Great Unsung Tone Poems

[Alan Howe]

Unless those short pieces by modern composers qualify as tone poems. 99% of those are destined to be the unsung works of tomorrow

How true!

[Mark Thomas]

Only 99%?

[Martin Eastick]

Unless those short pieces by modern composers qualify as tone poems. 99% of those are destined to be the unsung works of tomorrow -- eminently forgettable.

Let us just hope that they STAY forgotten!

[eschiss1]

Well, that's just an amplified version of Sturgeon's law. I'd lower the number to 95% since I think Sturgeon had it about right, really. (And if I have a problem with many a modern work nowadays it's the indeed boring efforts at combination neoromantic/jazz eclecticism, but that really is another topic.)

[alberto]

I share enthusiasm with Mjmosca (post 58) for Saint-Saens's Phaeton and Chausson's Viviane (not "Vivienne"). 
Both are in practice never performed even in France.
Thank heaven for the recordings of course; but they are not a legion (in Phaeton's discography excels IMHO Ozawa-Emi)
Viviane has, besides A.Jordan -Erato, Plasson (Emi), Kaltenbach (Naxos), the elderly de Almeida (RCA Lp, maybe also Cd).
The de Almeida record makes me remind another very worth symphonic poem: Lenore by the tragically un-prolific Duparc (recorded by de Almeida and by the ubiquitous in French repertoire Plasson, who recorded also Duparc'a short, and worth, "Aux Etoiles").

[adriano]

Yes, and on that nice 1996 "tone poem recital" EMI CD with Plasson, there is also Sylvio Lazzari's "Effet de nuit", which I also wanted to record on second a full-Lazzari CD... Unfortunately, Marco Polo dropped this project at the last moment. It would have also contained a ballet suite and a symphonic march by Lazzari...
Speaking about Lenore and nocturnal hunts, there is also the very interesting "La Chasse du Prince Arthur" by Joseph-Guy Ropartz (available on a timpani CD of 2003)

[eschiss1]

Hrm. Would "Wilde Jägd" in the title of some works translate sometimes anyway to Wild Hunt as in specifically the Celtic/Faerie Wild Hunt (the one I gather is best avoided?)

Lenore of course turns up also in (or as the title of...) at least one symphony by Klughardt, a symphonic poem by Duparc and songs and ballads by Kügele and others (sometimes to Bürger's text, but sometimes based on Poe's Raven instead (Hemberger's "Lenore", published 1910) .)

[semloh]

Many, many thanks to Wheesht for uploading the lovely Les Veillées de l'Ukraine by Loeffler, in a superb BBC performance. I still haven't heard any music by Loeffler that I didn't enjoy.

Does this count as a "tone poem"? Maybe not 'great', I think, but certainly a fine piece.

[brendangcarroll]

May I make a special plea for VATERLAND by Julius Bittner, composed 1915 and premiered by the Vienna Phil under Weingartner? It received wonderful reviews.

[Gauk]

I rarely encounter tone poems in concert these days. Unless those short pieces by modern composers qualify as tone poems. 99% of those are destined to be the unsung works of tomorrow -- eminently forgettable.

I greatly doubt if many contemporary composers would ever use the term "tone poem" ...

[Jonathan]

Atonal poem then? 

[Alan Howe]

Brilliant.
Or serial murder, perhaps? 

[Jonathan]

Indeed    !

[chill319]

Chadwick's Aphrodite is a multi-movement tone poem as ambitious (and in my view as enjoyable) as Strauss's Sinfonia domestica. Chadwick's best tone poem may be Tam O'Shanter.  If only one American tone poem were allowed to survive, my vote would go to Converse's The Mystic Trumpeter.  But no modern recording does it justice.

[eschiss1]

really? truly? on IMSLP alone, there are at least 30? (ok, make that 17? -- ok, ok...; some are for piano or organ, we still count them) works by modern composers subtitled symphonic poem, tone poem, or something suitably similar... (and it's been a long time since most contemporary composers wrote in the "manner" that so many people here despise. That so many of them, as always, write extremely -poorly- , whatever their chosen "style" (not a very helpful way to talk about music, but... eh) - as always; Sturgeon's Law will &c - annoys me than whatever "style" it is they've chosen to flail around in...  even though I suppose even less, candle-lighting-wise, can be done about it.