Symphonic poem Borodin's "In the Steppes of Central Asia" "powerful orchestral pictures, each unique in its composer's output". Titled a "musical portrait", "In the Steppes of Central Asia" evokes the journey of a caravan across the steppes. "Night on Bald Mountain", especially its original version, contains harmony that is often striking, sometimes pungent and highly abrasive; its initial stretches especially pull the listener into a world of uncompromisingly brutal directness and energy. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote only two orchestral works that rank as symphonic poems, his "musical tableau" "Sadko" (1867–92) and "Skazka" ("Legend", 1879–80), originally titled "Baba-Yaga". While this may perhaps be surprising,
Symphonic poem with nationalism, it still had a well-established tradition of narrative and illustrative music reaching back to Berlioz and Félicien David. For this reason, French composers were attracted to the poetic elements of the symphonic poem. In fact, César Franck had written an orchestral piece based on Hugo's poem "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne" before Liszt did so himself as his first numbered symphonic poem. The symphonic poem came into vogue in France in the 1870s, supported by the newly founded Société Nationale and its promotion of younger French composers. In the year after its foundation, 1872, Camille Saint-Saëns composed