CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| PREFACE | [xi] |
| THE ORCHESTRA AS POET, PAINTER, AND DRAMATIST | [1] |
| BANTOCK | |
| TONE-POEM, "THE WITCH OF ATLAS" | [11] |
| Prelude, "Sappho" | [15] |
| BEETHOVEN | |
| Symphony No. 3, "Eroica" | [19] |
| Overture to "Coriolanus" | [24] |
| Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral" | [25] |
| Overture to "Egmont" | [27] |
| BERLIOZ | |
| Overture to "King Lear" | [31] |
| Fantastic Symphony | [34] |
| Symphony, "Harold in Italy" | [36] |
| BIZET | |
| Suite from "L'Arlésienne" | [43] |
| CHADWICK | |
| Overture, "Melpomene" | [49] |
| Overture, "Adonais" | [51] |
| Overture, "Euterpe" | [52] |
| Symphonic Poem, "Cleopatra" | [53] |
| CHARPENTIER | |
| Suite, "Impressions of Italy" | [57] |
| CHAUSSON | |
| Symphonic Poem, "Viviane" | [61] |
| CONVERSE | |
| Romance, "The Festival of Pan" | [65] |
| Romance, "Endymion's Narrative" | [67] |
| Two Poems, "Night" and "Day" | [68] |
| Overture, "Euphrosyne" | [70] |
| Fantasy, "The Mystic Trumpeter" | [70] |
| DEBUSSY | |
| Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" | [73] |
| Three Nocturnes | [75] |
| Three Sketches, "The Sea" | [77] |
| DUKAS | |
| "Scherzo," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" | [79] |
| DVOŘÁK | |
| Overture, "Nature" | [85] |
| Overture, "Carnival" | [87] |
| Overture, "Othello" | [89] |
| Symphonic Poem, "The Wood Dove" | [91] |
| ELGAR | |
| Variations ("Enigma") | [95] |
| Overture, "Cockaigne" | [96] |
| Two Pieces, "Dream Children" | [98] |
| Overture, "In the South" | [101] |
| FRANCK | |
| Symphonic Poem, "Les Éolides" | [105] |
| Symphonic Poem, "The Wild Huntsman" | [106] |
| Suite, "Psyche" | [108] |
| Symphonic Poem, "The Djinns" | [113] |
| GLAZOUNOFF | |
| Symphonic Poem, "Stenka Râzine" | [115] |
| Symphonic Picture, "The Kremlin" | [117] |
| GOLDMARK | |
| Overture, "Sakuntala" | [119] |
| Symphony, "Rustic Wedding" | [120] |
| GRIEG | |
| Suite (No. 1), "Peer Gynt" | [123] |
| HADLEY | |
| Tone-Poem, "Salome" | [127] |
| HUBER | |
| Symphony No. 2, in E Minor ["Böcklin">[ | [131] |
| d'INDY | |
| Legend, "The Enchanted Forest" | [137] |
| Legend, "Saugefleurie" | [138] |
| Variations, "Istar" | [139] |
| Tone-Poem, "Summer Day on the Mountain" | [141] |
| LISZT | |
| Symphonic Poem, "Tasso: Lament and Triumph" | [145] |
| Symphonic Poem, "The Preludes" | [147] |
| Symphonic Poem, "Orpheus" | [148] |
| Symphonic Poem, "Mazeppa" | [151] |
| Symphonic Poem, "Festklänge" | [154] |
| Symphonic Poem, "The Battle of the Huns" | [155] |
| Symphonic Poem, "The Ideal" | [157] |
| "A 'Faust' Symphony" | [161] |
| "Symphony after Dante's 'Divina Commedia'" | [164] |
| "Two Episodes from Lenau's 'Faust'" | [173] |
| LOEFFLER | |
| Symphonic Poem, "The Death of Tintagiles" | [177] |
| "Poem" ["La Bonne Chanson">[ | [182] |
| Fantasia, "The Devil's Villanelle" | [184] |
| "A Pagan Poem" | [187] |
| MAC DOWELL | |
| Symphonic Poem, "Lancelot and Elaine" | [191] |
| Two Fragments (after the "Song of Roland") | [194] |
| Suite (No. 2), "Indian" | [196] |
| MENDELSSOHN | |
| Overture, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" | [199] |
| Overture, "Fingal's Cave" | [200] |
| Overture, "Becalmed at Sea and Prosperous Voyage" | [202] |
| Overture, "The Lovely Melusina" | [203] |
| Symphony No. 3 ("Scotch") | [206] |
| Symphony No. 4 ("Italian") | [208] |
| RAFF | |
| Symphony No. 3, "In the Woods" | [213] |
| Symphony No. 5, "Lenore" | [216] |
| RIMSKY-KORSAKOFF | |
| Symphonic Poem, "Sadko" | [221] |
| Symphony, "Antar" | [222] |
| Suite, "Scheherazade" | [226] |
| "A Night on Mount Triglav" (from the Opera-Ballet | |
| "Mlada") | [229] |
| Suite, "Christmas Eve" | [231] |
| SAINT-SAËNS | |
| Symphonic Poem, "Omphale's Spinning-wheel" | [235] |
| Symphonic Poem, "Phaëton" | [236] |
| Symphonic Poem, "Dance of Death" | [237] |
| Symphonic Poem, "The Youth of Hercules" | [238] |
| SCHUMANN | |
| Symphony No. 1, in B-flat Major ["Spring">[ | [241] |
| Overture to "Manfred" | [243] |
| SIBELIUS | |
| Symphonic Poem, "Lemminkainen:" | |
| "The Swan of Tuonela" | [248] |
