Thread: Greatest tone poems

Tone poems are my favourite CM genre by quite some way. Anyway has anyone here seen the Digital Dream Door site. Here's what they reckon to be the Top 50 tone poems

http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/page...ssic-topo.html

I've heard all these and many more not even listed and my own top 50 would look pretty different. For instance there's no Dvorak and there's more to Smetana than just Ma Vlast e.g Richard III, Wallensteins' Camp... Also their countryman Novak wrote some majestic tone poems e.g. Slovak Suite. And I'd have most of Sibelius's here too esp the Karelia Suite, En Saga and Nightride + Sunrise.

What do you think of this list?

I smell another TC list...

Where's Pelleas?

Why is the first Peer Gynt Suite there? It's incidental music. Not a tone poem. And besides, the second suite is so much better.

Any list of tone poems that excludes Arnold Bax is worthless. That's what I think of this list.

And yes, a top100/150/200 tone poems would be great, but real tone poems please, not suites etc.

Isn't a tone poem strictly speaking a single movement ? Many in the list don't fit that qualification.

From Wikipedia:
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. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein. In its aesthetic objectives, the symphonic poem is in some ways related to opera; whilst it does not use a sung text, it seeks like opera a union of music and drama.[1][2]

While many symphonic poems may compare in size and scale to symphonic movements (or even reach the length of an entire symphony), they are unlike traditional classical symphonic movements, in that their music is intended to inspire listeners to imagine or consider scenes, images, specific ideas or moods, and not to focus on following traditional patterns of musical form (e.g. sonata form). This intention to inspire listeners was a direct consequence of Romanticism which encouraged literary, pictorial and dramatic associations in music. Musical works which attempt to inspire listeners in this way are often referred to as program music, while music which has no such associations may be called absolute music.

Some piano and chamber works, such as Arnold Schoenberg's string sextet Verklärte Nacht, have similarities with symphonic poems in their overall intent and effect. However, the term symphonic poem is generally accepted to refer to orchestral works. A symphonic poem may stand on its own, or it can be part of a series combined into a symphonic suite . For example, The Swan of Tuonela (1895) is a tone poem from Jean Sibelius's Lemminkäinen Suite. A symphonic poem can also be part of a cycle of interrelated works, such as Vltava (The Moldau) as part of the six-work cycle Má vlast by Bedřich Smetana. Also, while the terms "symphonic poem" and "tone poem" have often been used interchangeably, some composers such as Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius have preferred the latter term for pieces which were less symphonic in design and in which there is no special emphasis on thematic or tonal contrast.[3]

According to Macdonald, the symphonic poem met three 19th century aesthetic goals: it related music to outside sources; it often combined or compressed multiple movements into a single principal section; and it elevated instrumental program music to an aesthetic level which could be regarded as equivalent to, or higher than opera.[2] The symphonic poem remained popular from the 1840s until the 1920s, when the genre suffered a severe decline in popularity.

Aren't tone poems one movement by definition, anyway?

EDIT: D'Oh. BassClef beat me to it.

Yep I think we should draw up our own list - how we love lists ))

Originally Posted by Art Rock

Any list of tone poems that excludes Arnold Bax is worthless. That's what I think of this list.

And yes, a top100/150/200 tone poems would be great, but real tone poems please, not suites etc.

Same could be said for Dvorak (none there!!?), he and Sibelius are the masters of the tone poem in my opinion, I like what I've heard from Bax also, though I haven't heard enough.

I have looked at this list and found that 19 out of 50 entries are not even 'tone poems'. Of the remaining 31, some of those are also dubious.

Many argue that such lists are pretty pointless. When they contain such inaccuracies as this one they are simply a waste of everyone's time.

Originally Posted by Webernite

Where's Pelleas?

I like early Schoenberg as much as the next guy and have more than one recording of Pelleas, but when considering it for a 50-greatest list, I have to admit when no one's looking, it has flaws.

Originally Posted by Manxfeeder

I like early Schoenberg as much as the next guy and have more than one recording of Pelleas, but when considering it for a 50-greatest list, I have to admit when no one's looking, it has flaws.

Sure, but not flaws big enough to exclude it from the top fifty. It's not as if it's obscure. It's far better known than many of the other tone poems on that list.

Originally Posted by Webernite

Sure, but not flaws big enough to exclude it from the top fifty. It's not as if it's obscure. It's far better known than many of the other tone poems on that list.

Compared to the list, I agree.

Viz definitions aren't works like The Planets, Ma Vlast and Novak's Slovak Suite sets of individual tone poems, rather than suites, as each piece is musically self-contained and only linked to the others by a common theme? Forgive me if I'm wrong but aren't suites really stories set to music, with a beginning 'chapter' several middle bits and a final 'chapter like with Lt Kije, Alexander Nevsky and Peer Gynt or have I just chosen three examples that happen to be used as incidental music to plays or films. I'm no expert so i'm not 100% clear.

Originally Posted by Barking Spiderz

Viz definitions aren't works like The Planets, Ma Vlast and Novak's Slovak Suite sets of individual tone poems, rather than suites, as each piece is musically self-contained and only linked to the others by a common theme? Forgive me if I'm wrong but aren't suites really stories set to music, with a beginning 'chapter' several middle bits and a final 'chapter like with Lt Kije, Alexander Nevsky and Peer Gynt or have I just chosen three examples that happen to be used as incidental music to plays or films. I'm no expert so i'm not 100% clear.

Grieg's Peer Gynt was written as incidental music to the play Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen. It's not really intended as a free-standing work (although it is smashing as that as well). Lieutenant Kijé was written as music for the film of the same name. Alexander Nevsky is also film music. So none of these pieces are really tone poems.


But I would, however say that The Planets and Ma Vlast consist of individual tone poems.