Top 10 Favorite Tone Poems

[kyjo]

In no particular order:

1. Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet
2. Rachmaninov: The Isle of the Dead
3. Sibelius: Tapiola
4. Bax: Tintagel
5. Elgar: In the South
6. Schoenberg: Pelleas et Melisande
7. Scriabin: Le poeme de l'exaste
8. Suk: A Summer's Tale
9. Karlowicz: Stanislaw and Anna Oswiecim
10. Novak: De Profundis (yeah, that "godawful" piece )

Honorable mentions: Atterberg: Alven, Reger: Four Bocklin Tone Pictures, Marx: Ein Naturtrilogie, Oskar Lindberg: Hemifran, Nielsen: Saga-Drom, Biarent: Trenmor, Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain, Ranjbaran: Persian Trilogy, Villa-Lobos: Genesis, Ciurlionis: The Sea, Raitio: Antigone, Koechlin: Le Docteur Fabricius

[Lisztianwagner]

Very interesting thread:

Strauss Eine Alpensinfonie
Rachmaninov The Isle of the Dead
Liszt Les Preludes
Sibelius En Saga
Debussy La Mer
Ravel La Valse
Respighi Pines of Rome
Rimsky-Korsakov Shéhérazade
Holst Egdon Heath
Scriabin Prometheus: The Poem of Fire

[Sergeant Rock]

1. Smetana Má vlast  (am I cheating?  )
2. Liszt Les Préludes
2. Sibelius Wood-Nymph
3. Sibelius En Saga
4. Bantock The Sea Reivers: Hebridean Sea Poem No.2
5. Strauss Also sprach Zarathustra
6. Dvorak The Golden Spinning Wheel
7. Ravel La valse
8. Debussy La Mer
9. Delius A Song of Summer
10. Zemlinsky Die Seejungfrau

Sarge

[kyjo]

I was debating whether to include La mer, Sheherazade and The Pines of Rome in my list since they are not always categorized as symphonic poems.

[kyjo]

10. Zemlinsky Die Seejungfrau

I could have easily included that piece in my honorable mentions. A gorgeous work.

[North Star]

I think it's plain silly really to debate whether all these symphonic poems, concert overtures that are exactly like tone poems, but are either from before the term tone poem (Mendelssohn: Hebrides for instance), or by someone who liked to use the term (like Tchaikovsky for example) or symphonic pieces like Amériques are tone poems or not. And what about concertante pieces like Totentanz or Harold en Italie?

I'll have to stop myself from listing only Sibelius & Dvorak, so one per composer.

1. Sibelius: Luonnotar
2. Dvorak: The Water Goblin
3. Mussorgsky: Night on the Bald Mountain (the original version with chorus)
4. Elgar: Falstaff
5. Schönberg Verklärte Nacht
6. Tchaikovsky: The Tempest
7. Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
8. Gershwin: An American in Paris
9. Revueltas: Sensemaya
10. Rimsky-Korsakov: Night on Mount Triglav (with choir)

[Sergeant Rock]

So was I with Ravel's La Valse, I didn't know if it could be counted as symphonic poem.

I suppose it's controversial. Ravel called it a "poème chorégraphique pour orchestre" and the Wiki article about Symphonic Poems says, describing different types of French tone poems, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice follows the narrative vein of symphonic poem while Ravel's La valse is considered by some critics a parody of Vienna in an idiom no Viennese would recognize as his own."

Sarge

[Lisztianwagner]

I suppose it's controversial. Ravel called it a "poème chorégraphique pour orchestre" and the Wiki article about Symphonic Poems says, describing different types of French tone poems, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice follows the narrative vein of symphonic poem while Ravel's La valse is considered by some critics a parody of Vienna in an idiom no Viennese would recognize as his own."

Sarge

Yes, I checked it too; on Wikipedia it is also said that the work was conceived as a ballet, though at the end Diaghilev rejected Ravel's La Valse as "not a ballet; it's a portrait of ballet". But since the composer wrote this preface to the score, "Through whirling clouds, waltzing couples may be faintly distinguished. The clouds gradually scatter: one sees at letter A an immense hall peopled with a whirling crowd. The scene is gradually illuminated. The light of the chandeliers bursts forth at the fortissimo letter B. Set in an imperial court, about 1855.", I mean, he is evoking and depicting a scene of dancing, I think it couldn't be wrong to count it as tone poem.

