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On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

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67-683: On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is a tone poem composed in 1912 by Frederick Delius . Together with Summer Night on the River it is one of Delius's Two Pieces for Small Orchestra . The two were first performed in Leipzig on 23 October 1913, conducted by Arthur Nikisch . On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring is the longer of the two pieces, with a typical playing time of between six and seven minutes. There have been numerous recordings of

134-449: A symphonic suite or cycle. For example, The Swan of Tuonela (1895) is a tone poem from Jean Sibelius 's Lemminkäinen Suite , and Vltava ( The Moldau ) by Bedřich Smetana is part of the six-work cycle Má vlast . 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 their works. The first use of

201-499: A "symphonic fantasy", is the most closely dependent on its program while also showing a sureness of outline rare in other composers. With the compositional approach he took from the Third Symphony onward, Sibelius sought to overcome the distinction between symphony and tone poem to fuse their most basic principles—the symphony's traditional claims of weight, musical abstraction, gravitas and formal dialogue with seminal works of

268-793: A Láska ( Nature, Life and Love ), they appeared instead as three separate works, V přírodě ( In Nature's Realm ), Carnival and Othello . The score for Othello contains notes from the Shakespeare play, showing that Dvořák meant to write it as a programmatic work; however, the sequence of events and characters portrayed does not correspond to the notes. The second group of symphonic poems comprises five works. Four of them— The Water Goblin , The Noon Witch , The Golden Spinning Wheel and The Wild Dove —are based on poems from Karel Jaromír Erben 's Kytice ( Bouquet ) collection of fairy tales . In these four poems, Dvořák assigns specific musical themes for important characters and events in

335-474: A Summer Garden (1908). He completed the first of his Two Pieces for Small Orchestra – Summer Night on the River – in 1911, and worked on the second, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring during 1912. The two works were first given in Leipzig by the Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Arthur Nikisch on 23 October 1913. Although completed second, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

402-562: A detailed program. The development of the symphonic poem in Russia, as in the Czech lands, stemmed from an admiration for Liszt's music and a devotion to national subjects. Added to this was the Russian love of story-telling, for which the genre seemed expressly tailored, and led critic Vladimir Stasov to write, "Virtually all Russian music is programmatic". Macdonald writes that Stasov and

469-426: A dramatist rather than as a poet or philosopher." 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 Juliette than that of Liszt. By doing so, Hugh Macdonald writes, Smetana followed "a straightforward pattern of musical description". Smetana's set of six symphonic poems published under

536-409: A major key evokes childhood. 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 (as do those of Richard Strauss ), or it can be part of a series combined into

603-506: A non-musical concept. Some musical gestures appear to be literal representations of their non-musical counterparts. For example, Sergei Rachmaninoff uses an uneven 5/8 time signature throughout The Isle of the Dead in order to suggest the rocking of a boat. In Richard Strauss ’s Death and Transfiguration , the composer uses the orchestra to mimic the sound of an irregular heartbeat and labored breathing. Other musical gestures capture

670-911: A non-orchestral 'symphonic poem'. Alexander Ritter , who himself composed six symphonic poems in the vein of Liszt's works, directly influenced Richard Strauss in writing program music. Strauss wrote on a wide range of subjects, some of which had been previously considered unsuitable to set to music, including literature, legend, philosophy and autobiography. The list includes Macbeth (1886–87), Don Juan (1888–89), Death and Transfiguration (1888–89), Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (1894–95), Also sprach Zarathustra ( Thus Spoke Zoroaster , 1896), Don Quixote (1897), Ein Heldenleben ( A Hero's Life , 1897–98), Symphonia Domestica ( Domestic Symphony , 1902–03) and An Alpine Symphony (1911–1915). In these works, Strauss takes realism in orchestral depiction to unprecedented lengths, widening

737-403: A popular composition form from the 1840s until the 1920s, when composers began to abandon the genre . Symphonic poems are thought to bridge the gap between different modes of expression. Much research has been done on the semiotic relationship between symphonic poems and their extra-musical inspiration, such as art, literature and nature. Composers used many different musical gestures to evoke

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804-494: A series of symphonic works based on literary subjects— Richard III (1857–58), Wallenstein's Camp (1858–59) 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. Musicologist John Clapham writes that Smetana planned these works as "a compact series of episodes" drawn from their literary sources "and approached them as

