Guidelines for Artistic Programming

Crafting a well-conceived program is one of the most challenging

things to do as a performer, and few (if any) guidelines exist for how to go
about this challenging task in a thoughtful, creative, and effective way.
Too often, programmers think in abstract terms when they construct an
individual concert or even an entire concert season. Without a deliberate
method, many are left trying to find the “secret sauce” of programming
that will please, challenge, and engage their audience. The aim of this
brochure is to provide performers with a system of programming that
consistently results in well-crafted, artistically engaging concerts.

Our suggestions for programming are meant for a standard audience for a
large concert series; a combination of die-hard classical music lovers,
some newcomers, and many infrequent attendees, who have an interest
but may not be well-versed in the full spectrum of repertoire.

When programming for a standard audience like this, it is important to

take into account the scale to which the program will challenge listeners.
A great program can push audiences to engage their intellect and listen
with curiosity. Too aggressively challenging of a program will lose the
attention of most audiences, while too simple or familiar of a program is
both uninteresting and unremarkable. With this in mind, we suggest
thinking about programming for standard audiences in in four broad
categories:

1) Density of Musical Ideas: The saturation of musical ideas in a piece

directly affects a listener’s ability to understand musical ideas in real
time; as more musical lines enter a texture, this places increasing
strain on the ear to perceive all that it is hearing.1 To a certain extent,
this is common sense – to hear every line in a piece like Schoenberg’s
Chamber Symphony No. 1 is much more demanding than listening to
music with a single melodic idea, like The Blue Danube.
 It is important to be careful in what this means: density of musical
ideas differs from density of orchestration, or quickness of succession
of ideas due to tempo. For example, much of the music Richard
Strauss is very dense orchestrationally, but can be relatively simple in
terms of multiplicity of ideas. The Tanzlied from Also Sprach
Zarathustra, for example, features the entire orchestra playing an
incredibly complex texture, but the end effect is essentially a single
melody with accompaniment. On the flip side, a piece like Brahms’
Symphony No. 3 has moments of thinly orchestrated music that still
have remarkably thick counterpoint, making them more challenging to
digest in real-time.

2) Tonality: Tonality also plays an important role in the balancing of a

program. Tonal or modal pieces are naturally easier for the ear to
perceive, a phenomenon that results from the natural overtone series
created by a vibrating body, and enforced through the Western
emphasis on tonality in pop, rock, film music, and other genres that
dominate our consumption of entertainment. Works that are freely
atonal or serial are thus more demanding on the ear and the mind,
and add to the intellectual heft of a program.

3) Orchestration/Instrumentation: Similar to Category 1, but different

in substance, the thickness of instrumentation should be considered
when programming any concert. While Category 1 focused on density
of actual ideas, this category deals with number of unique sounds and
timbres that the listener must perceive at once. To take the most
striking example, hearing a Ravel piano piece like Un Barque sur
l’Ocean played on the piano is less demanding than hearing played by
a full orchestra. In this vein, symphonic programmers must take extra
care in their choices, appreciating the fact that the mere timbral
complexity of much symphonic music is a challenge for the average
listener.

4) Duration: The last category is the simplest, but no less important. It

is vital to consider all of the above categories in the context of the
length of each piece on the program, factoring in repeated music as
being less challenging on second hearing.

 This graphic can serve as a tool for visualizing the “weight” that each piece on a program holds:

Programming Visualization Chart

Saturation
Sparse Texture Dense Texture

Tonality

Tonal or Modal 12-Tone/Fully Atonal

Orchestration

Simply Orchestrated Densely Orchestrated

Duration

Short, or Several Repeats Long, Few or No Repeats

 Well Known Example Pieces

Below are graphics of several widely-performed pieces, with approximations of their relationship to
the four outlined categories:

Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 Mahler, Symphony No. 5

Saturation Saturation

Tonality Tonality

Orchestration Orchestration

Duration Duration


Debussy, La Mer Mozart, Symphony No. 41 “Jupiter”

