Top 10 Favorite Tone Poems

[vandermolen]

I should have included Nympholept by Bax.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

The Rock
Siegfried idyll
Alpensinfonie
Heldenleben
Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne
Heroide funebre
Pohjola's daughter
Lemminkäinen suite
Golden spinning wheel
Scheherazade

[Ken B]

I realize you were joking, Edward, but Elgar's passionate, inspiring symphonic poem couldn't be more different than Strauss' bloated, boring-as-hell works in the genre.

I boggle, boggle, at anyone comparing a composer to Elgar, and concluding the other guy is the bloated boring one.

[North Star]

I boggle, boggle, at anyone comparing a composer to Elgar, and concluding the other guy is the bloated boring one.

You clearly haven't heard enough Strauss!

(j/k)

[Brahmsian]

Any and all tone poems by GMG's favorite, Richard Strauss 

This.   

[TheGSMoeller]

This.   

Thank you, Ray. I just shed a tear of joy. 

[Ken B]

You clearly haven't heard enough Strauss!

(j/k)

So you're saying, I should listen to more Strauss?

[Brahmsian]

Thank you, Ray. I just shed a tear of joy. 

Well, I would have a rough time listing 10 favourite tone poems.....just because there are so many that could be classified as a 'tone or symphonic poem', that you could pretty much list any orchestral work besides a symphony, overture or concerto and call it such. 

Certainly though, a list of 10 favourites would include more than 1 of R. Strauss' TPs. 

[Ken B]

Ok, I must fess up here. I really like Elgar's piano quintet. And I am not so hot on Strauss tone poems for the last 20 years. But late Strauss, Metamorphosen, 4LS, and a bunch of the lieder are magnificent. Elgar could copy Beethoven's Fifth note for note and still find a way to pad it.

[North Star]

But late Strauss, Metamorphosen, 4LS, and a bunch of the lieder are magnificent.

+1

[EigenUser]

Some of my favorites are "San Francisco Polyphony", "An American in Paris", and "Ameriques".

Get the pattern?

[Jaakko Keskinen]

But late Strauss, Metamorphosen, 4LS, and a bunch of the lieder are magnificent.

Agreed. I love younger strauss too, though. I would probably add Die Liebe der Danae among his best late works: my only complaint is that Strauss didn't care to find a better librettist though to be fair he was originally planning the opera with hofmannsthal back when he was alive... unfortunately after hugo's death he had to rely on crappy literature of Joseph Gregor. I possibly won't live to see performance of this opera in live, it is so rarely performed.

[not edward]

My list has expanded from two to three since I last posted:

Sibelius: Tapiola
Ravel: La valse
Liszt: Die nachtliche Zug

(And yes, I know two of these technically aren't tone poems. )

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Let's try this again, one per composer:


Rachmaninov: The Rock
Sibelius: Pohjola's daughter
Liszt: Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne
R. Strauss: Tod und Verklärung
Rimsky-korsakov: Scheherazade
Wagner: Siegfried Idyll
Beethoven: Pastoral symphony (yes I know, it's more of a symphony, tone poem didn't even exist back then but I think it can also be seen as early one, at least it's "program music")
Mahler: "Titan" symphony (yes, once again technically a symphony but it was actually originally described as tone poem)
Dvorak: Golden spinning wheel
Mussorgsky: Night on bald mountain


...


Debussy: La Mer
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique (I'm not even bothering anymore...)
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet

[Mirror Image]

Just realized I didn't give my own list of favorite tone poems... (in no particular order):

Sibelius: The Oceanides
Sculthorpe: Kakadu
Liszt: Mazeppa
Dvorak: The Water Goblin
Saint-Saens: Danse Macabre
Strauss: Ein Heldenleben
Smetana: Ma Vlast
Rachmaninov: Isle of the Dead
Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Lyadov: The Enchanted Lake

Perhaps this is a predictable list or perhaps not, but I really love all of these works and I think they exemplify the symphonic poem genre.

