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Sometimes the distinction is difficult to make. Generally, program music supports a story, as in Opera, Ballet or musicals. The idea of 'motif' in the standard Opera repertoire is probably the single best example. A short melodic phrase that symolizes a specific character or emotion in an opera is a motif. In program music, it is the story that provides the contour or arch that is filled with music by the composer, and not the musical materials themselves. The music supports and expresses the various emotional states and important events that are unfolding during the production.
Absolute music is not in the service of a particular program requirement. The composer is free to mix, match, balance and juxtapose any and all musical materials as he/she sees fit. Within certain broad structural conventions, like sonata form and several dance rhythms, composers can produce symphonies, sonatas, and many other kinds of work including free-form compositions.
Some music theorists speculate that all music has some programatic element in it, even if only by virtue of the fact that any composed music follows the creative thoughts of the composer.
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What is the opposite of program music?
Absolute Music
Did Joseph Hayden write absolute music or program music?
no
Why was the classical era called absolute music?
While the term "absolute music" is most commonly applied to the classical era (and also to the Romantic period), the classical period was not defined by being absolute music. Absolute music is music that is not created for an outside purpose, not to be accompanied by a dance, or a play, but to exist on its own, to be performed alone, perhaps in a concert hall. Unlike program music, it does not tell a story, or represent anything. The term was usually applied to instrumental music without vocals. To define classical music by one of its many types of music would be absurd, so while the classical era included many pieces of absolute music, it also included program music, and opera; the Classical era is not exclusively made up of absolute works.
Is messiah by George Handel a program or absolute music?
Program. More specifically, it's an oratorio. It tells the story of the life of Christ.
Did Neoclassical composers preferred absolute music and forms to program music?
Some composers did. Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" has a definite program, but the first movement is clearly in the sonata-allegro form. Likewise Tchaikovsky's "Manfred" Symphony. More often, program music was freer in form than so-called "absolute" music like Beethoven's symphonies. Even he, however, had extra-musical ideas behind his "Pastoral" Symphony, and still made use of the sonata form.
