SYMPHONIC POEM

A 'symphonic poem' or 'tone poem' is a piece of orchestral music in one movement in which some extra-musical program provides a narrative or illustrative element. This program may come from a poem, a story or novel, a painting or another source.
A symphonic poem may stand on its own, or it can be part of a series combined into a suite (in the romantic rather than the baroque sense). For example, "The Swan of Tuonela" (1895) is a tone poem from Sibelius's ''Lemminkäinen Suite''.
Musical works such as tone poems based on extra-musical sources are often referred to as program music, while music which has no such associations may be called absolute music.

Contents

History of the symphonic poem

Franz Liszt

Before Liszt

Beethoven

Baroque era

Post-Liszt symphonic poems

Composers

Richard Strauss

Arnold Schoenberg

See also

List of Tone Poems by Composer

History of the symphonic poem

Franz Liszt

The symphonic poem as we know it was largely invented by Franz Liszt (1811-1886) in a series of single-movement orchestral works he composed in the 1840s and 1850s.

Before Liszt

However, the evolution of the tone-poem form began earlier before Liszt with ''concert overtures'', theatrical, colorful and evocative orchestral movements created for performance independent of any opera or theater-piece. For examples, among the symphonic poems created before Liszt there were the ''Der Beherrscher der Geister'' ("The Ruler of the Spirits", 1811), by Carl Maria von Weber and the ''Hebrides Overture'' (also known as ''Fingal's Cave'', 1830) by Felix Mendelssohn.

Beethoven

These concert pieces in turn sprang from the overtures by Ludwig van Beethoven such as those for ''Egmont'', ''Coriolanus'', and the ''Leonore No. 3'', which in their musical content anticipate the story of the stage works which they introduce (plays in the case of ''Egmont'' and '' Coriolanus'', and the opera ''Fidelio'' in the case of ''Leonore'').

Baroque era

Even earlier orchestral mood pieces are exemplified by the 'storm' set-pieces that were an established genre that went back to the summer storm in Antonio Vivaldi's ''The Four Seasons'', and some moody ''entr'actes'' between scenes of Baroque French operas.

Post-Liszt symphonic poems

After Liszt's series of symphonic poems, the form was taken up with enthusiasm by composers such as Bedřich Smetana, Jean Sibelius, Antonín Dvořák, and Richard Strauss.
The tone poem has remained a popular musical form through much of the twentieth century, and many such works (like ''The Sorcerer's Apprentice'', by Paul Dukas) have successfully entered common popular culture through use in media and film.

Composers

The following is a brief list of some of the composers who have authored symphonic poems, along with some of their most notable works in the genre:

★ Arnold Bax - ''Tintagel'', ''The Garden of Fand'', and others

★ Alexander Borodin - ''In the Steppes of Central Asia''

★ George Whitefield Chadwick - ''Symphonic Sketches''

★ Claude Debussy - ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' (''Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun''), ''La Mer''

★ Frederick Delius - ''A Song of Summer'', ''Eventyr'' (''Once Upon a Time''), ''On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring''

★ Paul Dukas - ''L'apprenti-sorcier'' (''"The Sorcerer's Apprentice"'')

★ Antonín Dvořák - ''The Golden Spinning Wheel'', ''The Noon Witch'', ''The Water Goblin'', ''The Wood Dove'' and ''The Hero's Song''

★ George Enescu - ''Vox maris''

★ César Franck - ''Le Chasseur Maudit'' (''"The Accursed Huntsman"'')

★ George Gershwin - ''An American in Paris'', ''Cuban Overture''

★ Percy Grainger - ''Train Music''

★ Gustav Holst - ''Egdon Heath''

★ Arthur Honegger - ''Pacific 231''

★ Modest Mussorgsky - ''Night on Bald Mountain'', ''Pictures at an Exhibition''

★ Sergei Rachmaninoff - ''Isle of the Dead''

★ Ottorino Respighi - ''Brazilian Impressions'' and the trilogy of Roman symphonic poems (''The Pines of Rome'', ''The Fountains of Rome'', and ''Roman Festivals'')

★ Silvestre Revueltas - ''Sensemaya''

★ Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - ''Night on Mount Triglav'', ''Sadko (Symphonic Picture)''

★ Camille Saint-Saëns - ''Danse macabre''

★ Arnold Schoenberg - ''Pelleas und Melisande''

★ Jean Sibelius - ''Finlandia'', ''Luonnotar'', ''Tapiola'', and others

★ Bedřich Smetana - ''Má Vlast'', a cycle of six symphonic poems including the famous Moldau

★ Richard Strauss - ''Also sprach Zarathustra'', ''Aus Italien'', ''Death and Transfiguration'', ''Don Quixote'', ''Ein Heldenleben'', ''Symphonia Domestica'', Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks'' and others (see below)

★ Sergei Taneyev - ''Oresteia'' (labeled as an "overture" but really a symphonic poem based on themes from his opera of the same name)

★ Pyotr Tchaikovsky - ''1812 Overture'', ''Francesca da Rimini'', ''Romeo and Juliet - Fantasy Overture'', ''Hamlet - Fantasy Overture'', and ''The Tempest''

★ Geirr Tveitt - ''Nykken
From the above one can understand that the freedom of the genre of the symphonic poem allows other appellations, such as "musical picture," "overture," "fantasy," etc.

Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss (who preferred the term "tone poem" to "symphonic poem") was one of the most prolific late Romantic composers in the genre, with his works including ''Don Juan'', ''Till Eulenspiegel'', ''Also sprach Zarathustra,'' ''Don Quixote,'' and ''Ein Heldenleben''. All told, Strauss wrote nine tone poems, although ''Don Quixote'' could as easily be called a rhapsody or theme and variations as a tone poem.

Arnold Schoenberg

There are also a number of one-movement works not written for orchestra, but for some chamber ensemble or solo instrument, based on some extra-musical source. Because of their non-orchestral nature, these are not considered to be "symphonic poems", although in all aspects other than instrumentation, they resemble one. One of the best known such pieces is