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Symphonic Poem 1 Symphonic Poem Symphonic poem 1 Symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section (a movement) in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another (non-musical) source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein. In its aesthetic objectives, the symphonic poem is in some ways related to opera; whilst it does not use a sung text, it seeks, like opera, a union of music and drama.[1] [2] While many symphonic poems may compare in size and scale to symphonic movements (or even reach the length of an entire symphony), they are unlike traditional classical symphonic movements, in that their music is intended to inspire listeners to imagine or consider scenes, images, specific ideas or moods, and not to focus on following traditional patterns of musical form (e.g. sonata form). This intention to inspire listeners was a direct consequence of Romanticism which encouraged literary, pictorial and dramatic associations in music. Musical works which attempt to inspire listeners in this way are often referred to as program music, while music which has no such associations may be called absolute music. Some piano and chamber works, such as Arnold Schoenberg's string sextet Verklärte Nacht, have similarities with symphonic poems in their overall intent and effect. However, the term symphonic poem is generally accepted to refer to orchestral works. A symphonic poem may stand on its own, or it can be part of a series combined into a symphonic suite . For example, The Swan of Tuonela (1895) is a tone poem from Jean Sibelius's Lemminkäinen Suite. A symphonic poem can also be part of a cycle of interrelated works, such as Vltava (The Moldau) as part of the six-work cycle Má vlast by Bedřich Smetana. Also, while the terms "symphonic poem" and "tone poem" have often been used interchangeably, some composers such as Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius have preferred the latter term for pieces which were less symphonic in design and in which there is no special emphasis on thematic or tonal contrast.[3] According to Macdonald, the symphonic poem met three 19th century aesthetic goals: it related music to outside sources; it often combined or compressed multiple movements into a single principal section; and it elevated instrumental program music to an aesthetic level which could be regarded as equivalent to, or higher than opera.[2] The symphonic poem remained popular from the 1840s until the 1920s, when the genre suffered a severe decline in popularity. Background In the second quarter of the 19th century, the future of the symphonic genre came into doubt. While many composers continued to write symphonies during the 1820s and 30s, "there was a growing sense that these works were aesthetically far inferior to Beethoven's.... The real question was not so much whether symphonies could still be written, but whether the genre could continue to flourish and grow".[4] Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann and Niels Gade achieved successes with their symphonies, putting at least a temporary stop to the debate as to whether the genre was dead.[4] Nevertheless, composers increasingly turned to the "more compact form" of the concert overture "as a vehicle within which to blend musical, narrative and pictoral ideas"; examples included Mendelssohn's overtures A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826) and The Hebrides (1830).[4] Between 1845 and 1847, Franco-Belgian composer César Franck wrote an orchestral piece based on Victor Hugo's poem Ce qu'on entend sur le montagne. The work exhibits characteristics of a symphonic poem, and some musicologists, such as Norman Demuth and Julien Tiersot, consider it the first of its genre, preceding Liszt's compositions.[5] [6] However, Franck did not publish or perform his piece; neither did he set about defining the genre. Liszt's determination to explore and promote the symphonic poem gained him recognition as the genre's inventor.[7] Symphonic poem 2 Liszt The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt desired to expand single-movement works beyond the concert overture form.[8] The music of overtures is to inspire listeners to imagine scenes, images, or moods; Liszt intended to combine those programmatic qualities with a scale and musical complexity normally reserved for the opening movement of classical symphonies.[3] The opening movement, with its interplay of contrasting themes under sonata form, was normally considered the most important part of the symphony.[9] To achieve his objectives, Liszt needed a more flexible method of developing musical themes than sonata form would allow, but one that would preserve the overall unity of a musical composition.[10] [11] Liszt found his method through two compositional practices, which he used in his symphonic poems. The first practice was cyclic form, a procedure established Franz Liszt in 1858 by Beethoven in which certain movements are not only linked but actually reflect one another's content.