[Karl Henning]

I'll have to stop myself from listing only Sibelius & Dvorak....

Aye, that is the temptation, isn't it?

[kyjo]

OK, then I'd replace the Karlowicz in my top ten with La mer and place Sheherazade and Pines in my honorable mentions. Also, I forgot to mention Liadov's exquisite miniature tone poems. They're every bit as good as Rimsky's orchestral works IMO.

[Christo]

Tchaikovsky, Fatum
Saint-Saens, Danse macabre
Dvorak, The Noon Witch
Harty, With The Wild Geese
Debussy, La Mer
Ciurlionis, Jura
Gershwin, An American in Paris
Janacek, Taras Bulba
Respighi, Trittico Botticelliano
Villa-Lobos, O papagaio do moleque

[vandermolen]

Sibelius: Tapiola
Novak: In the Tatras
Sibelius: Luonnotar
Bax: Christmas Eve in the Mountains
Ciurlionis: The Sea
Moeran: In the Mountain Country
Frank Bridge: Enter Spring
Raitio: The Swans
Pingoud: Prophet
Frank Bridge: April

(List partly influenced by my recent trip to Finland!)

     

[vandermolen]

Tchaikovsky, Fatum
Saint-Saens, Danse macabre
Dvorak, The Noon Witch
Harty, With The Wild Geese
Debussy, La Mer
Ciurlionis, Jura
Gershwin, An American in Paris
Janacek, Taras Bulba
Respighi, Trittico Botticelliano
Villa-Lobos, O papagaio do moleque

Great list. I should have included Debussy and recently came to the conclusion that 'An American in Paris' is my favourite work by Gershwin - a wonderfully life-affirming piece. I could also have included the Respighi - possibly 'Church Windows'.

[kyjo]

Sibelius: Tapiola
Novak: In the Tatras
Sibelius: Luonnotar
Bax: Christmas Eve in the Mountains
Ciurlionis: The Sea
Moeran: In the Mountain Country
Frank Bridge: Enter Spring
Raitio: The Swans
Pingoud: Prophet
Frank Bridge: April

(List partly influenced by my recent trip to Finland!)

     

Great to see another admirer of Ciurlionis and Raitio! I could've easily included one of the Bridge works in my list.

[North Star]

Raitio: The Swans

(List partly influenced by my recent trip to Finland!)

Jeez, why did I forget this? Such a wonderful piece.

[Christo]

Raitio: The Swans
Pingoud: Prophet
(List partly influenced by my recent trip to Finland!)

I don't know either and will look after them, thanks! (I brought some music home from my trip to Andorra and the Pyrenees, but no tone poems)  BTW, another list, again including a few that were mentioned here before:

Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Solent & The Lark Ascending
Gabriel Pierné, Paysages franciscains
Jean Sibelius, Luonnotar & Tapiola
Gustav Holst, Egdon Heath
Frank Bridge, Summer & Enter Spring
Heino Eller, Viirastused (Phantoms)
Silvestre Revueltas, Sensemaya
Samuel Barber, Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance
Bohuslav Martinů, Podobenství (Parables)
Cemal Reşit Rey, Türkiye

[springrite]

I don't know either and will look after them, thanks! (I brought some music home from my trip to Andorra and the Pyrenees, but no tone poems) :-)

The Pyrenees and Andorra are tone poems in themselves.

[Christo]

The Pyrenees and Andorra are tone poems in themselves.

I know two operas with Andorra in their title, and a Sinfonía pirenaica by Basque composer Jésus Guridi, but actually no tone poems referring to these places. 

[Christo]

Moeran: In the Mountain Country

Another great tip - I realized I had never really played it, am doing it now. 

[Wanderer]

One per composer and in no particular order:

Scriabin: Promethée, le poème du feu
R. Strauss: Don Quixote
Rimsky-Korsakov: Shéhérazade
Respighi: Feste romane
Sibelius: The Wood-Nymph
Zemlinsky: Die Seejungfrau
Debussy: La mer
Janáček: Taras Bulba
Martinů: Les fresques de Piero della Francesca
Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain (original version)