An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64, is a tone poem for large orchestra written by German composer Richard Strauss in 1915. It is one of Strauss's largest non-operatic works; the score calls for about 125 players and a typical performance usually lasts around 50 minutes. The program of An Alpine Symphony depicts the experiences of eleven hours spent climbing an Alpine mountain.
The Heimgarten in Southern Bavaria, where Strauss drew inspiration for the composition.
A modern wind machine, an instrument that is used to create storm effects
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term Tondichtung appears to have been first used by the composer Carl Loewe in 1828. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt first applied the term Symphonische Dichtung to his 13 works in this vein, which commenced in 1848.
Vyšehrad over the Vltava River, evoked musically in the first poem of Smetana's Má vlast.
Hans Baldung Grien, Witches, woodcut, 1508. Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain was meant to evoke a witches' sabbath.
Michael Wolgemut, The Dance of Death (1493) from the Liber chronicarum by Hartmann Schedel, evoked musically in Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre.
Honoré Daumier, Painting of Don Quixote, c. 1855–1865