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Symphonic poem: Description |
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A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in one movement in which some extra-musical program provides a narrative or illustrative element. This program may come from a poem, a story or novel, a painting or another source. A symphonic poem may stand on its own, or it can be part of a series combined into a suite (in the romantic rather than the baroque sense). For example, "The Swan of Tuonela" (1895) is a tone poem from Sibelius's Lemminkäinen Suite. Musical works such as tone poems based on extra-musical sources are often referred to as program music, while music which has no such associations may be called absolute music.
History of the symphonic poemThe history of the symphonic poem can be traced back to the dramatic overtures of Ludwig van Beethoven such as those for Egmont and Coriolanus. By the early- to mid-19th century, composers were writing 'concert overtures, theatrical, colorful and evocative orchestral movements created for performance independent of any opera or theater-piece. For examples, among the symphonic poems created before Liszt there were the Der Beherrscher der Geister ("The Ruler of the Spirits", 1811), by Carl Maria von Weber and the Hebrides Overture (also known as Fingal's Cave, 1830) by Felix Mendelssohn. A major step in the evolution of the symphonic poem came in 1830 with Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Unlike earlier orchestral character pieces, the Symphonie Fantastique actually follows a complete and specific narrative involving an Artist (a semi-autobiographical depiction of Berlioz himself), his unrequited and obsessive love for a woman and subsequent attempt at suicide, and finally his grotesque visions while in an opium-induced trance. The symphony ignited much controversy and sensation, and set off many a heated philosophical debate about program music versus absolute music. One composer who reacted very enthusiastically to the Fantastique was Franz Liszt. Liszt and his colleagues believed that the way of the future was a merging of all forms of art; music and literature and drama and painting all coming together into a grand synthesis. (This concept would later be developed by Richard Wagner into the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or "total work of art.") Liszt himself wrote thirteen full-fledged symphonic poems on themes from literature, history and visual art, and is usually credited with inventing the genre of symphonic poem as we understand it today. Post-Liszt symphonic poemsAfter Liszt's series of symphonic poems, the form was taken up with enthusiasm by composers such as Bedřich Smetana, Jean Sibelius, Antonín Dvořák, and Richard Strauss. The tone poem has remained a popular musical form through much of the twentieth century, and many such works (like The Sorcerer's Apprentice, by Paul Dukas) have successfully entered common popular culture through use in media and film. ComposersThe following is a brief list of some of the composers who have authored symphonic poems, along with some of their most notable works in the genre:
From the above one can understand that the freedom of the genre of the symphonic poem allows other appellations, such as "musical picture," "overture," "fantasy," etc. Richard StraussRichard Strauss (who preferred the term "tone poem" to "symphonic poem") was one of the most prolific late Romantic composers in the genre, with his works including Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, and Ein Heldenleben. All told, Strauss wrote nine tone poems, although Don Quixote could as easily be called a rhapsody or theme and variations as well as a tone poem. Arnold SchoenbergThere are also a number of one-movement works not written for orchestra, but for some chamber ensemble or solo instrument, based on some extra-musical source. Because of their non-orchestral nature, these are not considered to be "symphonic poems", although in all aspects other than instrumentation, they resemble one. One of the best known such pieces is Arnold Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht ("Transfigured Night"), based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, originally written for string sextet (though later arranged for a larger ensemble). See alsoList of Tone Poems by Composer
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Symphonic poem". Allthough most Wikipedia articles provide accurate information accuracy can not be guaranteed. |
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