871-464: A similar manner to these works. Russian folklore also provided material for symphonic poems by Alexander Dargomyzhsky , Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Glazunov . Glazunov's Stenka Razin and Lyadov's Baba-Yaga Kikimora and The Enchanted Lake are all based on national subjects. The Lyadov works' lack of purposeful harmonic rhythm (an absence less noticeable in Baba-Yaga and Kikimora due to

938-412: A single-movement cyclic structure. Many of Liszt's mature works follow this pattern, of which Les préludes is one of the best-known examples. 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. As musicologist Hugh Macdonald wrote of Liszt's works in this genre,

1005-412: A slow three-bar sequence. The main theme, marked "With easy flowing movement", is an exchange of cuckoo calls, first for oboe , then for divided strings. The second theme is scored for first violins, and is taken from a Norwegian folksong , "In Ola Valley", which was brought to Delius's attention by the composer and folksong arranger Percy Grainger . The theme had earlier been used by Edvard Grieg in

1072-418: A superficial but still exhilarating bustle and whirl) produces a sense of unreality and timelessness much like the telling of an oft-repeated and much loved fairy tale. While none of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 's symphonic poems has a Russian subject, they hold musical form and literary material in fine balance. (Tchaikovsky did not call Romeo and Juliet a symphonic poem but rather a "fantasy-overture", and

1139-453: A symphonic poem, and some musicologists, such as Norman Demuth and Julien Tiersot, consider it the first of its genre, preceding Liszt's compositions. 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. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt desired to expand single-movement works beyond

1206-588: A temporary stop to the debate as to whether the genre was dead. Nevertheless, composers began to explore 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). Between 1845 and 1847, the Belgian composer César Franck wrote an orchestral piece based on Victor Hugo 's poem Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne . The work exhibits characteristics of

1273-462: A version for solo piano in 1914, Peter Warlock made a version for piano duo in 1930, Eric Fenby arranged it for organ in 1934 and Rudolf Schmidt-Wunstorf made a version for two pianos in 1952. There are also versions for wind band (1969) and brass band (1976). The playing time of the piece is typically between six and seven minutes, although a few recorded performances are quicker or slower than this. The piece opens in C major in 4 with

1340-576: A work had to be shortened, Liszt tended to cut sections of conventional musical development and preserve sections of thematic transformation. 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, 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. Composers who developed

1407-413: A world of uncompromisingly brutal directness and energy. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote only two orchestral works that rank as symphonic poems, his "musical tableau" Sadko (1867–92) and Skazka ( Legend , 1879–80), originally titled Baba-Yaga . While this may perhaps be surprising, considering his love for Russian folklore, both his symphonic suites Antar and Scheherazade are conceived in

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1474-591: Is also worth noting, both in his use of thematic transformation and his handling of multiple themes in intricate counterpoint . His use of variation form in Don Quixote is handled exceptionally well, as is his use of rondo form in Till Eulenspiegel . As Hugh Macdonald points out in the New Grove (1980), "Strauss liked to use a simple but descriptive theme—for instance the three-note motif at

1541-458: Is considered by some critics a parody of Vienna in an idiom no Viennese would recognize as his own. Albert Roussel 's first symphonic poem, based on Leo Tolstoy 's novel Resurrection (1903), was soon followed by Le Poème de forêt (1904–06), which is in four movements written in cyclic form . Pour une fête de printemps (1920), initially conceived as the slow movement of his Second Symphony. Charles Koechlin also wrote several symphonic poems,

1608-563: Is designated the first of the two, which were billed as "Stimmungsbilder" – "mood-pictures" – with the titles "Beim ersten Kuckucksruf im Frühling" and "Sommernacht am Flusse". The first performance in Britain was presented by the Royal Philharmonic Society at a Queen's Hall concert on 20 January 1914, conducted by Willem Mengelberg . The score is dedicated to the composer and musical benefactor Balfour Gardiner . It

1675-460: Is really Norway/Germany as much as the English countryside". Christopher Palmer followed Grainger in comparing Delius's and Grieg's treatment of the folk tune: Palmer comments that unlike Grieg, Delius treats the tune very freely, creating "a gently persistent liquefaction of harmony". Some of the conductors listed above, notably Beecham, recorded several other versions of the piece, either in

1742-524: The Finlandia hymn by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi – to the central part after Finland became independent. The symphonic poem did not enjoy as clear a sense of national identity in other countries, even though numerous works of the kind were written. Composers included Arnold Bax and Frederick Delius in Great Britain; Edward MacDowell , Howard Hanson , Ferde Grofé and George Gershwin in

