Program Music

Studies of program music explore ways in which extra-musical material is expressed and interpreted through music. Conceptions of program music are broadly construed and vary throughout history in correlation with various aesthetic and philosophical perspectives—narrowly defined, programmatic compositions include an extra-musical program describing the musical expression, while a broader definition considers evocative titles, allusive musical material, and conventional musical significations as vehicles of extra-musical meaning. The question of aesthetic value arises in the debate surrounding the ability of music to communicate extra-musical ideas and the quality of music that claims to do so. This question is extensively explored through the polemics of the 19th-century “War of the Romantics,” pitting programmatic music against “absolute music.” Musical and theoretical writings of figures such as Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, and Hanslick provide rich source material informing many studies on program music. The distinction between program music and absolute music is blurred through various approaches to deriving meaning from both types of music. Theories of narrativity propose methods of interpreting formal structures, tonal progressions, and thematic devices interacting in ways reminiscent of literary narrative. Semiotic approaches explore meanings that arise from conventional significations of genre, style, and “topics,” evoking cultural understandings of social position, setting, and affect. Applying interpretive strategies such as these to programmatic music allows for hermeneutic readings mapping the extra-musical program onto the musical events to explore meaningful points of intersection or contradiction. Further studies draw connections to composer biography and sociohistorical context, positioning the music in philosophical perspectives and reception. Broader cultural and political situations inform readings of underlying implications such as nationalism or social commentary. Current studies of program music explore musical narratives in nuanced contexts that parse the historical and cultural atmospheres surrounding composers, their music, and reception to propose new readings and frames of interpretation.

Deciphering Flavio Pereira’s Reading of Dostoevsky after the The House of the Dead

This article provides a “dechiffrage” of the form, style, compositional techniques, and referential musical meanings employed by the Brazilian composer and pedagogue Flavio Santos Pereira in the composition of a seven-part suite entitled Reading of Dostoevsky, written in 2016 and based on the book The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This chamber work is a premonitory work about the present pandemic time, which tests not only the human existential instincts and fears but also the spiritual, philosophical, and moral values upon which a mature and complete personality is built. The author manages to turn the economic structure of a dodecaphonic material into a source of polyphonic, polyrhythmic, stylistic, and timbre diversity. Oscillating and incremental textures, often reaching four-voice overlays, find their counterbalance in the asymmetric movements that synthesize complex subharmonic timbre combinations. The work can be classified as program music, as it employs characteristics of expressionist and impressionist styles mixed with free improvisatory polyphonic techniques. This paper also aims at inducing young performers to consider the paradigmatic model of “dechiffrage” for interpretation supported by stylistic and formal analysis based on classical and modern models. The article includes the full score of Reading of Dostoevsky by Flavio Santos Pereira.

The Aesthetic Conflict

An aesthetic conflict between advocates of abstract instrumental music (or “absolute music”) and advocates of instrumental music that tells stories (or “program music”) raged throughout Europe and the United States during the second half of the nineteenth century. American critics assessed Dvořák’s Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Symphonies through the lens of this conflict as they premiered throughout the 1880s and 1890s. But listeners could not reach a consensus about where along the aesthetic spectrum his music fell. Which direction the composer’s new symphony might take therefore remained an open question until its 1893 world premiere in New York, when the results surprised everyone.

The development of potential of students with a creative approach to education

The article presents a fragment of a research project devoted to studying the impact of the musical influence system on the mental development of mentally retarded children. The author’s approach to the criterion-oriented assessment of the levels of preschoolers’ psychomotor development is applied. Three estimated levels of children’s psychomotor development are used to assess both the actual features of this development and potential opportunities. The ascertaining experiment made it possible to reveal a significant motor impairment in mentally retarded children of theageof 6–7: difficulties in performing movements in accordance with the instructions; disorders of motor and spatial coordination; decreased motor memory; distortions of tempo, rhythm, and amplitude of movements (63.6%). The development program “Music and Dance of My Body” made it possible to actualize the children’s psychomotor potential through musical-motor improvisation. The program was aimed at developing a sense of rhythm, motor skills, forming correct posture, children’s expressive movements and facial expressions, spatial coordination. The program allowed increasing the percentage of children with an average level of psychomotor development from 33.9% to 57.0%. According to the results of the control stage, the dynamics of development were statistically significant at a high level of reliability (p = 0.001).