[Fagotterdämmerung]

  In making this list I was surprised at how many of my favorite "tone poems" are either ballets and/or incidental music, and I just hadn't remembered correctly ( Jeux, for example ). Also, a lot of symphonies from the 19th century on are heavily programmatic ... but I suppose not exactly tone poems. Then there are a slew of 20th and especially 21st century works with vague, cute programmatic names for their names and movements but no set program for the course of events ( Here Is My Foot *twiddle*, for Ophicleide and Balafon ).

  Also, Messiaen tends to add elaborate theological descriptors for so much of his work it that it more or less makes them tone poems, which would make half this list just his works, so I'll try to list one from each composer.

  1. Scriabin Le Poème de l'extase
  2. Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht
  3. Messiaen Éclairs sur l'au-delà...
  4. Varese Amériques
  5. Strauss Don Quixote
  6. Janacek Taras Bulba
  7. Penderecki Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
  8. Holst The Planets 
  9. Henri Dutilleux Timbres, espace, mouvement

  I'm sure there's a 10, I just can't think of it.

[johnshade]

I believe Richard Strauss coined the  term "tone poems" for his symphonic poems (which was probably first used by Liszt). Anyone know for sure? Can any other term be used?

[EigenUser]

  In making this list I was surprised at how many of my favorite "tone poems" are either ballets and/or incidental music, and I just hadn't remembered correctly ( Jeux, for example ). Also, a lot of symphonies from the 19th century on are heavily programmatic ... but I suppose not exactly tone poems. Then there are a slew of 20th and especially 21st century works with vague, cute programmatic names for their names and movements but no set program for the course of events ( Here Is My Foot *twiddle*, for Ophicleide and Balafon ).

  Also, Messiaen tends to add elaborate theological descriptors for so much of his work it that it more or less makes them tone poems, which would make half this list just his works, so I'll try to list one from each composer.

  1. Scriabin Le Poème de l'extase
  2. Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht
  3. Messiaen Éclairs sur l'au-delà...
  4. Varese Amériques
  5. Strauss Don Quixote
  6. Janacek Taras Bulba
  7. Penderecki Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
  8. Holst The Planets 
  9. Henri Dutilleux Timbres, espace, mouvement

  I'm sure there's a 10, I just can't think of it.

Duh! How could I forget that Jeux is a tone poem?! Definitely my favorite TP. Also La Valse. I'm not a huge fan of Penderecki's Threnody... (I like it alright), but I am a huge fan of his The Awakening of Jacob. So that's another favorite TP of mine.

Other than Jeux being first, no particular order, though there probably would be one if I thought about it more:
1. Debussy Jeux
2. Bartok The Miraculous Mandarin
3. Ligeti San Francisco Polyphony (which no one -- even Ligetians -- seems to talk much about )
4. Varese Ameriques
5. Gershwin An American in Paris
6. Ravel La Valse
7. Penderecki The Awakening of Jacob
8. Messiaen Des Canyons aux Etoiles... (although I like Et Exspecto... better, it isn't as much of a tone poem as DCAE...)
9. Faure Pelleas et Melisande
10. Holst The Planets

[Fagotterdämmerung]

 I revisited San Francisco Polyphony just now and while I like it, I don't get San Francisco out of it somehow. ( It's so frenetic! I found myself envisioning someone in some state of hysteria getting slapped in the face at the end. )

I want to revisit it a couple times more, though... It's true it's a part of Ligeti's output that kind of falls through the cracks.

[EigenUser]

I revisited San Francisco Polyphony just now and while I like it, I don't get San Francisco out of it somehow. ( It's so frenetic! I found myself envisioning someone in some state of hysteria getting slapped in the face at the end. )

I want to revisit it a couple times more, though... It's true its a part of Ligeti's output that kind of falls through the cracks.

I wrote about (with sample clips) it last year:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,22986.msg784514.html#msg784514

I think it is the "biggest" sounding thing he ever wrote.