Definition of absolute music in US English:
absolute music
nounˈˌæbsəˈˌl(j)ut ˈmjuzɪk
Instrumental music composed purely as music, and not intended to represent or illustrate something else.
Compare with program music
Example sentencesExamples
- Some musicologists might argue that the Inventions fall into a category of absolute music.
- Very little of Mauricio Kagel's work is absolute music; there is almost invariably a programme of some kind lurking behind every note of it.
- G.I. Gurdjieff conducted experiments in search of absolute music, sounds that would have a specific, predictable effect on the listener.
- Indeed, throughout her life Beach never wavered from her deep belief in absolute music as a force for moral redemption - however anachronistic this would come to appear in the more disturbed decades after the First World War.
- As Chua advances into the nineteenth century, the paradoxes and ambiguities concerning the nature of absolute music pile up, to considerable dramatic effect.