PENGARUH HASIL BELAJAR MATA KULIAH VOKAL TERHADAP HASIL BELAJAR MATA KULIAH PADUAN SUARA MAHASISWA DI PRODI PENDIDIKAN SENDRATASIK KONSENTRASI MUSIK JURUSAN SENDRATASIK FBS UNP

This study aims to determine the magnitude of the effect of vocal course learning outcomes on choir course learning outcomes of students (2017 generation) in Music Concentration, Sendratasik Education Study Program, Department of Sendratasik, FBS UNP. This is a quantitative research using a correlational method. The population in this study was students (2017 generation) in Sendratasik Education Study Program, Music Concentration Department of Sendratasik, FBS UNP. The sample in the study was the learning outcomes of students of Sendratasik Education Study Program, Music Concentration, Department of Sendratasik, FBS, UNP in vocal and choir courses. This research used primary and secondary data sources. The data analysis was conducted by using product moment correlation technique. The results of research and data processing as well as testing the hypothesis show that the correlation coefficient (r) obtained in the learning outcomes of vocal courses and learning outcomes of choir courses from three classes of 65 people from the 2017 generation of Sendratasik Education Study Program is 0.16127 or 16.127% and it is categorized very weak. In class A, the value obtained is 0.453 or 45.3% and it is categorized quite influential. In class B, the value obtained is 0.1605 or 16.05% and it is categorized very low. In class C, the value obtained is -0,1297 or -12.97%. This predicate gives no effect. The total percentage is 45.3% + 16.05% -12.97% = 16.127%. Thus, the analysis of student learning outcomes is 1: 2.Keywords: Effect, Vocal Ability, Learning Outcomes, Student Choir

Musical Composition of Introverts dan Ekstroverts’ Extramusical Idea

Purpose: Humans have different personalities, namely introverts and extroverts. Program music is one of the compositional techniques whose purpose is to describe something in the creation of music through the analogy of meaning. Research methods: This creation research uses the Practice-Led Research method. Data obtained through a literature study approach, then the data is associated with music through an analogy process. Results and discussion: The creative process in creating music is very diverse, one of which is through extra-musical ideas. In the realm of music creation other disciplines can be used as music creation ideas. Psychology and music can be related through listening and feeling. The musical works created are vocal and piano works about introverts and extroverts. Implication: The implications of this research creation are expected to trigger the idea of creating music more broadly, especially across scientific disciplines.

ULOGA AKORDSKIH DOPUNjALKI U PROCESU ZAPISIVANjA HARMONSKIH VEZA NA NASTAVI SOLFEĐA NA STUDIJAMA MUZIČKE UMETNOSTI

The paper describes the role of chord fill-in exercises in the process of scribing chords in harmonic series of chords which are part of the teaching program of Solfeggio in the basic academic (musical) studies. In a pilot experimental research, exact results have shown the extent to which the experimental factor (chord fill-in exercises) participate in achievement a better students accuracy when listening and scribing chords in harmonic series of chords. Pedagogical research was carried out in the academic year 2017/18 in which the main method was an experiment with one group of respondents consisting of six students of the first year of the study program Music Theory and Pedagogy of the Faculty of Philology and Arts at the University of Kragujevac. The results of the conducted experimental program confirmed the research hypothesis. They proved that chord fillers help students to identify and scribe chords in harmonic series of chords more effectively / accurately, which also indicates the necessity of a more frequent use of chord fill-in exercises in teaching practice, specifically in the work on the writing of chords in harmonic series of chords in teaching Solfeggio