List of program music

• Capriccio for keyboard in B♭ "On the departure of a beloved brother" BWV 992
• Many of Bach's cantatas contain elements that could be considered programmatic

• 1712 Overture

• Ritual of the Savage (1951)
• The Passions: featuring Bas Sheva (1954)

• Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 (1807); based on the story of Coriolanus
• Symphony No. 6, Pastoral, Op. 68 (1808); features titled movements, country dances, bird calls, and a storm.
• Leonore No. 3 Overture, Op. 72b (1806); one of a series of overtures composed for the opera Leonore, later renamed Fidelio. Leonore No. 3 is well known for portraying some of the major events of the plot in a condensed, purely orchestral form, most notably the distant trumpet fanfares of the finale. Next to the actual, finalized Fidelio overture, this is the most commonly performed version, and still sometimes replaces the Fidelio overture in some productions.
• Egmont Overture, Op. 84
• Wellington's Victory, Op. 91 is also known as the Battle Symphony and describes the battle between the French and British armies outside the Spanish town of Vitoria and the subsequent British victory. The work features rifles and cannons as instruments. It also makes use of Rule Britannia, which is used to describe the British, whereas the French side is announced by the French song Marlbrouk s'en va-t-en guerre.
• Piano Sonata in A flat Op. 26 (3rd movement subtitled "Death of a hero", 4th movement manifestly "Life goes on" in intent)
• Piano Sonata in D minor Op. 31 Nr. 2 ("Der Sturm", inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest)

• Symphonie Fantastique, (1830)
• Harold in Italy, based on Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron, (1834)
• Romeo et Juliette, symphonie dramatique

• Four Sea Interludes, (1945) — Britten extracted four of the six interludes from his opera Peter Grimes for performance as a stand-alone orchestral piece. "I. Dawn," "II. Sunday Morning" (describing a seaside community gathering to worship), "III. Moonlight," and "IV. Storm" were all meant to literally describe these scenes and images through Britten's music.[1][2]

• Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, "Romantic" — The program, involving medieval castles and dawn and royal hunts, appears to have been an afterthought like it was with the other Symphonies, but the validity of it in this case is supported by the subtitle given to the work, the only one of Bruckner's Symphonies to have been given a subtitle by the composer himself.

• Winds of Nagual

• Appalachian Spring
• Billy the Kid
• Lincoln Portrait
• Rodeo

Debussy wrote more or less entirely in the 'program' style; see List of compositions by Claude Debussy

• The Sorcerer's Apprentice

• Symphony No. 9, From the New World, which is associated with The Song of Hiawatha and describes the composer's impressions of America.
• The Water Goblin
• The Noon Witch
• A Hero's Song
• Four Overtures:
  • Hussite Overture
  • In Nature's Realm
  • Carnival
  • Othello

Many of Elgar's works are associated with favourite places, mostly in Herefordshire and Worcestershire where he lived, and his MSS are often noted as such

• Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Op. 36, a series of musical portraits of the composer's friends (and in one case their dog as well), and incidents associated with them. In addition a secret underlying "Enigma" theme runs through the whole work, which has never been definitely discovered
• Sea Pictures
• Overture Cockaigne (In London Town), Op. 40
• The Wand of Youth, Opp. 1a and 1b, two suites based on music he had written as a child
• Overture In the South (Alassio), Op. 50
• Falstaff, symphonic study, Op. 68
• The Severn Suite, Op. 85, for brass band
• Nursery Suite

• Harlem Air Shaft[3]

• An American in Paris, (1928) Taxi horns, a solicitation by a prostitute, homesickness lifting on meeting with a fellow American

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a prolific composer of symphonic poems, independent overtures and fantasias, who often drew his inspiration from history.

