Symphonic Poem - Other Countries and Decline

Other Countries and Decline

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 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 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.

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 Grofe and George Gershwin in the United States; Carl Nielsen in Denmark; 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.