Tone Poems?

[Living In Context]

im studying for my (U.K) grade 7 piano, and yesterday whilst with my piano teacher the topic of Tone Poems came up when he pointed one out in a peice i was learning, since i didnt have a clue what they were i was set the homework of finding out. Ive tried searching and nothing good has come up so far, so i was wondering if anyone could explain what a tone poem is, and which composers are known for using them.
Cheers
Adam

[Ollie The Drumming Legend]

weeelll... ive never ever heard of them either.
what piece was this in by the way?

[IAteMyFrettingHand]

A tone poem is basically the same thing as a symphonic poem, and both are types of Programme music, as apposed to Absolute music. Programme music is music written based on non-musical sources, such as a poem, painting etc. A good example is Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition". Absolute music is music written just for the sake of writing it, with no objectives or to represent anything.

So a tone poem is a piece of music based on something non-musical. They are also a one movement piece and normally played by an orchestra, although they can be for a chamber string ensemble, or a solo instrument. And a bit of history....tone poems were invented by (the genius) Franz Liszt around 1850 (ish).

A couple of composers that wrote tone poems are: Liszt (obviously), Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition), Saint-Saens (Danse Macabre), Dukas (The Sorcerers Apprentice - you've all seen Fantasia!), Strauss (I can't think what any are called!!!) and Tchaikovsky (Romeo and Juliet).

[IAteMyFrettingHand]

You should try looking in "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians" if you get set any more homework like this. It's a huge massive F**k off collection of about 20 volumes or something. It's got anything and everything musical that you should ever need. It was so helpful to me when my violin teacher set me homework like this. Your library should have the set, if not, then move to another town.

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, in one movement in which some extra-musical programme provides a narrative or illustrative element. This programme could come from a poem, a novel, a painting or some other source. Music based on extra-musical sources is often known as programme music, while music which has no other associations is known as absolute music. A series of tone poems may be combined in a Suite, in the romantic rather than the baroque sense, as "The Swan of Tuonela" (1895) is a tone poem in Sibelius' Lemminkäinen Suite.

Franz Liszt largely invented the symphonic poem, in a series of single-movement orchestral works composed in the 1840s and 1850s. The immediate predecessors of Liszt's tone poem were concert overtures, theatrical, colorful and evocative orchestral movements that were created for performance independent of any opera or theater-piece: for example, Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave or Hector Berlioz' Roman Carnival Overture. These in turn sprung from the overtures by Ludwig van Beethoven such as those for Egmont, Coriolanus, and the Leonore No. 3, which in their musical content anticipate the story of the stage work which they introduce (plays in the case of Egmont and Coriolanus, the opera Fidelio in the case of Leonore). Even earlier orchestral mood pieces are exemplified by the 'storm' set-pieces that were an established genre that went back to the summer storm in Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, and some moody entr'actes between scenes of Baroque French operas.

Other composers took up the symphonic poem: Saint-Saëns (Danse macabre), Claude Debussy ( Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune) Sibelius (Finlandia), Smetana (Ma Vlast), Dvorák (with pieces such as The Golden Spinning Wheel and The Wood Dove), Mussorgsky (Night on Bald Mountain), Tchaikovsky (Romeo and Juliet), César Franck's Le Chasseur Maudit ('The Accursed Huntsman'), Paul Dukas (The Sorcerer's Apprentice, "L'apprenti-sorcier"), Ottorino Respighi (the trilogy of Roman symphonic poems The Pines of Rome, The Fountains of Rome and Roman Festivals), George Gershwin (An American in Paris), and many less well-known composers, such as Bax with Tintagel, and The Garden of Fand.

Richard 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 Quichote, and Ein Heldenleben. Strauss subtitled Don Quichote 'Introduction, Theme with Variations, and Finale' and 'Fantastic Variations for Large Orchestra on a Theme of Knightly Character.' The work could as easily be called a rhapsody (q.v.) as a tone poem.

William Lloyd Webber, the father of theatrical composer/impressario Andrew Lloyd Webber, composed a symphonic poem Aurora, which has experienced a resurgence in popularity in recent years.

There 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, originally written for string sextet (though later arranged for a larger ensemble).

-http://www.wikipedia.org/ (best site ever).

[Ollie The Drumming Legend]

thats really interesting, i'd never ever heard of them.. i'll ask my teacher and if she doesn't know then i can act all intelligently and like i'm really knowledgeable.lol

[IAteMyFrettingHand]

I couldn't even begin to outsmart my teacher, I swear to god he's the most knowlegeable man on the planet. But at least I have a girlfriend...

[Diatonic Dissonance™]

:lol:

[Living In Context]

Thankyou everyone, im almost at an understanding, the peice if i remember correctly was a Liszt but i'll make sure and get the title when I see my teacher on tuesday
Thanks again
Adam