60 Greatest Classical Music Tone Poems

Classical music composers Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Modest Mussorgsky
Criteria: Tone Poems are ranked for their innovation and influence, as well as their aesthetic importance, historical significance and lasting popularity.
(Tone Poem: Orchestral music based on an extra musical idea.)


Last Updated: 2017-10-29
1. Pictures at an Exhibition - Modest Mussorgsky / Maurice Ravel

2. Prelude a L'apres Midi D'un Faune - Claude Debussy

3. Scheherezade - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

4. La Mer - Claude Debussy

5. Till Eulenspiegels - Richard Strauss

6. Finlandia - Jean Sibelius

7. Midsummer Night's Dream Incidental Music - Felix Mendelssohn

8. Les Preludes - Franz Liszt

9. Also Sprach Zarathustra - Richard Strauss

10. American in Paris - George Gershwin

11. Night on Bald Mountain - Modest Mussorgsky

12. The Moldau (from Ma Vlast) - Bedrick Smetana

13. Carnival of the Animals - Camille Saint-Saëns

14. Ein Heldenleben - Richard Strauss

15. Sinfonietta - Leos Janácek

16. Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 - Edvard Grieg

17. The Planets - Gustav Holst

18. Don Juan - Richard Strauss

19. La Valse - Maurice Ravel

20. Siegfried Idyll - Richard Wagner

21. The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Paul Dukas

22. Peter & the Wolf - Serge Prokofiev

23. Nocturnes - Claude Debussy

24. Death and Transfiguration - Richard Strauss

25. Swan of Tuonela - Jean Sibelius

26. The Pines of Rome - Ottorino Respighi

27. Fountains of Rome - Ottorino Respighi

28. Lieutenant Kije Suite - Serge Prokofiev

29. Don Quixote - Richard Strauss

30. El Salon Mexico - Aaron Copland

31. The Lark Ascending - Ralph Vaughan Williams

32. Iberia (from Images) - Claude Debussy

33. Three Places in New England - Charles Ives

34. Danse Macabre - Camille Saint-Saëns

35. L'Arlesienne Suites - Georges Bizet

36. Tapiola - Jean Sibelius

37. On Hearing the 1st Cuckoo in Spring - Frederick Delius

38. Isle of the Dead - Sergei Rachmaninoff

39. The Unanswered Question - Charles Ives

40. Pelleas et Melisande Suite - Gabriel Faure

41. In the Steppes of Central Asia - Alexander Borodin

42. Francesca da Rimini - Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

43. In a Summer Garden - Frederick Delius

44. Taras Bulba - Leos Janacek

45. Rosamunde Incidental Music - Franz Schubert

46. Pacific 231 - Arthur Honegger

47. En Saga - Jean Sibelius

48. Tasso - Franz Liszt

49. Ein Alpine Sinfonie - Richard Strauss

50. Roman Festivals - Ottorino Respighi

51. From Bohemia's Woods and Fields (from Ma Vlast) - Bedrick Smetana

52. Summer Night on a River - Frederick Delius

53. Les Eolides - Cesar Franck

54. The Comedians - Dmitri Kabalevsky

55. Mazeppa - Franz Liszt

56. Karelia Suite - Jean Sibelius

57. Falstaff - Edward Elgar

58. Tintagel - Arnold Bax

59. Divertissement - Jacques Ibert

60. Chasseur Maudit - Cesar Franck








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