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Symphonic poem. A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term Tondichtung (tone poem) appears to have been first used by the composer Carl Loewe in 1828.
A symphonic poem is a musical composition for orchestra inspired by an extra-musical idea, story, or program. Learn about its origin, structure, and composers such as Liszt, Strauss, and Debussy.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Jul 16, 2023 · Introduction. A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral or concert band music, usually in a single continuous section (a movement) that illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. Hungarian composer Franz Liszt first applied the term to his 13 works in this vein.
- Prélude à l’après midi d’un Faune, Debussy. In 1876, Stéphane Mallarmé wrote the poem Prélude à l’Après Midi d’un Faune, which became a seminal work in symbolist poetry.
- An Oxford Elegy, Vaughan Williams. Ralph Vaughan Williams used two poems by M. Arnold, The Scholar Gypsy, and Thyrsis, as an inspiration for this symphonic poem and, despite the title “elegy”, the work is more pastoral than melancholic.
- The Tempest, Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky loved Shakespeare: he also composed an Overture to Romeo and Juliet and incidental music to Hamlet. This symphonic poem, written in 1875, reenacts the main themes in Bard’s last play, and the music evokes the stillness of the ship at sea, the grotesque nature of the monster Caliban and the love between Ferdinand and Miranda, which shares some similarities with the love theme of Romeo and Juliet.
- The Isle of Dead, Rachmaninoff. Between 1880 and 1886, Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin painted the Isle of the Dead, which depicts a desolate islet emerging from an expanse of dark water, with a rowboat arriving on the shore.
The symphonic poems of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt are a series of 13 orchestral works, numbered S.95–107. [1] The first 12 were composed between 1848 and 1858 (though some use material conceived earlier); the last, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe ( From the Cradle to the Grave ), followed in 1882. These works helped establish the genre of ...
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A symphonic poem is a piece of orchestral or concert band music that depicts or evokes the content of a poem, story, or other non-musical source. Learn about the history, characteristics, and examples of this genre, from Liszt to Sibelius, and how it relates to opera and other forms of program music.
An American in Paris is a jazz-influenced symphonic poem (or tone poem) [1] for orchestra by American composer George Gershwin first performed in 1928. It was inspired by the time that Gershwin had spent in Paris and evokes the sights and energy of the French capital during the Années folles . Gershwin scored the piece for the standard ...
