalcade thundering down the street right at him when that meeting took place, but the music does not "describe" that event or the emperor's meeting.

[eyeresist]

You are very wrong about that. There are some fairly specific programs behind the pieces, some of them actually very specific.

[Ma Vlast]Well, I was vaguely aware that the poems have narratives attached, but I think that, unlike certain other pieces, Ma Vlast stands very well without knowing the program. E.g. You don't need to know which particular piece of the Moldau is being described, or that the river has been left for a wedding party nearby. If anything, the music is good enough that the program is only a distraction.

The music has nothing to do with that (nor is there a funeral march in the finale). Bruckner (allegedly, I think - or is the quote documented?) said that the opening of the movement was inspired by the sight of Russian cavalcade thundering down the street right at him when that meeting took place, but the music does not "describe" that event or the emperor's meeting.

I got my information from the notes for Bohm's performance on DG Galleria, and I've noticed the same story mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the symphony (which of course is evidence for nothing whatsoever). But as I said, I disagree with these assertions that Bruckner's work was programmatic. It's like saying that Wagner was obsessed with the implications of sonata form - one just couldn't be more wrong!

[M forever]

[Ma Vlast]Well, I was vaguely aware that the poems have narratives attached, but I think that, unlike certain other pieces, Ma Vlast stands very well without knowing the program. E.g. You don't need to know which particular piece of the Moldau is being described, or that the river has been left for a wedding party nearby. If anything, the music is good enough that the program is only a distraction.

Still, it is music structured by a programmatic background. The same - that one can just listen to the music without knowing the program and still enjoy it - applies to a lot of other pieces of program music. That really depends more on the inclinations of the individual listeners than on the music.
I still have absolutely no idea what the program of Liszt's Les Préludes is, for instance, somehow I never got around to reading it and it has never bothered me because I just enjoy listening to the music as it is. But there is in general nothing "wrong" with music which is used to tell a story, illustrate an idea, or whose structure is shaped by an "extra-musical" dramatic idea or "storyline".
In the case of the Moldau, the music is so extremely descriptive, one doesn't even have to read the program and it still clear what is "happening".

I find this whole discussion pretty idiotic, BTW. I don't mean the last posts, the whole thread. These declarations of what "real music" is pretty pointless. Music can be many things.

I got my information from the notes for Bohm's performance on DG Galleria, and I've noticed the same story mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the symphony (which of course is evidence for nothing whatsoever). But as I said, I disagree with these assertions that Bruckner's work was programmatic.

Like I said, those comments (which seem to be authentic after all) are not a program. They are just associations, ideas, and that there are ideas of some kind behind the music (ultimately of course ideas which would be expressed in religious terms if they hadn't been cast in musical structures by Bruckner) is pretty obvious. Bruckner's music has a lot to do with proportions, structures, conflicts and resolutions between elements. All these things are "pure" musical elements yet since music is a natural phenomenon, they also occur in other contexts and it suits the way we think and feel (and mix feeling and thinking)  that we associate and draw parallels between musical processes in music and in other areas of life and nature.
Bruckner also made a few comments about the 4th symphony, but it is not entirely clear if he made those comments soimply to satisfy the popular taste for programs of some sort.

[(poco) Sforzando]

There is this famous quote by somebody (who?): "music shouldn't express anything except itself".

Stravinsky.

Theatrical music clearly tries to express other things then music alone.

Who spent his entire life writing ballet music, not to mention a couple of operas.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Still, it is music structured by a programmatic background.

On one level, yes. On another level, it has a very nicely organized musical structure of a theme with episodes that then returns to the main theme. If the music is structured by the program, then the program is as much structured by the composer's need to create something musically coherent. Staying just with Smetana, I think this is even more true of the E minor quartet, Smetana's musical autobiography, where his tragic tintinnitus and deafness form the impetus for the coda in the last movement.

[M forever]

On one level, yes. On another level, it has a very nicely organized musical structure of a theme with episodes that then returns to the main theme. If the music is structured by the program, then the program is as much structured by the composer's need to create something musically coherent.

Maybe, but even the basic themes stand for something in this music - which is really about the worst example one could give for "program" music in which the program is not really relevant - because it is very much. There isn't just a "story" and an "idea" behind each individual piece - the whole cycle is based on a programmatic idea, to celebrate the culture, landscape, and history of Smetana's home country, and that not just for poetic, but for very political reasons. The themes for the Moldau and the Vyšehrad, and of course the Hussite chorale - it can't get much more explicitly "programmatic". Which still doesn't mean one can't enjoy the music "just as music". But the author's intentions and the ideas behind the composition are very clear.

