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Favorite Tone Poem for Orchestra

35K views 179 replies 96 participants last post by  kyjo 
#1 · (Edited)
Lots of threads about symphonies. What about the tone poem? I should have titled the thread "Favorite Tone Poems (plural) for Orchestra" because who could like only one?

In particular, Tone Poems that may not get the attention they deserve.

Please share your favorites. Here are two of my favorites.

Dvorak, the Water Goblin



Rimsky-Korsakov, Sadko

 
#13 · (Edited)
U
Respighi should also be in the mix.
I could not agree more. Respighi is sometimes regarded as a musical lightweight, especially by enthusiasts for vast and portentous musical utterances (there is a place for everything). But he was a complete master of the chief form for which he is best known, the musical evocations of art and place and atmosphere and mood that best express his genius. Roman Festivals, the Pines, The Fountains, Trittico Botticelliano, Church Windows, Brazilian Impressions. Talk about orchestral color and mastery; yet another stunning product of the tutelage of Rimsky-Korsakov. Three cheers for Ottorino Respighi!
 
#14 · (Edited)
  • Glazunov: Stenka Razin.
  • Glazunov: The Sea (really a Symphonic Fantasy).
  • Glazunov: The Forest (also a Symphonic Fantasy).
  • Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini.
  • Boris Tchaikovsky: The Wind of Siberia.
  • Rachmaninoff: The Isle of the Dead.
  • Sir Arnold Bax: Christmas Eve.
  • Bartok: Kossuth.
  • Chausson: Viviane.
  • Smetana: Ma Vlast (a cycle of tone poems, with Šárka being my personal favorite).
  • Atterberg: Alven ("The River").
  • Oskar Lindberg: From the Great Forests.
  • Dvorak: The Noon Witch.
  • Sibelius: Tapiola.
  • Janis Ivanovs: Rainbow.
  • Janis Medins: The Mysterious Forest.
  • Richard Strauss: Don Quixote.
  • Frank Bridge: Enter Spring.
  • Frank Bridge: Isabella.
  • Novak: In the Tatra Mountains.
  • Novak: Eternal Longing.
  • Novak: De profundis.
  • Elgar: In the South.
  • Suk: Ripening.
  • Svetlanov: Siberian Fantasy.
  • Sainton: The Island.
 
#17 ·
Off the top of my head, here's a small list of my faves:

Respighi - the Rome trilogy
Ravel - La Valse
Borodin - In the Steppes of Central Asia
Strauss - Ein Alpensinfonie (is it a tone poem rather than a symphony? If so...that one!)
Hovhaness - Fra Angelico
Scriabin - The Poem of Ecstacy
Sibelius - The Swan of Tuonela
Honeggar - Pacific 231
 
#19 · (Edited)
Alassio!

One of my favorite pieces. Puts me immediately in a certain place, time, feeling. So impressing.

I would post a video, but the available recordings on the YT are awful. Also, little has been written about this work, other than the alleged inspiration. One site (http://www.musicweb-international.com/Programme_Notes/elgar_alassio.htm) wrote this introduction for several of his stand-alone orchestral pieces, and I truly appreciate the comment:

Part of Elgar's magic is his facility with music on both the grandest scale and the most intimate. At one end are nobility and profound spirituality, at the other melodic felicity and disarming good humour. Bridging - and blurring - the boundary between the two is his consummate craftsmanship, bestowed equally on works both great and small.

All other discussions re In the South concern Strauss, horn-heavy Romanticism, or comps to his other more renown orchestrations. That is frustrating and trite and naive.

In the South, alone and without context, is invigorating, passionate, enthralling music. For the Elgar fan. Or maybe it is all just personal.
 
#20 ·
Of those by R. Strauss my fave is Don Quixote - it also gets bonus points from me for being in variation form. There are many others I like but honorary mentions must go to Balakirev's Tamara, Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre and Smetana's Vltava (if only for that drop-dead gorgeous melody).

First prize for best name must go to Eric Whiteacre's Godzilla Eats Las Vegas! - I must listen to that sometime even if it is a p***-take.
 
#22 · (Edited)
I think the tone poem is a great genre. I'll go with one of the first, Beethoven's Coriolan Overture (can't really draw the line between a tone poem and a concert overture, especially where the latter is programmatic).

I'll add a later one, Shostakovich's October, Op. 131, his only tone poem and a lucky opus number to boot.
 
#33 · (Edited)
I think the tone poem is a great genre. I'll go with one of the first, Beethoven's Coriolan Overture (can't really draw the line between a tone poem and a concert overture, especially where the latter is programmatic).
Neither can the Oxford English Dictionary of Music It states that Liszt originated the term, so can you call anything pre-Liszt a "tone poem"? Elgar confused matter still further by calling his tone poems concert overtures.
 
#23 ·
I suppose a tone poem should be for full orchestra which is a shame because that rules out the Tallis Fantasia, Metamorphosen and Verklarte Nacht, 3 of my favourites.

I love virtually all of Sibelius's output with a special affection for this disc:

Rectangle Font Terrestrial plant Electronic device Electric blue


A gorgeous Luonnotar with The Bard as one of the lesser performed works also well worth a listen. Another Sibelius favourite is Night Ride And Sunrise and you cannot go wrong with this set:

Azure Font Water Aqua Natural landscape


There's obviously duplication with the Gibson single disc but both are well worth having.

Some of my other favourites have already been mentioned (Isle of the Dead, Alpine Symphony, Also Sprach) but for something more off the wall how about An American In Paris?
 
#30 · (Edited)
Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite does very well, at least for the first four movements; the Sunrise segment especially effective and right up there with Grieg, Sibelius IMHO. The final thunderstorm, not so much--Beethoven is The Man here. ...
1. I have never acknowledged Grofe's Suite. I fail to see why this is a renown piece of music or consistently played on classical radio. With maybe a dozen listens or more, still, I am dumbfounded. I do not critique those who enjoy it. But I do question why I have to hear it every single day between 12 - 3 PM, on the orchestral channel(?!?).

2. Grieg is relevant why?

3. So, Beethoven's one thunderstorm beats all other dissonant, ffffffffff, timpani-dense music?
 
#27 · (Edited)
The attack of the band junkie (I know the OP only wants orchestral works. :mad:)

I am going to mention some band tone poems I am partial too.

Morton Gould: Jerico.
William Schuman: George Washington Bridge. A work about a president's dental work.
David Maslanka: A Child Garden of Dreams. My favorite Maslanka work.
Mark Camphouse: Watchman Tell Us of the Night.
 
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