How to Use tone poem in a Sentence

tone poem

noun
  • The tone poem is one of those forms that can be fudged and smudged a bit.
    — Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post, 6 Nov. 2022
  • Some of the emails read like absurdist tone poems.
    — Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 14 Nov. 2025
  • The show can at times feel like a tone poem, at others a family drama.
    — Taylor Antrim, Vogue, 31 Jan. 2025
  • This kind of visual tone poem approach was something that was used quite a lot for multiple 80s anime.
    — Ollie Barder, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Sibelius’ tone poem evokes a legend from the Finnish national epic The Kalevala.
    — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 28 Apr. 2023
  • Based on a ballad by Goethe, the tone poem tells the story of a budding magician who bewitches a broom to do his chores.
    — Jessica Rudman, courant.com, 7 Dec. 2019
  • There’s dialogue here and there, but the whole thing is essentially a tone poem, working to put us inside our hero’s head even more than usual.
    — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 27 June 2024
  • The result is something that’s akin to a visual tone poem, backed up by a musical score by Joe Hisaishi.
    — Ollie Barder, Forbes.com, 4 Aug. 2025
  • German composer Richard Strauss wrote this tone poem in 1896.
    — Doreen Christensen, sun-sentinel.com, 11 June 2019
  • But what could have been written off as juvenilia took on new life as a tone poem and gave us one of the greatest English horn solos in the repertoire.
    — Hannah Edgar, Chicago Tribune, 17 Feb. 2023
  • It's widely considered one of his greatest compositions, sometimes described as a tone poem.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 14 Oct. 2022
  • The best conductors of Strauss’s tone poems revel in the quieter stuff, rather than seeming to just wait impatiently for the next blaring climax.
    — Zachary Woolfe, New York Times, 9 Jan. 2025
  • This was a contemporary tone poem in which acoustic and electronic sounds intermingled, Yeh somehow riding herd on it all.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 8 Oct. 2019
  • The latter was the first in a string of movies in which Murray's wry sadness has been a perfect fit for Anderson's precise, idiosyncratic comic tone poems.
    — Julie Hinds, Detroit Free Press, 14 Apr. 2018
  • Rather, the film is a mood piece, a moment in time with Umar, and a tone poem, underscored by a few recording sessions of Umar performing his spoken word poetry.
    — Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times, 3 Oct. 2019
  • The film is more elegiac tone poem than structured narrative, echoing Maria's dreamlike trance induced by her abuse of medication and nostalgia for her glory days.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 3 Sep. 2024
  • In the process, Tarr essayed an arresting tone poem about spiritual isolation that enraptured viewers.
    — Tim Grierson, Rolling Stone, 6 Jan. 2026
  • In time, the students wove their material into something that resembles the theatrical equivalent of an orchestral tone poem.
    — David Lyman, Cincinnati.com, 5 July 2018
  • Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben is a tour de force for the orchestra — an enormous Romantic tone poem with rich texture and amazing writing for strings, winds and brass.
    — Beth Wood, sandiegouniontribune.com, 29 Sep. 2017
  • From exquisitely delicate passages to the unbridled roar of the storm, the tone poem was delivered with polish, control, and tremendous musical momentum.
    — Elaine Schmidt, Journal Sentinel, 1 Oct. 2022
  • This 45-minute orchestral tone poem, a series of cresting waves and immersive water imagery, caught hold of listeners’ imaginations as few pieces have, and has refused to let go.
    — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Mar. 2018
  • Salonen brought out the unabashed eroticism and sensuality of the Richard Dehmel poem that inspired Schoenberg’s tone poem.
    — John Von Rhein, chicagotribune.com, 25 May 2018
  • This is less a traditional documentary than a collection of non-narrative tone poems, which abstract the spirit of the games rather than charting any individual story.
    — Tribune News Service, The Mercury News, 24 July 2024
  • Garland’s properly alarming and exquisitely designed film is as close as American mainstream cinema is likely to get to an experimental tone poem.
    — Declan Gallagher, EW.com, 8 Sep. 2024
  • Garland’s properly alarming and exquisitely designed film is as close as American mainstream cinema is likely to get to an experimental tone poem.
    — Declan Gallagher, Entertainment Weekly, 11 Apr. 2026
  • At this juncture in his career — with the early, literary tone poems behind him and the shift to a full focus on opera just getting under way — his ability to deploy instrumental resources for pictorial ends is at a high point.
    — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 13 Apr. 2018
  • The dark spinning ride is inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns' 1874 symphonic tone poem—revealing any more details would detract from its ghostly allure.
    — Zachary Laks, Travel + Leisure, 15 May 2026
  • The new dark spinning ride is inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns' 1874 symphonic tone poem, and revealing any more details would detract from the ride’s ghostly allure.
    — Zachary Laks, Travel + Leisure, 17 Oct. 2025
  • Even beyond this design, Strauss’ tone poem provides a startling range of color, from swirling strings passagework to punctuating brass exhortations to shattering climaxes for the entire ensemble.
    — Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 25 Oct. 2019
  • The ceremony included a tone poem about the dehumanization of slavery and a performance by Balla Kouyaté, a balafon player from Mali.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 29 Aug. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tone poem.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: