Favourite Tone Poems

[salymap]

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 StraussFor tranquility and reassurance: "A Shropshire Lad" by George Butterworth

V.S.

Welcome Volti Subito - I hope you don't turnover [away] from the boards too quickly but give us a chance to get to know you. best wishes

[MrGongGong]

what is Ravel's Bolero ? [don't answer that]

Half a dinosaur

[french frank]

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.

Good morning, VS - and likewise welcome from me

The Butterworth reminds me:

The Banks of Green Willow

also, from a time when I used to browse in our local record shop and pick up secondhand CDs of unknown works:

Kalinnikov:The Cedar and the Palm

Ciurlionis: In the Forest (if I remember, The Sea dates from exactly the same year as Debussy's La Mer?)

(Kalinnikov and Ciurlionis pieces both described as 'Symphonic poems')

[cloughie]

Half a dinosaur

Shame it's not a full dinosaur - then it would be trult extinct!

[Pabmusic]

Good morning, VS - and likewise welcome from me

The Butterworth reminds me:

The Banks of Green Willow...

Here's a cylinder recording, made by Butterworth* in 1909, of David Clements singing "The banks of green willow" in Basingstoke workhouse: http://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-tradit...X1638XX-0100V0 It's not the tune that opens the work (Butterworth took that down by hand from "Mr & Mrs Cranstone" of Billingshurst, Sussex in 1907) but it's the one that comes on solo violin just before the end (after the flute and harp play "Green bushes").

[*I've just noticed that the British Library have it as RVW's recording. Other sources have it as Butterworth's - maybe they were together at the time, which was possible.]

[Ferretfancy]

Shame it's not a full dinosaur - then it would be trult extinct!

They are not really extinct cloughie, they're called birds.

[french frank]

Thanks for the link, Mr Butterworth . Bookmarked.

It's not the tune that opens the work

It's not completely different, is it? I catch the 'resemblance' just after 40 secs.

Then, of course, there are the Two English Idylls to add to our tone poems &c list.

Some music and piccies here.

[Pabmusic]

Thanks for the link, Mr Butterworth . Bookmarked.
It's not completely different, is it? I catch the 'resemblance' just after 40 secs...

Yes - remember that the resemblance is more with the violin solo at the end. Here's another interesting link, though you have to trawl a bit more. It should open at a search engine: http://library.efdss.org/archives/cgi-bin/search.cgi Put in Banks of Green Willow and then choose GB/6b/4*, where you'll find Butterworth's transcription of the singing of Mr and Mrs Cranstone, and Mr Cornford - 2 versions, both of which crop up at the beginning of the orchestral piece.

*Choose this one first, since it has several manuscripts, including ones by RVW and Lucy Broadwood.

[While we're on Butterworth links, there's this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI5qxjWutrs Obviously, there was no music with the kinorascope pictures, and the dubbed music doesn't exactly fit, but it's probably better that sitting in absolute silence.]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

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.

Welcome, VS: a fine trio, indeed.

[cloughie]

SZYMANOWSKI:Concert Overture
SCHMITT:La Tragedie de Salome
WEBERN: In Sommerwind

[Serial_Apologist]

SZYMANOWSKI:Concert Overture
SCHMITT:La Tragedie de Salome

Again, for me the problem of "tone poem" arises here.

WEBERN: In Sommerwind

I defy anyone who listens to the opening and has not heard this little gem before not to say, "Must be Delius, surely?"

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This obsession with semantics can go too far. When O-level music candidates for the NUJMB were asked to write about a tone poem they knew, the examiners would not accept works like the 1812 Overture, because that was "programme music" and therefore, in their opinion, not a tone poem. That was the height of meanness, for a tone poem is merely up-market programme music.

[cloughie]

Again, for me the problem of "tone poem" arises here.

I have the same problem and hesitated before deciding on a choice, but in the end I have gone along with the 'broader church' flow of the thread!

[cloughie]

This obsession with semantics can go too far. When O-level music candidates for the NUJMB were asked to write about a tone poem they knew, the examiners would not accept works like the 1812 Overture, because that was "programme music" and therefore, in their opinion, not a tone poem. That was the height of meanness, for a tone poem is merely up-market programme music.

Were Francesca or Hamlet permitted?

[teamsaint]

Great stuff on this thread. Lots to discover, for me at least.
Any really smart record label exec would, IMHO, put together a quality 50 CD set at a bargain price of great performances the world's finest Tone Poems, and catch the moment !!