tone painting

musical description, by harmonic, melodic, or rhythmic means, of the words of a text or the story elements in program music.

Origin of tone painting

First recorded in 1900–05

No one has approached Orlando in the ingenuity, quaintness and humour of his tone-painting.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 2 |Various
Wagner praises highly its orchestral effects; and a modern scholar, Cecil Forsyth, considers the tone-painting quite irresistible.

Music: An Art and a Language |Walter Raymond Spalding
His command of color in tone-painting and power of dramatic suggestion have rarely been equaled, and never surpassed.

Great Italian and French Composers |George T. Ferris
And an instant afterwards she was at the piano, throwing her whole soul into that wonderful piece of tone-painting.

Fragments of an Autobiography |Felix Moscheles

His command of colour in tone-painting and power of dramatic suggestion have rarely been equalled, and never surpassed.

Great Musical Composers |George T. Ferris