• To the Memory of a Hero, elegy for orchestra, Op. 8
• Stenka Razin, Op. 13
• The Forest, fantasy for orchestra, Op. 19
• Slavonian Feast, symphonic sketches, Op. 26A
• The Sea, fantasy for orchestra, Op. 28
• Oriental Rhapsody, Op. 29
• The Kremlin, symphonic picture in three parts, Op. 30
• The Spring, symphonic picture, Op. 34
• Carnaval, overture for large orchestra and organ, Op. 45
• From Dark into Light, fantasy for orchestra, Op. 53
• Solemn Overture, Op. 73
• From the Middle Ages, suite for orchestra, Op. 79
• The Song of Destiny, dramatic overture, Op. 84
• Russian Fantasy for balalaika-orchestra, Op. 86
• To the Memory of Gogol, symphonic prologue, Op. 87
• Finnish Fantasy for orchestra, Op. 88
• Finnish Sketches for orchestra, Op. 89
• Karelian Legend, Op. 99
• Poème épique, Op. posth.

• Peer Gynt, originally a selection from incidental music and a song for the play Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen, but now is almost always played by itself.
• Lyric Pieces
• Wedding Day at Troldhaugen

• Grand Canyon Suite, (1931). Named sections illustrate "Sunrise," "The Painted Desert," "On the Trail," "Sunset" and "Cloudburst." "On the Trail" is the familiar section with a mule's braying and hoofbeats. "Cloudburst," another musical storm, was described by Toscanini as "vivid and terrifying."

• Storm on Mount Wildcat
• Sosi – Forest of Prophetic Sounds
• Vision from High Rock
• Mysterious Mountain (Symphony No.2)
• Macedonian Mountain Dance
• Fantasy on Japanese Wood Prints
• And God Created Great Whales (orchestra with humpbacked whale songs)
• Vishnu Symphony (Symphony No.19)
• Majnun Symphony (Symphony No.24)
• Odysseus Symphony (Symphony No.25)
• Mount St. Helens Symphony (Symphony No.50)

• Irlande
• Pologne

• The Celestial Railroad
• Central Park in the Dark
• String Quartet No. 2 ("Discussions", "Arguments", and "The Call of the Mountains")
• A Symphony: New England Holidays
• Three Places in New England
• The Unanswered Question
• Yale-Princeton Football Game

• Taras Bulba, rhapsody for orchestra based on the novella by Nikolai Gogol

Most of the better-known compositions of Ketèlbey are strongly programmatic, including:

• In a Monastery Garden
• In a Persian Market
• In the Mystic Land of Egypt
• Bells across the Meadows
• With Honour Crowned

Liszt is considered the inventor of the symphonic poem and his programmatic orchestral works set the framework for several composers of the romantic era. He composed a total of thirteen symphonic poems as well as two programmatic symphonies, drawing his inspiration from a variety of literary, mythological, historical and artistic sources.

• Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne (What is heard on the mountain), after a poem by Victor Hugo
• Tasso, Lamento e Trionfo, based on stories by Byron and Goethe on the life of the poet Torquato Tasso
• Les Préludes, based on Lamartine
• Orpheus
• Prometheus
• Mazeppa, based on Hugo and Byron
• Festklänge (Festival Sounds)
• Héroïde funèbre
• From the Cradle to the Grave
• Hungaria
• Hamlet, based on the play by Shakespeare
• Hunnenschlacht (Battle of the Huns), based on a monumental fresco by painter Wilhelm von Kaulbach depicting the battle between Emperor Theoderic and Attila the Hun in 451
• Die Ideale based on a work by Friedrich von Schiller
• Faust Symphony, after the epic work by Goethe
• Dante Symphony, after Dante's Divine Comedy

• The Hope (2001), depicting the battle of Copenhagen

Much of Mahler's early work was designed programmatically. However, he made serious efforts to downplay the programmatic reputation of many of these pieces later in his life, including removing some of the programmatic titles from his symphonies.