| "Lemminkainen's Home-Faring" | [249] |
| SMETANA | |
| Symphonic Cycle, "My Fatherland:" | |
| I. "Vysehrad" | [251] |
| II. "Vltava" | [252] |
| III. "Sárka" | [252] |
| IV. "From Bohemia's Fields and Groves" | [253] |
| V. "Tabor" | [253] |
| VI. "Blanik" | [253] |
| SPOHR | |
| Symphony, "The Consecration of Sound" | [255] |
| STRAUSS | |
| Fantasia, "From Italy" | [259] |
| Tone-Poem, "Don Juan" | [261] |
| Tone-Poem, "Macbeth" | [264] |
| Tone-Poem, "Death and Transfiguration" | [266] |
| "Rondo," "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" | [269] |
| Tone-Poem, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" | [275] |
| Variations, "Don Quixote" | [285] |
| Tone-Poem, "A Hero's Life" | [292] |
| "Domestic Symphony" | [297] |
| TSCHAIKOWSKY | |
| Overture, "Romeo and Juliet" | [303] |
| Fantasia, "The Tempest" | [305] |
| Fantasia, "Francesca da Rimini" | [308] |
| Symphony No. 4, in F Minor | [316] |
| Symphony, "Manfred" | [323] |
| Symphony No. 6, "Pathetic" | [329] |
| Ballad, "The Voyvode" | [335] |
| WAGNER | |
| "A 'Faust' Overture" | [339] |
| "A Siegfried Idyl" | [343] |
| WOLF | |
| Symphonic Poem, "Penthesilea" | [347] |
| INDEX | [353] |
PREFACE
Most concert-goers have observed, at performances of modern orchestral works of a descriptive character, the efforts of many persons in the audience to extract from programme notes and analyses information as to the dramatic or pictorial or poetic meaning of the music to which they were listening. A search for enlightenment under such conditions necessarily leads to disappointment, since it is either pursued distractedly while the music is actually in progress, or during the brief and unpropitious leisure of an intermission. The design of this book is to offer in compact and accessible form such information as will enable the intending concert-goer to prepare himself, in advance, to listen comprehendingly to those symphonic works of a suggestive or illustrative nature, from Beethoven to the present day, which are part of the standard orchestral repertoire, and such others as seem likely to become so—to serve, in effect, as a guide to modern orchestral programme-music. For convenience of indication, the designation "tone poems," as used in the sub-title, is employed in its broadest significance to characterize all modern delineative music for orchestra in the freer forms, whether it be a symphonic poem by Liszt, a "legend" by d'Indy, a suite by Charpentier, a "sketch" by Debussy, or the precise thing described by Strauss as a Tondichtung.
No exclusively musical analysis of the works discussed is attempted, since it is aimed merely to give the concert-goer such information concerning their illustrative purpose as will enable him to place himself in an intelligent attitude towards their performance. Nor has the author indulged in speculative "interpretations" of any sort regarding the poetic content of these works; he has confined himself in every case to setting forth only such facts and clews as have been ascertained or justifiably inferred.
An exhaustive cataloguing of modern programme-music has not been attempted. It has been thought worth while to include only such works of importance as the American concert-goer is likely to find upon the programmes of symphony concerts in this country. Thus such submerged or moribund or otherwise negligible music as Schumann's forgotten overture, "Julius Cæsar," Berlioz's overture to "Waverley," Rubinstein's character-pictures, "Faust" and "Ivan IV.," Liszt's "Hamlet," Beethoven's "King Stephen" and "Battle of Vittoria," have been permitted to remain unexpounded. [1]
A book such as this must necessarily be largely of the nature of a compilation, since, in the case of the older works in the concert-repertoire, it must make use of information already obtained and recorded. It is believed, however, that it may supply a want hitherto unfulfilled in that, particularly, it assembles in convenient shape information concerning important contemporary works which exists, at present, only in a scattered and more or less unavailable condition.