Of course, the effect of these pianists was to make music and the piano more popular, thus adding greatly to the musical culture of the world.
Tchaikovsky
You probably know of Piotr (Peter) Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) as a great symphony writer, but he was also a successful writer of tone poems such as The Tempest, Francesco di Rimini, Manfred, based on Byron’s Manfred, Hamlet, The Storm, Romeo and Juliet and two incomplete poems, Destiny and Voievoda. Tchaikovsky was born in Russia, he went to the school of Jurisprudence and later entered the Ministry of Justice but soon began to compose music and took a medal for composition for a piece which he wrote on Schiller’s Ode to Joy, the poem Beethoven used in his 9th Symphony. He also wrote The Nut Cracker Suite for orchestra, adapted from the score of a Ballet, which includes a Russian dance, an Arab dance, a Chinese dance, flower waltz, and other fascinating, whirling, delightful dances.
Many of Tchaikovsky’s things not called tone poems have very definite programs, such as The Snow Maiden (Snegovrotchka) a favorite legend and music to a fairy tale—the parts are named Chorus of Blind Gusslee Players, Monologue of the Frosts, Appearance of the Wood Demons and so on.
Sergei Rachmaninov
Boecklin’s painting Isle of Death, inspired Sergei Rachmaninov (1873) to write a most beautiful musical poem about its sombre trees and the sea. As a distinguished pianist he has glorified the art in all countries, especially in America. He was a student of Siloti and of Zvierev, a friend of Tchaikovsky. His masters in harmony and theory were Taneiev and Arensky. He has held musical posts of honor and has written remarkable piano concertos, chamber music works, choruses and one opera, Aleko. You probably know his much played C minor Prelude which has been a sort of visiting card of Rachmaninov to the public.
Richard Strauss, the Proteus of Music
In the list of tone poets, Richard Strauss (1864), or Richard II is one of the most important. It is strange that he should have the same name as Wagner, for his father Franz Strauss, a skilled horn player, disliked Wagner and his compositions intensely. Richard’s mother was the daughter of a brewer and they all lived in Munich, where the son was born.
When he was a little boy, he wrote musical notes before he could write the alphabet, and at six, composed little pieces. By the time he was twenty he had written compositions which put him with Schubert and Mozart, in the ranks of musical prodigies.
Until his sixteenth work Aus Italien (From Italy) (1886), his first tone poem, he did not depart from the classic forms, although there were a few signs of change in style in a violin sonata which he wrote just before the tone poem. In fact, he was so much against Wagner and his innovations, that no one could have guessed that later he himself would be considered an innovator and would be accused of imitating Wagner.