Stories of Symphonic Music

Stories of Symphonic Music - A Guide to the Meaning of Important Symphonies, Overtures, and Tone-poems from Beethoven to the Present Day

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 soto 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 [xii] 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 Csar," 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] ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 57063
Author: Gilman, Lawrence
Release Date: Apr 28, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English