[12] Liszt took Beethoven's practice one step further, combining separate movements into a single-movement cyclic structure.[12] [13] Many of Liszt's mature works follow this pattern, of which Les Préludes is one of the best-known examples.[13] The second practice was thematic transformation, a type of variation in which one theme is changed, not into a related or subsidiary theme but into something new, separate and independent.[13] As musicologist Hugh Macdonald wrote of Liszt's works in this genre, the intent was "to display the traditional logic of symphonic thought;"[8] that is, to display a comparable complexity in the interplay of musical themes and tonal 'landscape' to those of the Romantic symphony. Thematic transformation, like cyclic form, was nothing new in itself. It had been previously used by Mozart and Haydn.[14] In the final movement of his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven had transformed the theme of the "Ode to Joy" into a Turkish march.[15] Weber and Berlioz had also transformed themes, and Schubert used thematic transformation to bind together the movements of his Wanderer Fantasy, a work that had a tremendous influence on Liszt.[15] [16] However, Liszt perfected the creation of significantly longer formal structures solely through thematic transformation, not only in the symphonic poems but in others works such as his Second Piano Concerto[15] [15] and his Piano Sonata in B minor.[11] In fact, when a work had to be shortened, Liszt tended to cut sections of conventional musical development and preserve sections of thematic transformation.[17] While Liszt had been inspired to some extent by the ideas of Richard Wagner in unifying ideas of drama and music via the symphonic poem,[18] Wagner gave Liszt's concept only lukewarm support in his 1857 essay On the Symphonic Poems of Franz Liszt, and was later to break entirely with Liszt's Weimar circle over their aesthetic ideals. Czech composers Composers who developed the symphonic poem after Liszt were mainly Bohemian, Russian, and French; the Bohemians and Russians showed the potential of the form as a vehicle for the nationalist ideas fomenting in their respective countries at this time.[8] Bedřich Smetana visited Liszt in Weimar in the summer of 1857, where he heard the first performances of the Faust Symphony and the symphonic poem Die Ideale.[19] Influenced by Liszt's efforts, Smetana began a series of symphonic works based on literary subjects—Richard III (1857-8), Wallenstein's Camp (1858-9) and Hakon Jarl (1860–61). A piano work dating from the same period, Macbeth a čarodějnice (Macbeth and the Witches, 1859), is similar in scope but bolder in style.[8] Musicologist John Clapham writes that Smetana planned these works as "a compact series of episodes" drawn from their literary sources "and approached them as a dramatist rather than as a poet or philosopher."[20] He used musical themes to represent specific characters; in this manner he more closely followed the practice of French composer Hector Berlioz in his choral symphony Roméo et Symphonic poem 3 Juliette than that of Liszt.[20] By doing so, Hugh Macdonald writes, Smetana followed "a straightforward pattern of musical description".[8] Smetana's set of six symphonic poems published under the general title of Má vlast became his greatest achievements in the genre. Composed between 1872 and 1879, the cycle embodies its composer's personal belief in the greatness of the Czech nation while presenting selected episodes and ideas from Czech history.[8] Two recurrent musical themes unify the entire cycle. One theme represents Vyšehrad, the fortress over the river Vltava whose course provides the subject matter for the second (and best-known) work in the cycle; the other is the ancient Czech hymn "Ktož jsú boží bojovníci" ("Ye who are God's Vyšehrad over the Vltava River, evoked warriors") which unites the cycle's last two poems, Tábor and musically in the first poem of Smetana's Má vlast. Blaník.[21] While expanding the form to a unified cycle of symphonic poems, Smetana created what Macdonald terms "one of the monuments of Czech music"[22] and, Clapham writes, "extended the scope and purpose of the symphonic poem beyond the aims of any later composer".[23] Clapham adds that in his musical depiction of scenery in these works, Smetana "established a new type of symphonic poem, which led eventually to Sibelius's Tapiola".[24] Also, in showing how to apply new forms for new purposes, Macdonald writes that Smetana "began a profusion of symphonic poems from his younger contemporaries in the Czech lands and Slovakia", including Antonín Dvořák, Zdeněk Fibich, Leoš Janáček and Vítězslav Novák.[22] Dvořák wrote two groups of symphonic poems, which date from the 1890s.
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