Symphonic poem temporary stop to the debate as to whether the genre was dead. Nevertheless, composers began to explore the "more compact form" of the concert overture "...as a vehicle within which to blend musical, narrative and pictoral ideas." Examples included Mendelssohn's overtures "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1826) and "The Hebrides" (1830). Between 1845 and 1847, the Belgian composer César Franck wrote an orchestral piece based on Victor Hugo's poem "Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne". The work exhibits characteristics of a symphonic poem, and some musicologists, such as Norman Demuth and Julien Tiersot, consider it the first of its genre, preceding
Helios Overture Helios Overture Carl Nielsen's Helios Overture, Opus 17, is a concert overture which was first performed by the Royal Danish Orchestra, conducted by Johan Svendsen, on 8 October 1903 in the large hall of the Odd Fellows Mansion in Copenhagen. Besides his well-known six symphonies, the Danish composer Carl Nielsen wrote many short orchestral works, one of the most famous being the "Helios Overture". In 1902, Nielsen signed a contract with the publisher Wilhelm Hansen, which allowed him to go to Athens, Greece, to join his wife Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, who was one of the first sculptors allowed to make