Editing Program music (section)

==19th century==
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Program music particularly flourished in the [[Romantic music|Romantic]] era. As it can invoke in the listener a specific experience other than sitting in front of a musician or musicians, it is related to the purely Romantic idea of the [[Gesamtkunstwerk]] describing Wagner's Operas as a fusion of many arts (set design, choreography, poetry and so on), although it relies solely on musical aspects to illustrate a multi-faceted artistic concept such as a poem or a painting. Composers believed that the dynamics of sound that were newly possible in the Romantic orchestra of the era allowed them to focus on emotions and other intangible aspects of life much more than during the Baroque or [[Classical music era|Classical]] eras.

[[Ludwig van Beethoven]] felt a certain reluctance in writing program music, and said of his 1808 [[Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)|Symphony No. 6]] (''Pastoral'') that the "whole work can be perceived without description – it is more an expression of feelings rather than tone-painting".{{sfn|Beethoven|1905|loc={{Page needed|date=May 2020}}}}. Yet the work clearly contains depictions of bird calls, a babbling brook, a storm, and so on. Beethoven later returned to program music with his [[Piano Sonata No. 26 (Beethoven)|Piano Sonata Op. 81a]], ''Les Adieux'', which depicts the departure and return of his close friend the [[Archduke Rudolf of Austria|Archduke Rudolf]].

[[Hector Berlioz]]'s ''[[Symphonie fantastique]]'' was a musical narration of a hyperbolically emotional love story, the main subject being an actress with whom he was in love at the time. [[Franz Liszt]] did provide explicit programs for many of his piano pieces and he was also the inventor of the term [[symphonic poem]]. In 1874, [[Modest Mussorgsky]] composed for piano a series of pieces describing seeing a gallery of ten of his friend's paintings and drawings in his ''[[Pictures at an Exhibition]]'', later orchestrated by many composers including [[Maurice Ravel]]. The French composer [[Camille Saint-Saëns]] wrote many short pieces of program music which he called ''Tone Poems''. His most famous are probably the [[Danse Macabre]] and several movements from ''[[the Carnival of the Animals]]''. The composer [[Paul Dukas]] is perhaps best known for his tone poem ''[[The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas)|The Sorcerer's Apprentice]]'', based on a tale from [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]].

Possibly the most adept at musical depiction in his program music was German composer [[Richard Strauss]]. His symphonic poems include ''[[Death and Transfiguration]]'' (portraying a dying man and his entry into heaven), ''Don Juan'' (based on the ancient legend of [[Don Juan]]), ''[[Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks]]'' (based on episodes in the career of the legendary German figure [[Till Eulenspiegel]]), ''[[Don Quixote (Strauss)|Don Quixote]]'' (portraying episodes in the life of [[Miguel de Cervantes]]' character, [[Don Quixote]]), ''[[A Hero's Life]]'' (which depicts episodes in the life of an unnamed hero often taken to be Strauss himself) and ''[[Symphonia Domestica]]'' (which portrays episodes in the composer's own married life, including putting the baby to bed). Strauss is reported to have said that music can describe anything, even a teaspoon.{{sfn|Gifford|2012}}

Another composer of programmatic music is [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]], whose colorful "musical pictures" include "Sadko", Op. 5, after the Russian Bylina, about the minstrel who sings to the Tsar of the Sea, the very famous "'[[Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov)|Scheherazade]]", Op. 35, after the Arabian Nights entertainments (where the heroine is depicted by a violin and whose stories include "Sinbad the Sailor") and any number of orchestral suites from his operas, including ''[[The Tale of Tsar Saltan (opera)|The Tale of Tsar Saltan]]'' (which also contains "[[Flight of the Bumblebee]]"), ''[[The Golden Cockerel]]'', ''[[Christmas Eve (opera)|Christmas Eve]]'', ''[[The Snow Maiden]]'', and ''[[The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya|The Legend of The Invisible City of Kitezh]]''.

In Scandinavia, Sibelius explored the [[Kalevala]] legend in several tone poems, most famously in ''[[The Swan of Tuonela]]''.

One of the most famous programs, because it has never been definitively identified, is the secret non-musical idea or theme – the "Enigma" – that underlies [[Edward Elgar]]'s ''[[Enigma Variations|Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma)]]'' of 1899. The composer disclosed it to certain friends, but at his request they never made it public.