1809-416: The 14th of his 19 Norwegian Folksongs , Op. 66. Grainger compared the two treatments: "Grieg's is concentrated, pristine, miniature and drastic … Delius's has the opulent richness of an almost over-ripe fruit and the luxurious long decline of a sunset". The clarinet returns with the cuckoo calls before the piece ends quietly. Sir Thomas Beecham , Delius's most prominent British champion, called On Hearing

1876-486: The 1870s, supported by the newly founded Société Nationale and its promotion of younger French composers. In the year after its foundation, 1872, Camille Saint-Saëns composed his Le rouet d'Omphale , soon following it with three more, the most famous of which became the Danse macabre (1874). In all four of these works Saint-Saëns experimented with orchestration and thematic transformation . La jeunesse d'Hercule (1877)

1943-424: The Czech lands and Slovakia", including Antonín Dvořák , Zdeněk Fibich , Leoš Janáček and Vítězslav Novák . Dvořák wrote two groups of symphonic poems, which date from the 1890s. The first, which Macdonald variously calls symphonic poems and overtures, forms a cycle similar to Má vlast , with a single musical theme running through all three pieces. Originally conceived as a trilogy to be titled Příroda, Život

2010-460: The First Cuckoo in Spring "easily the best known of all our composer's output". Beecham said of this piece and the companion Summer Night on the River : "In their respective ways they touch perfection, although I cannot agree with the judgment of one commentator that they display Frederick's powers of orchestration at their best. After all they are miniatures and written primarily for small groups of players". Commentators have differed about whether

2077-664: The German musical scene, but neither wrote symphonic poems; instead, they devoted themselves completely to music drama (Wagner) and absolute music (Brahms). Therefore, other than Strauss and numerous concert overtures by others, there are only isolated symphonic poems by German and Austrian composers— Hugo Wolf 's Penthesilea (1883–85), Alexander von Zemlinsky 's Die Seejungfrau (1902-03) and Arnold Schoenberg 's Pelleas und Melisande (1902–03). Because of its clear relationship between poem and music, Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (1899) for string sextet has been characterised as

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2144-403: The German term Tondichtung (tone poem) appears to have been by Carl Loewe , applied not to an orchestral work but to his piece for piano solo, Mazeppa , Op. 27 (1828), based on the poem of that name by Lord Byron , and written twelve years before Liszt treated the same subject orchestrally. The musicologist Mark Bonds suggests that in the second quarter of the 19th century, the future of

2211-639: The Nightingale , excerpted from his opera The Nightingale . Alexander Scriabin 's The Poem of Ecstasy (1905–08) and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (1908–10), in their projection of an egocentric theosophic world unequalled in other symphonic poems, are notable for their detail and advanced harmonic idiom. Socialist realism in the Soviet Union allowed program music to survive longer there than in western Europe, as typified by Dmitri Shostakovich 's symphonic poem October (1967). While France

2278-471: The Steppes of Central Asia "powerful orchestral pictures, each unique in its composer's output". Titled a "musical portrait", In the Steppes of Central Asia evokes the journey of a caravan across the steppes . Night on Bald Mountain , especially its original version, contains harmony that is often striking, sometimes pungent and highly abrasive; its initial stretches especially pull the listener into

2345-627: The United States; Carl Nielsen in Denmark; Zygmunt Noskowski and Mieczysław Karłowicz in Poland and Ottorino Respighi in Italy. Also, with the rejection of Romantic ideals in the 20th century and their replacement with ideals of abstraction and independence of music, the writing of symphonic poems went into decline. Lionel Carley Lionel Carley (14 May 1936 - 28 December 2021)

2412-537: The best known of which are included in his cycle based on The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling . Through these works, he defended the viability of the symphonic poem long after it had gone out of vogue. Both Liszt and Richard Strauss worked in Germany, but while Liszt may have invented the symphonic poem and Strauss brought it to its highest point, overall the form was less well received there than in other countries. Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner dominated

2479-437: The composition of symphonic poems. Even his works in other instrumental forms are very free in structure and frequently partake of the nature of programme music. Among later Russian symphonic poems, Sergei Rachmaninoff 's The Rock shows as much the influence of Tchaikovsky's work as Isle of the Dead (1909) does its independence from it. A similar debt to his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov imbues Igor Stravinsky 's The Song of

2546-406: The concert overture form. 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. The opening movement, with its interplay of contrasting themes under sonata form , was normally considered the most important part of

