The symphony counts as so-called “absolute music” as opposed to “program music”.

Absolute music contains the action, the fight, in the ideal case then the natural evolution of the inner human strengths, whilst program music – particularly in the case of the opera, operetta or also in symphonic poetry – essentially dedicates itself to the musical support of external actions and events.

Here the borders between the so-called absolute music and the program music are not tightly drawn and are often quite fluid. So in the opera, for example, it is not infrequently the case that inner-human moods and mood changes are musically characterised, or however, in a symphony such as Beethoven’s sixth – the Pastoral – for example, external natural occurrences – from lightening to the twittering of birds are characterised.