• Symphony No. 1, Titan, (1888)
• Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, (1894)
• Symphony No. 3, (1896)
• Das Lied von der Erde

• La Nativite du Seigneur (The Nativity of Our Lord), strongly programmatic series of organ pieces
• Des Canyons au Etoiles ("From the Canyons to the Stars"), on the natural beauty of the United States
• Catalogue d'oiseaux ("Catalog of Birds")
• Oiseaux exotiques

• Toy Symphony

• Pictures at an Exhibition; movements represent a series of paintings and the promenade of a viewer around the gallery
• Night on Bald Mountain

• Helios Overture, Op. 17

• Daphnis et Chloé
• La Valse
• Jeux d'eau
• Miroirs suite
• Gaspard de la nuit
• Ma mère l'oye
• Pavane pour une infante défunte

• I pini di Roma ("The Pines of Rome"), 1923–1924
• Vetrate di Chiesa ("Church Windows"), 1926
• Gli Uccelli ("The Birds"), 1927
• Le fontane di Roma ("The Fountains of Rome"), 1915–1916
• Feste Romane ("Roman Festivals"), 1928

• Chanting the Light of Foresight, with Rova Saxophone Quartet

• Scheherazade, Op. 35, (1888). Section titles such as "The Sea and Sinbad's Ship," "Festival in Baghdad."

• William Tell Overture

• Phaéton, Op. 39
• Danse Macabre, Op. 40 (1874)
• The Carnival of the Animals, (1886)

• Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 ("Transfigured Night"), 1899 Romantic musical portrait of a moonlight forest walk, from Richard Dehmel's poem

Sibelius composed several tone poems throughout his career, often making use of stories and motifs from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. Early in his career he also wrote works on national and historical subjects.

• Finlandia
• Kullervo, Op. 7, symphonic poem based on the story of Kullervo in Finnish mythology
• En saga, Op. 9
• Karelia Suite, Op. 11
• Lemminkäinen Legends, Op. 22, four symphonic poems based on the story of Lemminkäinen in the Kalevala
• The Dryad, Op. 45 No. 1
• Pohjola's Daughter, Op. 49, tone poem based on a story from the Kalevala
• Nightride and Sunrise, Op. 55
• The Bard, Op. 64
• Luonnotar, Op. 70
• The Oceanides, Op.73
• Tapiola, Op. 112

• Má vlast, 1874–1879
• String Quartet No. 1, From my life

• Symphony No. 1 "Afro-American"
• Symphony No. 2 in G minor, "Song of a New Race"

A major developer of the tone poem as a musical form, Strauss displayed outstanding skill at musical description. He claimed that he was capable of "describing a knife and fork" in music, and said that a sensitive listener to Don Juan could discern the hair color of Don Juan's amorous partners.

• Don Juan, Op. 20 (1889)
• Macbeth, Op. 23
• Tod und Verklärung ("Death and Transfiguration") Op. 24 (1889)
• Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche ("Till Eulenspiegel's merry pranks"), Op. 28
• Also Sprach Zarathustra ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra"), Op. 30 (1896)
• Don Quixote, Op. 35 (1897)
• Ein Heldenleben ("A hero's life"), Op. 40
• Symphonia Domestica ("Domestic Symphony"), Op. 53 (1903). A musical description of the composer's personal daily life, including an unflattering musical picture of Frau Strauss
• Eine Alpensinfonie ("An Alpine Symphony"), Op. 64 (1915). A work with twenty-two named narrative sections describing the ascent of an alpine mountain. A section of the work depicts a thunderstorm, with perhaps the most realistic thunder-and-lightning in orchestral music.
• Duett-Concertino (1947), depicting a princess and a bear.

• Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (1869; revised 1870, 1880)
• The Tempest Symphonic Fantasia after Shakespeare, Op. 18 (1873)
• Hamlet Overture-Fantasia, Op. 67a (1888)
  • The above three works are based on plays by Shakespeare
• Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32 (1876) is based on Dante's Inferno.
• Manfred Symphony in four scenes after the dramatic poem by Byron, Op. 58
• The 1812 Overture (1882) famously uses different themes to represent the French and Russian armies in the Napoleonic Wars, and concludes with the firing of cannons and the ringing of the church bells.

• Final Fantasy Many different themes over the video game series representing different characters and situations

• Siegfried Idyll

• The Lark Ascending
• Sinfonia Antartica About the explorer Captain Scott's doomed expedition to the south pole, arranged from his film score