What is Symphonic poem?
A '''symphonic poem''' or '''tone poem''' is a piece of [[orchestra]]l [[music]] which has a story attached to it or describes something such as [[poem]] or a [[painting]] or any idea which is not music. A symphonic poem is a kind of [[programme music]] (music for instruments which has an idea outside music). Symphonic poems were mostly written in the [[19th century]] at the time known as the [[Romantic music|Romantic period]]. They are normally in one [[movement]] lasting perhaps between 10 and 20 minutes. Some of the longest ones, such as ''Ein Heldenleben'' by [[Richard Strauss]] are much longer, like a [[symphony]] with four movements which run into one another. The idea can be seen in [[Beethoven|Beethoven’s]] [[overture]]s which tell the story of the [[opera]] or [[Play (theatre)|play]] which is about to be performed. Composers such as [[Felix Mendelssohn]] then started to write overtures which told a story but were not attached to any opera. ''[[Fingal's Cave (Mendelssohn)|Fingal's Cave]]'' ([[1832]]) describes the [[sea]] lapping against the rocks of a [[cave]] in the Scottish [[Hebrides]]. [[Franz Liszt]] was the composer who made the symphonic poem an important musical form. He wrote twelve works which he called ''Symphonische Dichtung'' (''Symphonic poem'') because the music developed in the same way as in a [[symphony]]. One example is ''Mazeppa'' ([[1851]]) which describes the poem by [[Victor Hugo]] about a wild [[horse]] that carries a man tied to him until he is rescued by the [[Ukraine|Ukrainians]] and made into their chief. Other composers who wrote symphonic poems include [[Sergei Rachmaninoff]], [[Modest Mussorgsky]], [[Camille Saint-Saëns]], [[Claude Debussy]], [[Jean Sibelius]], [[Bedřich Smetana]], [[Antonín Dvořák]], [[Pyotr Tchaikovsky]] and [[César Franck]]. The opening of [[Richard Strauss|Richard Strauss’s]] tone poem ''Also sprach Zarathustra'' ([[1895]]-[[1896]]) has become particularly famous in recent years through its use in the [[movie]] ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]