Sinfonia characteristica

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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] 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.

  1. Will, Richard. The Characteristic Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Beethoven (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).