[eyeresist]

Still, it is music structured by a programmatic background. The same - that one can just listen to the music without knowing the program and still enjoy it - applies to a lot of other pieces of program music. That really depends more on the inclinations of the individual listeners than on the music.
I still have absolutely no idea what the program of Liszt's Les Préludes is, for instance, somehow I never got around to reading it and it has never bothered me because I just enjoy listening to the music as it is. But there is in general nothing "wrong" with music which is used to tell a story, illustrate an idea, or whose structure is shaped by an "extra-musical" dramatic idea or "storyline".

I think Les Preludes only had its title quote attached after it was written, so I might say it was written "in the style of" program music (but I wouldn't say that, because it would sound silly).
It is only my preference, but I dislike music that strongly leans on a program for its integrity. (This is one reason I prefer Prokofiev's "pure" music to his ballets, for instance.) However, I don't assert any kind of universal principle for musical quality, I just try to avoid music I don't like.

Like I said, those comments (which seem to be authentic after all) are not a program. They are just associations, ideas, and that there are ideas of some kind behind the music (ultimately of course ideas which would be expressed in religious terms if they hadn't been cast in musical structures by Bruckner) is pretty obvious.

Yes. The DG notes said the 8th was programmatic, and I just mentioned this because I thought it was odd.

[Grazioso]

Still, it is music structured by a programmatic background. The same - that one can just listen to the music without knowing the program and still enjoy it - applies to a lot of other pieces of program music. That really depends more on the inclinations of the individual

I've yet to hear a piece of programmatic music where my knowledge or ignorance of the program in any way affected my enjoyment of--or distaste for--the music itself. For me, it's akin to knowing a composer's biography and the circumstances attendant upon the composition of a piece. I sometimes find those things interesting, and sometimes I'm totally ignorant of them, but I focus on what I'm hearing and judge that alone in the end.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Maybe, but even the basic themes stand for something in this music - which is really about the worst example one could give for "program" music in which the program is not really relevant - because it is very much. There isn't just a "story" and an "idea" behind each individual piece - the whole cycle is based on a programmatic idea, to celebrate the culture, landscape, and history of Smetana's home country, and that not just for poetic, but for very political reasons. The themes for the Moldau and the Vyšehrad, and of course the Hussite chorale - it can't get much more explicitly "programmatic". Which still doesn't mean one can't enjoy the music "just as music". But the author's intentions and the ideas behind the composition are very clear.

But I'm not the one denying any of that, or advocating the "pure music" approach when clearly a program has been intended. The key phrase in my previous post was "as much as": "If the music is structured by the program, then the program is as much structured by the composer's need to create something musically coherent." Program music after all dates back to the Renaissance and instances of it can be found even in Bach (Capriccio on the Departure) and Beethoven (Pastorale Symphony, Les Adieux). My point is that in the Smetana pieces, the musical design and the program work with each other to create the whole. Same with Beethoven - that slow movement of the Pastorale is at once an evocation of a scene by a brook and a fairly orthodox large-scale sonata form. Those three bird calls near the end are unmistakably programmatic, but even though in "real life" one might expect to hear birds singing more or less randomly, Beethoven doesn't introduce his birds just anywhere; he reserves them as new musical material introduced only in his coda.

[mikkeljs]

I´m not really getting the point of this discussion. Do you say, that program music should be different from other music? 

[mikkeljs]

Stravinsky.

Who spent his entire life writing ballet music, not to mention a couple of operas.

Ballet and opera as well as a cheeseburger does only express music.

[Josquin des Prez]

Does it ever end with you?

As long as i'm having so much fun with it, no way.

There's not a single thing that's "shallow" about Debussy's music, Prokofiev's music, Schumann's music, Mussorgsky's music, Britten's music, Berlioz's music... 

...these are just a few of the composers who've tried their hand at program music.

Of course there is something shallow about their music. Thankfully, some of those composers are only programmatic in a superficial way. There are exceptions though. Berlioz for instance really takes it to excess, and that hurts his status as a composer by a very substantial margin.

