Knowra Symphonic poem Symphonic poem A usually single-movement orchestral work that develops a poetic, literary, or pictorial subject through music. It uses musical form and orchestral color to suggest or interpret that subject.
Program music : Instrumental music intended to evoke or represent a story, scene, idea, or other subject. The symphonic poem is a major orchestral form of music shaped around an extra-musical subject.
Franz Liszt : A Hungarian composer and pianist who developed the symphonic poem as a major orchestral genre. Liszt established the genre through a series of one-movement orchestral works.
Don Juan (Strauss) : A symphonic poem by Richard Strauss, based on the Don Juan legend and composed in 1888. Its sharply profiled themes and orchestral virtuosity became a landmark of the genre.
Concert overture : A self-contained orchestral work modeled on an opera overture but intended for concert performance. Like a symphonic poem, it can evoke a subject in one movement, but it belongs to a different genre tradition.
Tone poem : An orchestral composition, usually in one movement, that develops a nonmusical subject. This English term is commonly used as a synonym for symphonic poem.
Weimar : A German city that became a major center of music and culture in the nineteenth century. Liszt's work in Weimar helped foster the symphonic poem and its early reception.
Also sprach Zarathustra : A tone poem by Richard Strauss, inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical work of the same name. Its opening fanfare shows how a symphonic poem can evoke an idea without narrating a plot.
Incidental music : Music written to accompany a stage play or other dramatic performance. Unlike a symphonic poem, it is designed to function alongside a dramatic production.
Sonata form : A musical structure organized around contrasting themes, tonal conflict, and thematic return. Some symphonic poems adapt its contrasts and returns without following a conventional symphony's movements.
New German School : A nineteenth-century circle of composers and critics associated with progressive musical ideas around Liszt and Wagner. Its debates promoted new forms and extra-musical ideas that shaped the genre's context.
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