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 poems (Liszt) prelude to Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera "Orfeo ed Euridice". Likewise, "Hamlet" started out in 1858 as a prelude to the Shakespearean tragedy. Liszt first used the term "Sinfonische Dichtung" (symphonic poem) in public at a concert in Weimar on April 19, 1854 to describe "Tasso". Five days later, he used the term "poèmes symphoniques" in a letter to Hans von Bülow to describe "Les preludes" and "Orpheus". Particularly striking in his symphonic poems is Liszt's approach to musical form. As purely musical structures, they do not follow a strict presentation and development of musical themes as they would under sonata