Saturation Saturation

Tonality Tonality

Orchestration Orchestration

Duration Duration

Ideally, a well-crafted program will have a balance in as many areas as possible, including the four
categories outlined above. Conceptualizing pieces in terms of their “weight” can also help to create a
nice arc for a program, so that listeners are challenged at various strategic points.
The sample programs below, in addition to showing our approximation of the composite heft of
each piece, suggests some sample layouts for successful (and unsuccessful) programs:
 Sample Programs
Archetype 1: Overture-Concerto-Symphony
Exemplar Programs (with Composite Weight 1-10)
Mendelssohn, Overture to Midsummer Night’s Dream
Salonen, Violin Concerto
Dvorak, Symphony No. 7
Janacek, Suite from Cunning Little Vixen
Mozart, Piano Concerto No. **
Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra
Poorly Crafted Program
Adams, Chairman Dances
Tchaikovsky, Variations on a Rococo Theme
Beethoven, Symphony No. 4
2 This program begins lightly, preparing the Salonen
8 to balance the first half nicely, and closing with a
lengthier but less demanding symphony.
5
4 This arc works well for a lighter concerto,
culminating in a more challenging second half, and
3 opening with something more involved than a mere
curtain-raiser.
7
This program is not substantial enough, even for an
3 audience of relatively inexperienced concertgoers.
2 While it checks many standard boxes like the
inclusion of contemporary music and a variety of
different compositional styles, it will not carry the
3 same narrative arc that a well-crafted program
would.
Archetype 2: Themed Programs
Exemplar Programs (with Composite Weight 1-10)
De Falla, Three Cornered Hat Suite No. 2
Ravel, Rapsodie Espagnole
Debussy, Iberia
Ginastera, Suite from Estancia
Mendelssohn, Hebrides Overture
Messiaen, Oieseaux Exotiques
Strauss, An Alpine Symphony
Poorly Crafted Program
Ives, Three Places in New England
Copland, Clarinet Concerto
Barber, Second Essay for Orchestra
Bernstein, Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
2 This is a carefully selected Spanish-themed concert,
in which the two heftier pieces bookend the
7 intermission, and we open and close with lighter
works.
7
3
This nature-themed program features a short and
1 widely contrasting first half, to balance the lengthy
9 but relatively penetrable Alpine Symphony.
6
This all-American program does have a reasonable
9 arc of opening with the most challenging works and
gradually relaxing, but it is simply too weighty for a
7 standard audience. It is important to consider
carefully pieces like the Copland Clarinet Concerto and
6 the Bernstein Symphonic Dances, which are thought of
as crowd pleasers, but are also demanding works in
5 their own right.
A couple important clarifications:

1. Evaluating pieces in this manner should not be viewed as a reflection on their musical and
compositional worth whatsoever. All of the pieces mentioned above, for example, are
masterpieces, regardless of whether they are of low “composite weight.” Indeed, some of
the best pieces, like the best art, film, wine, etc. do not demand the same level of
intellectual acuity that other masterpieces do. This tool is merely to aid in constructing
programs that will be shaped nicely, with the needs of a standard concert audience in mind.

2. This method of evaluation is flexible enough that it can (and should) be applied to a variety
of programming scenarios. Whether deciding on a classical subscription concert, an
educational concert for children, a chamber music performance at a community event, or a
late-night soiree, it is important to think about the density of the program being presented,
along with how the pieces relate on those terms. Of course, these abstract scales should be
calibrated to the context: when programming an educational concert, common sense tells
us that children have a much lower threshold for all the categories detailed above. For a
program with a contemporary music ensemble, the audience may have a higher threshold
for categories like tonality and saturation. It is important to intimately know the audience
that one is programming for, to be able to calibrate accordingly.

1
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5e26/e0bd960c0b0a7e42cd2052be01e76a40fd3f.pdf