2613-424: The cycle is similar to Smetana's Má vlast in overall scope. Henri Duparc 's Lenore (1875) displayed a Wagnerian warmth in its writing and orchestration. Franck wrote the delicately evocative Les Éolides , following it with the narrative Le Chasseur maudit and the piano-and-orchestral tone poem Les Djinns , conceived in much the same manner as Liszt's Totentanz . Ernest Chausson 's Vivane illustrates

2680-547: The drama. For The Golden Spinning Wheel , Dvořák arrived at these themes by setting lines from the poems to music. He also follows Liszt and Smetana's example of thematic transformation, metamorphosing the king's theme in The Golden Spinning Wheel to represent the wicked stepmother and also the mysterious, kindly old man found in the tale. Macdonald writes that while these works may seem diffuse by symphonic standards, their literary sources actually define

2747-401: The essence of the subject on a more abstract level. For example, In Franz Liszt’s Hamlet , Liszt portrays the complex relation between Hamlet and Ophelia by juxtaposing a somber motif that is harmonically inconclusive (Hamlet) against a tranquil and harmonically conclusive motif (Ophelia), and developing the music from these principles. In Death and Transfiguration , a sprightly melody in

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2814-440: The expressive functions of program music as well as extending its boundaries. Because of his virtuosic use of orchestration, the descriptive power and vividness of these works is extremely marked. He usually employs a large orchestra, often with extra instruments, and he often uses instrumental effects for sharp characterization, such as portraying the bleating of sheep with cuivré brass in Don Quixote . Strauss's handling of form

2881-408: 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. Two recurrent musical themes unify the entire cycle. One theme represents Vyšehrad, the fortress over the river Vltava whose course provides

2948-461: The intent was "to display the traditional logic of symphonic thought;" 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. In the final movement of his Ninth Symphony , Beethoven had transformed

3015-611: The main theme." Jean Sibelius showed a great affinity for the form, writing well over a dozen symphonic poems and numerous shorter works. These works span his entire career, from En saga (1892) to Tapiola (1926), expressing more clearly than anything else his identification to Finland and its mythology. The Kalevala provided ideal episodes and texts for musical setting; this coupled with Sibelius's natural aptitude for symphonic writing allowed him to write taut, organic structures for many of these works, especially Tapiola (1926). Pohjola's Daughter (1906), which Sibelius called

3082-424: The opening of Also sprach Zarathustra , or striding, vigorous arpeggios to represent the manly qualities of his heroes. His love themes are honeyed and chromatic and generally richly scored, and he is often fond of the warmth and serenity of diatonic harmony as balm after torrential chromatic textures, notably at the end of Don Quixote , where the solo cello has a surpassingly beautiful D major transformation of

3149-483: The past; and the tone poem's structural innovation and spontaneity, identifiable poetic content and inventive sonority. However, the stylistic distinction between symphony, "fantasy" and tone poem in Sibelius's late works becomes blurred since ideas first sketched for one piece ended up in another. One of Sibelius's greatest works, Finlandia , focuses on Finnish independence. He wrote it in 1901 and added choral lyrics –

3216-509: The pastoral scene is an English one. In a 1973 study Lionel Carley wrote that the music gives "an instinctive feeling that, wherever the inspiration may be rooted, an essentially English natural setting is being evoked". In 2004 Diana McVeagh wrote of the Delius miniatures, "These exquisite idylls, for all their composer's German descent and French domicile, spell 'England' for most listeners". In 2018 Daniel Grimley suggested "the music's 'place'

3283-422: The patriotic group of composers known as The Five or The Mighty Handful, went so far as to hail Mikhail Glinka 's Kamarinskaya as "a prototype of Russian descriptive music"; despite the fact that Glinka himself denied the piece had any program, he called the work, which is based entirely on Russian folk music, "picturesque music." In this Glinka was influenced by French composer Hector Berlioz , whom he met in

3350-561: The penchant shown by the Franck circle for mythological subjects. Claude Debussy 's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1892–94), intended initially as part of a triptych , is, in the composer's words, "a very free ... succession of settings through which the Faun's desires and dreams move in the afternoon heat." Paul Dukas ' The Sorcerer's Apprentice follows the narrative vein of symphonic poem, while Maurice Ravel 's La valse (1921)

3417-534: The piece, which Delius's champion Sir Thomas Beecham described as much the best known of the composer's works. In the first years of the 20th century, Frederick Delius was better known in Continental Europe than in his native Britain. He lived in France and had most of his musical success in Germany. His compositions from this period include Songs of Sunset (1906–07), Brigg Fair (1907) and In

