Sinfonia characteristica
The sinfonia characteristica (or sinfonia caractéristique, characteristic symphony) was a type of symphony composed mainly in the eighteenth century which was embellished with a printed text (either one line or many paragraphs long) which pointed the listener in a specific direction, so that the music would convey a thematic expression, i.e., “tell a story”. Music scholar Richard Will has identified over 225 such works written between 1750 – 1815, the majority of subjects being these five: pastoral, military, hunts, storms, and national or regional expressions.[1]
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 (1808), the Pastoral, includes subtitles written by the composer for each movement:
I. Cheerful Impressions on Arriving in the Country
II. By the Brook
III. Peasants' Merrymaking
IV. The Storm
V. The Shepherd's Hymm; Happy, thankful feelings after the storm
As a term, “characteristic symphony” is the forerunner of the “program symphony” of the nineteenth century which gained major prominence with Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.
- ↑ Will, Richard. The Characteristic Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Beethoven (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 1.