Program Music by Jonathan Kregor (review)

Jonathan Kregor’s Program Music begins with the question, can music express meaning? Instead of answering this overarching and frequently asked question, Kregor presents a body of evidence such as the opinions of contemporaneous criticism and reception, composers’ writings, and present-day musicologists’ views both in support of and against the notion of meaning in music. The book is organized chronologically, with occasional interruptions to highlight important themes and practices that cross several periods and geographical boundaries. While the content of the book is not comprehensive, Kregor presents Pro gram Music as a detailed study of music spanning the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries that display highly influential techniques and experimental tendencies.

Most of the topics covered in Kregor’s book can be found in any good general music history text or source book; Kregor’s work, however, offers a concentrated study on programmatic music colored with substantial primary sources and music analysis in one convenient book. In addition, Kregor offers music examples from both inside and outside the canon, something not easily found in the general sources. Each chapter includes a short conclusion that summarizes the main points of the chapter and provides a transition into the new subject of the next chapter, which assists the reader in understanding of the larger concepts in the text and situates them in the chronology. In lieu of a bibliography, each chapter is accompanied by its own notes with full citations and a section for further reading that is helpful for instructors who wish to focus on specific themes, compositions, or composers.

In addition to presenting and analyzing specific programmatic works, Kregor provides two literary “excursions” that examine notable texts used by a variety of composers in an assortment of musical contexts. The first concerns the growing popularity of Shakespeare’s Hamlet throughout Europe. By analyzing three large-scale orchestral works from composers Joseph Joachim, Franz Liszt, and Niels Gade, Kregor demonstrates how romantic composers used Shakespeare’s drama to both develop and escape the formal and dramatic dimensions of the overture post-Beethoven (p. 51). The second excursion features compositions based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, which is notable for its various musical settings. Here Kregor discusses the origins, themes, and legacy of the text and analysis of several works by different composers based on the text, including Liszt, Richard Wagner, and Anton Rubinstein. Kregor also offers a lengthy exploration of the historical sources for a selection of Liszt’s other programmatic works, including the symphonic poem Mazeppa. These digressions from strictly musical considerations enable students and general readers insight into the ways Liszt and his contemporaries molded their sources to musically represent a message intended for modern society and contemporary interpretation.

For the majority of the book, Kregor discusses repertoire from the Austro-German and, to a lesser extent, the French tradition, with few references to important composers from other countries, such as Hungary’s Béla Bartók. The lengthiest examination of composers and repertoire from outside Austria and Germany is concentrated in the final two chapters which deal with nationalism and nationalistic trends in music and the “Ars Gallica” in France. There is continuity with the earlier chapters because the pieces Kregor has chosen are all strongly influenced by the composers and programmatic compositions of Austria and Germany. The French or other composers outside the tradition that Kregor discusses are portrayed as writing works that either emulate or rebel against their Germanic counterparts, many of whom are directly related to Liszt as part of his compositional school.

The book is divided between two important pillars of the style, Ludwig van Beethoven and Liszt, with a chapter on Hector Berlioz and Robert Schumann used as an important link joining the two men. Beethoven appears as a link to both the past and the future. It was Beethoven’s foray into eighteenth-century programmatic depictions of a...