The Orchestra and Orchestral Music in the 19th century

Program Music vs Absolute music

What does instrumental music mean?On one hand—

it was thought to express THOUGHTS TOO PROFOUND FOR WORDS (E. T. A. Hoffmann)It is A SELF-SUFFICIENT ARTISTIC INTERWEAVING OF TONES (Eduard Hanslick)ALL ART CONSTANTLY ASPIRES TOWARD THE CONDITION OF MUSIC because it can have form without specific content (Walter Pater, literary critic)

On the other—

MUSIC WOULD REACH ITS POTENTIAL THROUGH INTEGRATION WITH THE OTHER ARTS (Wagner)A written program attached to a piece elevates it to DEFINITE IMPRESSIONS for the listener (Franz Liszt)

The POETICIZING SYMPHONIST wants the spiritual states of his music to be understood by listeners (Liszt)Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 (programmatic descriptions, but MORE AN EXPRESSION OF FEELINGS THAN TONE-PAINTING—Beethoven)Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 Berlioz Symphonie fantastiqueOpera (the new instrumental music?)

Music that didn’t relate directly to other arts, was termed “Absolute Music” or “Formalism” by Wagner and his followers

Bonds, pp. 374-75

Franz Liszt contra Eduard Hanslick

What are the implications for musical form and style of the two viewpoints?Why is each considered superior to the other by its followers?What is music?

Joined with:

What instruments could do (new developments), and the programmatic implications each developed

Hector Berlioz (1843/rev 1855), Treatise on Instrumentationhttp://www.hberlioz.com/Scores/BerliozTreatise.html

Nationalism in Music

Nationalist tendencies in 19th -century music: Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Wagner. Linked to political ideas: the rise of unified countries, but also the sense of being outside the culture of the unified country, the desire to base music on ideas from one’s own culture and to develop a representative musicOr—music evocative of a particular culture, but not necessarily your own.

How do you express these things in music?

National subjectsBedřich Smetana (1824-1884)

Má Vlast (my homeland) symphonic poems 1874-79:

Vlatava (The Moldau) The famous tune is a well-known popular one, also appearing as a Czech folk song National MusicAntonín Dvořák (1841-1904)Symphony No. 6, in D, op. 60 (1880), Furiant (Czech national dance), themes reminiscent and may have been developed from, Czech folk songsThe work’s planned premiere in Vienna was repeatedly delayed because of anti-Czech feeling, and the work was eventually premiered in Prague in March 1881