It’s increasingly clear that this feature is really “Whatever piece of one-movement classical music I want”, because this isn’t a tone poem but rather a selection of ballet music from an opera. Specifically, the opera is La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli, and the ballet suite in question is the “Dance of the Hours”. This is one of the most familiar pieces of music in the classical repertoire, mainly for having been parodied by comedian Allan Sherman in his summer camp song “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh”. If you can manage to listen to the actual Ponchielli suite with fresh ears, it’s really a wonderful and evocative work of classical dance music.
Tone Poem Tuesday
OK, this isn’t a tone poem, it’s a piece of film music–but it’s a classic by John Williams, and as such it is as cohesive and well-constructed a piece of music as any great tone poem. In honor of having seen the movie on the big screen yesterday (the first time I’ve seen it in a theater since I was nine), here is the finale and end credit music to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Here’s a blog post of mine about Close Encounters. My thoughts on this film have not appreciably changed: it’s still a beautiful, magnificent film.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
I’ve featured this work before, but on my way to work yesterday I heard it played and I was already thinking that hey, I can just run it again…when I heard something new. Turns out there’s a choral part that isn’t always performed, and it adds a very nice dimension to the work. So here, again, is Jean Sibelius’s wonderful Finlandia, this time with chorus when the big hymn tune starts.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
This is a cool video realization of one of my favorite marches of all time, the “Children’s March” (subtitled “Over the Hills and Far Away”), by Percy Grainger. It’s one of those videos that allows you to follow along with the shape of the music. These are always fun to watch and use to appreciate the structure of a musical work. As for the Children’s March itself, its mood shifts and changes, starting off in jaunty fashion but occasionally becoming stormy or pensive, all the while maintaining a healthy sense of a child’s optimism as he or she sets out on the path to Adventure.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
OK, this is pretty cool. I’m not the biggest fan in the world of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, but I suppose it’s iconic enough and this video is pretty neat: it’s a scrolling score of the piece. The YouTube channel has a lot of scrolling score videos if you want to see how some musical selections work. The channel is heavy on Bach, but Bach is great, so check it out!
Meantime, here’s Pachelbel’s Canon in D.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
New to me is this work by Georges Enescu, Vox Maris. I know nothing at all about this work, or what the vocal element is singing about. While much of the Enescu that I have heard is heavily reflective of Enescu’s Romanian folk heritage, this work sounds almost entirely atmospheric and haunting, bordering on pure impressionism.
Here is Vox Maris.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
I don’t know anything at all about this piece. I heard it while driving to work one morning last week, and I liked it quite a lot. It’s a dramatic and romantic miniature by Anatoly Liadov, called About Olden Times. Liadov is a composer I haven’t heard much at all, mainly because he appears to have mostly written “miniature” works, at least some of which may have been written with the intention of using them as part of longer works that never reached completion. Still, what little Liadov I’ve heard has been like what we have here: lyrical and potent pieces that manage to make their point in less time even than a typical Franz von Suppe overture. I am often drawn to the big-and-epic, but there’s something to be said for short-and-sweet, too.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
Claude Debussy, like Hector Berlioz years before, won the Prix de Rome in his youth; and like Berlioz, he did not much care for the experience of living in Rome for the years required of winners of the prize. One good thing did come out of his time there: the two-movement symphonic suite Printemps, which is worth hearing as a signpost of what was to come as Debussy matured into his role as one of the leading exponents in music of French Impressionism. The entire work is one of sensation and feeling and impression. There are no melodies that linger in the ear, and the whole time of the piece, it seems to be leaning toward a certain type of song that never arrives. I often find this sense of direction-without-destination in Debussy, and it’s a large part of why I often find it hard to really respond to his music, as lush and wonderful and evocative as it often is.
Here is Printemps by Claude Debussy.
Share This Post
Tone Poem Tuesday
What a dramatic work this is! Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini is based on a story from Dante’s Inferno, and as such, you can imagine how volatile a piece of music it is. The story being illustrated is a tragic one involving a heroine named Francesca da Rimini, who is condemned to Hell along with her illicit lover, where their torments are many and varied. It’s not hard to understand how Tchaikovsky came to relate strongly to this story, given what a disaster his own love life was. This work is powerful and illustrative, with little of Tchaikovsky’s usual, celebrated lyricism. This is a dark work and a fascinating listen.