The Ideals Of Instrumental Music
Beginning of paper
At one point in the study of the Romantic period of music, we come upon
the first of several apparently opposing conditions that plague all attempts to
grasp the meaning of Romantic as applied to the music of the 19th century. This
opposition involved the relation between music and words. If i ....
Middle of paper
.... of pure instrumental music (absolute
music) as the ultimate Romantic mode of expression, and the strong literary
orientation of the 19th century, was resolved in the conception of program
music. Program music, as Liszt and others in the 19th century used the term,
is music associated with poetic, descriptive, and even narrative subject
matter. This is done not by means of musical figures imitating natural sounds
and movements, but by imaginative suggestion. Program music aimed to absorb ....
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Word count: 850
Page count: 4 (approximately 250 words per page)
