Favourite Tone Poems

[Serial_Apologist]

Strauss: Don Juan (first piece I ever heard at a live concert - RPO/Kempe)

Sibelius: En Saga

Strauss: Ein Heldenleben

Surely some selections here are not tone poems?

They're all instrumental programme music, with the arguable exception of Janacek's Sinfonietta

[Petrushka]

They're all instrumental programme music, with the arguable exception of Janacek's Sinfonietta

OK then, fair enough. I was thinking of Elgar's Cockaigne as well as In the South (overtures) plus the Janacek which really is stretching it. Does Taras Bulba count?

[Serial_Apologist]

OK then, fair enough. I was thinking of Elgar's Cockaigne as well as In the South (overtures) plus the Janacek which really is stretching it. Does Taras Bulba count?

It would for me - but definitely not two of gurnemanz's choices in #15

[cloughie]

When is a tone poem a tone poem?(Pohjola's Daughter) as opposed to a symphonic poem?(Heldenleben) or even a symphony?(Manfred or Alpensinfonie) or even a suite?(Antar) and then you have Leminkainen who was a legend (maybe in his own lunchtime but certainly in Tuonela).

[LeMartinPecheur]

OK then, fair enough. I was thinking of Elgar's Cockaigne as well as In the South (overtures) [...]

In the South may be called an overture but it is surely far too long to be thought of as such. Didn't 'concert overture' become more or less equivalent to 'tone poem' or 'symphonic poem'? And doesn't its illustrative element (tired Roman legions marching with dragging feet, etc) further qualify it as a tone poem?

[Serial_Apologist]

In the South may be called an overture but it is surely far too long to be thought of as such. Didn't 'concert overture' become more or less equivalent to 'tone poem' or 'symphonic poem'? And doesn't its illustrative element (tired Roman legions marching with dragging feet, etc) further qualify it as a tone poem?

Harold Abrahams liked to distinguish between programme symphony and symphonic poem, citing Berlioz' Sinfonie Fantastique as the progenitor of the former (while acknowledging Beethoven's Pastoral as a near-progenitor of that work) and Liszt's Les Preludes (er, I think that was his first?) for the latter; but we do get into hybridity problems with, eg. d'Indy's Istar - symphonic variations - which I thought twice about including as one of my three.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ciurlionis - The Sea

Roussel - Le Poeme de la Foret (Symphony No.1) - a 2 for 1 offer...

Birtwistle - Night's Black Bird/The Shadow of Night

[mercia]

Harold Abrahams liked to distinguish between programme symphony and symphonic poem

Gerald Abraham ?



would Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy count ? and Respighi's Rome trilogy ?
what is Ravel's Bolero ? [don't answer that]

[Pabmusic]

Borodin - In the Steppes of Central Asia

Sibelius - En Saga

Suk - Fantastic Scherzo

All would have a good chance of being in my Top 20 of all time.

[Pabmusic]

When is a tone poem a tone poem?(Pohjola's Daughter) as opposed to a symphonic poem?(Heldenleben) or even a symphony?(Manfred or Alpensinfonie) or even a suite?(Antar) and then you have Leminkainen who was a legend (maybe in his own lunchtime but certainly in Tuonela).

I suppose it was inevitable that we'd have "that's not a tone poem" comments. Talking about symphonies is difficult enough - and there is a (generally) broad consensus about perhaps 95% of all 'symphonies'. But tone poem, symphonic poem, rhapsody, overture (at least the 'concert' variety), and idyll might all count. Elgar's three concert-overtures are justifiable tone poems, and so is Falstaff (a 'symphonic study'), although he might also have called it Symphony No. 3 in C minor and we could not have argued.

I used to have a 78 rpm record of a miniature tone poem called Mosquito Dance (or something similar). I can't recall the composer, but it sounded as if it was for two or three piccolos and strings playing harmonics, and it ended with a loud slapstick (the all-too-infrequent fate of mosquitos). It lasted half a side - about 2 minutes. A genuine tone poem.

[salymap]

I suppose it was inevitable that we'd have "that's not a tone poem" comments. Talking about symphonies is difficult enough - and there is a (generally) broad consensus about perhaps 95% of all 'symphonies'. But tone poem, symphonic poem, rhapsody, overture (at least the 'concert' variety), and idyll might all count. Elgar's three concert-overtures are justifiable tone poems, and so is Falstaff (a 'symphonic study'), although he might also have called it Symphony No. 3 in C minor and we could not have argued.

I used to have a 78 rpm record of a miniature tone poem called Mosquito Dance (or something similar). I can't recall the composer, but it sounded as if it was for two or three piccolos and strings playing harmonics, and it ended with a loud slapstick (the all-too-infrequent fate of mosquitos). It lasted half a side - about 2 minutes. A genuine tone poem.

Pab you can'tmean 'Grasshoppers' Dance' can you? It was played all the time in the early days of radio,[well, my early days in the 1930s] and was as irritating as the mosquitos you mention?

[vinteuil]

Pab you can'tmean 'Grasshoppers' Dance' can you? It was played all the time in the early days of radio,[well, my early days in the 1930s] and was as irritating as the mosquitos you mention?

... et voici :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcdbX0cqalc

[Roehre]

Ciurlionis - The Sea

Roussel - Le Poeme de la Foret (Symphony No.1) - a 2 for 1 offer...

Birtwistle - Night's Black Bird/The Shadow of Night

could be my choice

[Pabmusic]

Pab you can'tmean 'Grasshoppers' Dance' can you? It was played all the time in the early days of radio,[well, my early days in the 1930s] and was as irritating as the mosquitos you mention?

No, I don't think so - that's a piece by Bucalossi. This was played (I think) by Fiedler and the Boston Promenade Orch., or Ormandy and the Philadelphia. I should think it dated from about 1940-ish. It was definitely half a side (but I can't recall the other half!).

[Later]

I've found it! Isn't Youtube wonderful! It was called Mosquito Dance, and it's from "Five Miniatures" by Paul White (1895-1973) - a professor at the Eastman School of Music. I lasts 56 seconds. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWXyPNJH6HA I don't suppose I've heard that since the 1960s. Ah...

[Volti Subito]

so we haven't had one of these threads for a few weeks......
just wondered what peoples fave tone poems are.
3 each ?

3 I like...
Dvorak . Water Goblin
Schoenberg. Verklarte Nacht.
And , for the sake of discussion, and also the fact that despite endless exposure it is still wonderful...
Tchaikovsky. Romeo and Juliet fantasy-overture.
(I expect someone to prove to me that it isn't a tone poem !)

Hoping the thread will give me a few wise ideas to add to my 68 page list of "Stuff To Buy" !!

Good morning everyone.

I've chosen this difficult question to answer as my first contribution to the message boards.

For sheer beauty: "Summer Evening" by Zoltan Kodaly
For bravura and excitement: "Don Juan" by Richard Strauss
For tranquility and reassurance: "A Shropshire Lad" by George Butterworth

V.S.