Text-Painting
Music illustrating the action or image in the words
Related
Text-painting uses music to illustrate the action, direction or image in the words: "rising" climbs, "sighing" falls or pauses, "light" turns to a bright major and a high register.
It differs from programme music: text-painting depends on words, programme music on a title or story; nor is it literal illustration — good text-painting serves emotion, not word-by-word translation. The usual mistake is to paint every word — too much turns the music into a puzzle; choose the important words.
Read deeper → word painting
Sources
- 词画在文艺复兴与巴洛克声乐中的用法，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Word painting"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.