I love Isle of the Dead and Night on the Bald Mountain as well. Still, they pale in comparison to the greatness, power, complexity and originality of Scriabin's symphonic poems (see my previous post). Out of these two I pick Prometheus: The Poem of Fire as my favorite.
I love Gliere's Sirens and Liszt's Les Preludes.
I don't know if i quite have gotten the right criterium to qualify for a tone poem, but some works that come across my mind, and are of great beauty:
- Haydn's Septem verba Cristi Cruce prolatis
For those of you that do not know this work: it is a pure instrumental piece (although Haydn edited it to an oratorium eventually) that has nine pieces, an introduction, a finale and one piece for every last word of Jesus Christ according to the four gospels*:
- Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
- Today you will be with me in paradise.
- Women, behold, thy son. Son, behold, thy mother. (To Mary and John)
- My Lord, My Lord why have you forsaken me.
- I thirst.
- It is finished.
- Father in Thy hand I command Your spirit.
All pieces in this great work of Hayd'n are in minor and he still managed to made it a work - in musical sense - that is very multifaceted, and interesting to listen to. He must have been quite satisfied himself with the work: he made it into an oratorium version, a string quartet and even a solo keys version...
- Janáček "Kreutzer Sonata"
This is again a instrumental piece (quite a lot of dissonance, however I do like it a lot). It kinda expresses a pain that I almost can feel, when I listen to it. Actually, I'm quite curious if Composer of Avantgarde and the other Ligetti lovers like this piece)
For as far as the poem part, text part is concerned: it is based upon a novel by Leo Tolstoj.
* I did the best I could in making the right translations to English 'Bible language', for I only know the Bible a bit in Latin and I read it in my mother language Dutch, of course.
Neither of the two works you refer is a tone poem.Originally Posted by Bas
A tone poem, or as they are more often called, a "symphonic poem", originated with Franz Liszt around 1850. He wrote 13 in total, including works like Tasso, Orpheus. Prometheus, From the Crade to the Grave. The specfic musical form he created evolved out of the stand-alone concert overture. Mostly, tone poems are orchestral works of one movement only, although some chamber works have been so described, e.g. Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht.
The essential feature of a tone poem is that it is programmatic as opposed to absolute music. That is, it has something pretty obvious about it which links them to a non-musical thing like a painting, novel, landscape, poem, etc. The actual sound of the work is meant to evocative of that extra-musical thing, whatever it may be, e.g. a flute immitating a bird song. The main composers of tone poems, apart from Liszt, were Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Smetana, Sibelius, Mussorgsky, Richard Straus, Respighi, and Borodin.
The Haydn work you refer is the very famous "Seven Last Words". This was origiinally written in 1786 as an orchestral piece, and forms Hob 20. The following year it was transformed by Haydn into what is now the much more popular, and shorter, string quartet version, Op 51, which appears in Hob 3. Around 1795, during a trip to London, Haydn produced a choral version. Some time later there was even a piano version organised by his publishers which was not written by Haydn but which Haydn nevetheless approved. As far as I'm aware, none of these versions of the Seven Last Words has ever been considered to be a tone poem. The construction and general sound simply do not fit the normal understanding of the term, quite apart from the fact that they're some 60-70 years too soon.
Also, Janáček's "Kreutzer Sonata, alias String Quartet No 1, is not generally regarded as being a tone poem. Agreed that it was inspired by a novel by Tolstoy, but it is not programmtic in nature, and in fact sounds very much like bog-standard absolute music. Nor is his String Quartet No 2, "Intimate Letters", a tone poem, even though that work was inspired by his long friendship with a much younger married woman and was intended to reflect the contents of several hundred letters they exchanged with each other. Again it is essentially absolute music, such that the background to its inspiration is not apparent from the form.
Many of the best-known tone poems are listed on the DDD site. For a few others, and for further details about their history, it's very easily Googlable.
Last edited by Very Senior Member; Jul-30-2012 at 22:04.
What really determines a tone poem i know all this stuff " A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section (a movement) in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another (non-musical) source is illustrated or evoked. "
But what kinda forms/form tone poems use?!?!
Last edited by jani; Jul-31-2012 at 15:05.
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Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony. Fantastic!
I suppose it might possibly depend on how the composer described the piece,
Fools talk because they have to say something, wise men talk because they have something to say.
Then it's not a tone poem.
Fools talk because they have to say something, wise men talk because they have something to say.
Manfred is a symphony.
Fools talk because they have to say something, wise men talk because they have something to say.
How about these?
The Hebrides, Mendelssohn (I once heard this pronounced "He-brides)
Tamara, Balakierev
Nymphs, Kalinninkov
The Enchanted Lake, Liadov
1812 Overture. Tchaikovsky
Any Wagnerian excerpt/overture. (I know, technically not tone poems but still very evocative.)
Festive Overture by Shostakovitch (His "farewell" to Stalin)
Capricio Espaniol by Rinsky-Korsakov
Russian Easter Overture by Rimsky-Korsakov
Jubilee by Chadwick (it's on the edge of tone poem)
Symphony Fantastique by Berlioz
Simphonia Antarctica by Vaughn Williams
From looking at the list it seems the compiler flunked Music 101. What were they thinking? They left out The Sorcerers Apprentice. Schmendricks!
Worst Tone Poem Ever: Wellingtons Victory by Beethoven
Wellingtons Victory is better than 1812,if you get the famous Dorati version that is--but it's not a tone poem.
Neither is 1812, Symphony Fantastique, Symphonia Antarctica(you will find the craftily hidden clue in the fact that they're both labelled as symphony !).
In fact the only possible contenders are 2,3, and 4 in your list.
Can this be a dream--I've happily gone though 66 years of knowing what a tone poem is and now this nonsense descends!
Last edited by moody; Aug-19-2012 at 16:26.
Fools talk because they have to say something, wise men talk because they have something to say.
A tone poem is essentially a piece of music (no sung words) that refers to, or attempts to relay, something non-musical. Therefore it could be argued that Symphony Fantastique is a tone poem: just because it is in symphonic form does not stop it being a tone poem. Music is music, and therefore is without limits or boundaries: for example in mozarts time, Berlioz' symphony would not even have been classed as a symphony. Mendelssohn's 2nd is a Cantata, as is Mahler's 8th. It is narrow-minded to say 'this isn't a tone poem because it is a symphony. Why can it not be both? Vivaldi's Seasons could be viewed as an early form of tone poem...
I don't think that it is up to the individual to re-classify pieces of music except in their own heads.
A tone poem should be in one continuos movement.
Berlioz' work would have probably caused everyone to run out of the door In Mozart's time. It caused enough commotion in Berlioz' time.
If you can show me a sleeve or concert programme that calls this music a tone poem, then I'll give way.
Last edited by moody; Aug-22-2012 at 11:28.
Fools talk because they have to say something, wise men talk because they have something to say.
Symphonie Fantastique is normally regarded as a programmatic symphony. It is not considered to be a tone poem since it comprises 5 movements, each of which is an integral part of the whole, as the idée fixe is picked up and developed at various times throughout its entire length.
Yes. The Beethoven's 6th is the first symphony as programme music. Berlioz's 'SF' greatly influenced Liszt's conception, and the 'fixed idea' influenced Wagner's lietmotiv.
As far as tone poems, I love the Mazeppa Waltz orchestral version performed by Karajan, not many accounts of the orch. version available on record. I absolutely love it, he was quite an orchestrator. Whether or not it is considered one of his tone poems or symphonic poems I don't know, but the orginal piano works are probably programmatic.
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