Both the term symphonic poem and the form itself were invented by Franz Liszt, who in works such as Les Préludes (1848; after Alphonse de Lamartine’s Méditations poétiques) used thematic transformation to parallel the poetic emotions. That’s true again with Byron (Tasso, lamento e trionfo), Schiller (Die Ideale) and Victor Hugo (Mazeppa). A winning quartet!