The problem is that when you are trying to express anything beyond what lies in the deepest regions of your own individual consciousness the results are always inferior. Compare late Beethoven with Berlioz's literary works. The difference is so stark there's an abyss between those means of expression, and one is infinitely below the other.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Ballet and opera as well as a cheeseburger does only express music.

Right.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Of course there is something shallow about their music. Thankfully, some of those composers are only programmatic in a superficial way. There are exceptions though. Berlioz for instance really takes it to excess, and that hurts his status as a composer by a very substantial margin.

The problem is that when you are trying to express anything beyond what lies in the deepest regions of your own individual consciousness the results are always inferior. Compare late Beethoven with Berlioz's literary works. The difference is so stark there's an abyss between those means of expression, and one is infinitely below the other.

If you honestly believe all this I can only conclude you don't have a clue what art is about.

You can't wrap things up in a tidy "what Beethoven would do" type of pigeonhole. It just doesn't work that way. That's not art - that's not genius. That's stunted. No artistic genius would ever retread old material. LEAST OF ALL BEETHOVEN!!!!

If you love Beethoven so much you KNOW he was a great innovator. And sometimes that put him at odds with the establishment (which would be you in the 21st century). I mean, he practically wrote the book on going against the grain!

I can only wonder if Beethoven met a person like you on an internet forum - in the year 1805 - what he would make of such bone-dry assumptions on the nature of art. I can tell you what your hero would say: "What do you want from me?? To do it the way Haydn did it?? NO WAY!!!!!"

So follow that all the way to the present day.

As far as Berlioz, he didn't WANT to do it the way Beethoven did it. And the same could be said of any true artist.

Basically you're attempting to break down the arts (music) into a series of stencils: over here we have the Beethoven stencil, over here the Mozart stencil... Who else deserves "stencilizing"? Brahms? Bach?

And from these we trace the stencil lines over and over again without ever making strides. No variations. Zero that's new. Only what the stencils dictate.

And basically you're the stencil-minder. You tend shop and dictate to the rest of the artistic world what should and should not be stenciled.

This is your ideology.

But the ramifications of such an ideology can only lead to one thing: the Beethovens of the world will be killed off the moment they stick their necks out. One whiff of innovation and they'll be policed straight back into the, oh, "Bach Stencil".

Vicious cycle, I'd say.

But Beethoven would spit on such an ideology. And thank your lucky stars he did just that.

[Philoctetes]

If you honestly believe all this I can only conclude you don't have a clue what art is about.

You can't wrap things up in a tidy "what Beethoven would do" type of pigeonhole. It just doesn't work that way. That's not art - that's not genius. That's stunted. No artistic genius would ever retread old material. LEAST OF ALL BEETHOVEN!!!!

If you love Beethoven so much you KNOW he was a great innovator. And sometimes that put him at odds with the establishment (which would be you in the 21st century). I mean, he practically wrote the book on going against the grain!

I can only wonder if Beethoven met a person like you on an internet forum - in the year 1805 - what he would make of such bone-dry assumptions on the nature of art. I can tell you what your hero would say: "What do you want from me?? To do it the way Haydn did it?? NO WAY!!!!!"

So follow that all the way to the present day.

As far as Berlioz, he didn't WANT to do it the way Beethoven did it. And the same could be said of any true artist.

Basically you're attempting to break down the arts (music) into a series of stencils: over here we have the Beethoven stencil, over here the Mozart stencil... Who else deserves "stencilizing"? Brahms? Bach?

And from these we trace the stencil lines over and over again without ever making strides. No variations. Zero that's new. Only what the stencils dictate.

And basically you're the stencil-minder. You tend shop and dictate to the rest of the artistic world what should and should not be stenciled. 

But the ramifications of such an ideology can only lead to one thing: the Beethovens of the world will be killed off the moment they stick their necks out. One whiff of innovation and they'll be policed straight back into the, oh, "Bach Stencil".

Vicious cycle, I'd say.

But Beethoven would spit on such a ideology. And thank your luck stars he did just that.

Why did you bother to respond? He or She didn't actually say anything.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Why did you bother to respond? He or She didn't actually say anything.

Sigh...I know.

I probably should have just given it a pass. Oh, well...

[Philoctetes]

Sigh...I know.

I probably should have just given it a pass. Oh, well...

A good response nonetheless.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

A good response nonetheless.

Thanks, Philo. Really.