Talk:Symphonic poem

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Are the 'best-known' tone poems really those by R. Strauss?? I'd have thought that Sibelius 'Swan of Tunola' , Mussorgski's 'Night on bare Mountain' and Debussy 'Prelude l'apres-midi' were better contenders ; besides Strauss' tone-poems are really quite turgid, and really only the over-played opening bars of 'Thus spake' qualify as 'best-known'.Norwikian 19:34, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You're right, it's overly bold to say that Strauss' stuff in the best known - they might be, they might not be, it's not clear enough for us to say. I've edited it. --Camembert

I agree fully, especially if you consider the general populous -- 'Romeo and Juliet' is far and away the one that has the most well known melody, moreso than Thus Sprake I'd say. Though as a whole, I'd say 'The Moldau' is the top contender overall.

And this article could use some good hominization, especially in that paragraph with the list. Melodia Chaconne 9 July 2005 19:11 (UTC)

The paragraph should certainly be expanded to incorporate the "list" as examples, I'd hope, rather than being reduced to one of those uninterpreted and uninterpretable bulleted lists. Would that "hominize" it? --Wetman 8 July 2005 22:39 (UTC)

I just reworded the first two paragraphs of the article to fix clumsy sentence structures and the bizarrely wayward first paragraph; added a paragraph about the history of the symphonic poem after Liszt invented it (which curiously was not addressed before!), mentioned a bit of why it's important, and added some examples to the list. Also, I don't think we need such specific discussion of Strauss' Don Quixote; there's a separate article on it. Brianrein 20:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Webber

Can anyone tell me who wrote this article? I'm looking for a knowedgable expert on symphonic poems. Thanks. Robgee9 18:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concert Overture

The article for concert overture is redirected to the symphonic poem. I do not think these are synonymous with each other.

Then why not contribute a paragraph here explaining how the concert overture evolved into a single-movement atmospheric piece for the concert hall in the hands of Liszt and was renamed by him "symphonic poem"? --Wetman 03:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

They are not synonymous with each other and probably should not share an article. I'm not expert enough to write an article on it, but the main difference is that Concert Overtures have a strong musical organization, and poems are much more free with their structure. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.210.39.37 (talk) 17:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

Another quote from "The Enjoyment of Music" by Joseph Machlis and Kristine Forney shows that Concert Overture and Symphonic Poem/Tone Poem do not mean the same thing... "It (Symphonic Poem) differs from the concert overture in one important respect: whereas the concert overture generally retains one of the traditional Classical forms, the symphonic poem is much freer in its structure."