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3484-416: The scope and purpose of the symphonic poem beyond the aims of any later composer". 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 ". 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

3551-414: The sequence of events and the course of the musical action. Clapham adds that while Dvořák may follow the narrative complexities of The Golden Spinning Wheel too closely, "the lengthy repetition at the beginning of The Noon Witch shows Dvořák temporarily rejecting a precise representation of the ballad for the sake of an initial musical balance". The fifth poem, Heroic Song , is the only one not to have

3618-463: The studio or in live concert recordings. Tone poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement , which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape , or other (non-musical) source. The German term Tondichtung (tone poem) appears to have been first used by the composer Carl Loewe in 1828. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt first applied

3685-403: 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 warriors"), which unites the cycle's last two poems, Tábor and Blaník. While expanding the form to a unified cycle of symphonic poems, Smetana created what Macdonald terms "one of the monuments of Czech music" and, Clapham writes, "extended

3752-654: The summer of 1844. At least three of the Five fully embraced the symphonic poem. Mily Balakirev 's Tamara (1867–82) richly evokes the fairy-tale orient and, while remaining closely based on the poem by Mikhail Lermontov , remains well-paced and full of atmosphere. Balakirev's other two symphonic poems, In Bohemia (1867, 1905) and Russia (1884 version) lack the same narrative content; they are actually looser collections of national melodies and were originally written as concert overtures. Macdonald calls Modest Mussorgsky 's Night on Bald Mountain and Alexander Borodin 's In

3819-466: The symphonic genre seemed uncertain. While many composers continued to write symphonies during the 1820s and '30s, "there were 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." Felix Mendelssohn , Robert Schumann and Niels Gade achieved successes with their symphonies, putting at least

3886-613: 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. 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 . Influenced by Liszt's efforts, Smetana began

3953-561: The symphony. 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. Liszt found his method through two compositional practices, which he used in his symphonic poems. The first practice was cyclic form , a procedure established by Beethoven in which certain movements are not only linked but actually reflect one another's content. Liszt took Beethoven's practice one step further, combining separate movements into

4020-551: The term Symphonische Dichtung to his 13 works in this vein , which commenced in 1848. 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 (necessarily) to focus on following traditional patterns of musical form such as sonata form . This intention to inspire listeners

4087-513: The theme of the "Ode to Joy" into a Turkish march. 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. 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 and his Piano Sonata in B minor . In fact, when

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4154-492: The work may actually be closer to a concert overture in its relatively stringent use of sonata form . It was the suggestion of the work's musical mid-wife, Balakirev, to base Romeo structurally on his King Lear , a tragic overture in sonata form after the example of Beethoven 's overtures.) R.W.S. Mendl, writing in The Musical Quarterly , states that Tchaikovsky was by temperament peculiarly well-fitted for

4221-508: Was a direct consequence of Romanticism , which encouraged literary, pictorial and dramatic associations in music. According to the musicologist Hugh 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 that could be regarded as equivalent to, or higher than opera . The symphonic poem remained

4288-616: Was an English archivist and author on musical matters. He had particular interest in the life and work of Frederick Delius and Edvard Grieg . After completing his studies, Carley worked for the British Foreign Office and became involved in the music of Frederick Delius at an early stage. Since 1966, he held the post of archivist of the Delius Trust, and since 1991 he was also Advisor to the Trust . After leaving

4355-571: Was first published by Tischer & Jagenburg of Cologne in 1914. In 1930 the Oxford University Press published the score. The full title of the piece in the published score is On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (Introducing a Norwegian Folk Song) . The manuscript is lost, but a draft version survives, held by the Grainger Museum, Melbourne . There have been numerous arrangements of the piece. Gerard Bunk arranged

4422-506: Was less concerned than other countries with nationalism, it still had a well-established tradition of narrative and illustrative music reaching back to Berlioz and Félicien David . For this reason, French composers were attracted to the poetic elements of the symphonic poem. In fact, César Franck had written an orchestral piece based on Hugo's poem Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne before Liszt did so himself as his first numbered symphonic poem. The symphonic poem came into vogue in France in

4489-462: Was written closest in style to Liszt. The other three concentrate on some physical movement—spinning, riding, dancing—which is portrayed in musical terms. He had previously experimented with thematic transformation in his program overture Spartacus ; he would later use it in his Fourth Piano Concerto and Third Symphony . After Saint-Saëns came Vincent d'Indy . While d'Indy called his trilogy Wallenstein (1873, 1879–81) "three symphonic overtures",

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