absolute music

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noun

instrumental music, as a concerto or string quartet, that draws no inspiration from or makes no reference to a text, program, visual image, or title and that exists solely in terms of its musical form, structure, and elements.

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Also called abstract music .

Compare program music.

Origin of absolute music

First recorded in 1885–90

Words nearby absolute music

absolute magnitude, absolute majority, absolute maximum, absolute minimum, absolute monarchy, absolute music, absolute pitch, absolute space, absolute temperature, absolute temperature scale, absolute threshold

How to use absolute music in a sentence

The good wife breathed deeply, and went on with her work, sending out absolute music from her needles.
Silent Struggles|Ann S. Stephens
Therefore, discarding critical crutches, it is best to hear the composition primarily as absolute music.
Franz Liszt|James Huneker
In other words—not Wagner's—dance approaches speech from one side just as absolute music does from the other.
Richard Wagner His Life and His Dramas|W. J. Henderson
For that they praised him, as if it were a sine qua non of absolute music that it should be in the sonata form.
How Music Developed|W. J. Henderson

The tendency of composers of absolute music at present is to make less and less use of the strict classic forms.
How Music Developed|W. J. Henderson

British Dictionary definitions for absolute music

absolute music

noun

music that is not designed to depict or evoke any scene or eventCompare programme music

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012