Book on composing long form?

[u/NomadJago]

Any recommendations of books or other resources for learning to compose long form music? (symphonic poem, etc)

[u/65TwinReverbRI]

The answer here is to study the actual music.

And, study it in the way that the composers who wrote these long forms did - with a formal education in music and composition.

Reading a book isn't really going to be all that much help...look to the music, see what they did, and how they handled it.

Longer forms really just tend to be "compound" short forms. And sometimes the sections are made continuous through segues, transitional material, episodic material, and so on.

[u/SubjectAddress5180]

The sticky notes in this r/ and that in the r/musictheory have some recommendations. I'd suggest Schoenberg's "Fundamentals of Music Composition," Goetschius' "The Larger Forms of Musical Composition" (free pdf avaiable) as starters. Goetschius' "Exercises in Melody Writing" is good (free). I'm not as fond of his harmony books as the notation isn't as easy to use (I like Diether de la Motte's approacy, but it's not free.)

Keeping long forms coherent is a problem. Anything with lyrics, opera, masses, musicals, song cycles, etc. are bound through the words. Not so simple to keep instrumentals coherent; dance suites are juxtapositions of short pieces.

Thus with the idea of "tonality" and key-relations as a guide, one gets things like French Overtures with things like slow opening in Key 1, then a second faster part in Key 2, a transition back to Key 1. The usual relations were in major keys Key, Dominant Key (C to G major) and in minor keys, Key, Relative Major (Cm to Eb). This choice of keys is tricky as the keys are often hard to separate. I think they were chosen to show off.

Offshoots later on (See Rosen's books on Sonata Forms, The Classical Style, the Romantic Generation, etc.) used a loose formalism of Sonata Form (outline, all actual sonatas violate the form), Rondo form, and Sonata-Rondo form. Sonata Form uses two themes (like a French Overture) in the keys (I'll use C major and minor for examples) C-G-x-C-C. The x represents a "tour of keys" idea from nothing to a long fantasy. C minor uses c-Eb-x-c-c. Rondos are C-x-C and sonata rondo is C-G-C-x-C-C-C two themes but a repeat of the first theme in place of the development, then a third part, then the first one back in C.

Hepokoski has several books on the subject. One import thing is that these are just skeletons; not molds.

[u/TrickySquad]

William Caplin’s Analysing Classical Form is my go-to for large format music (or any music, for that matter). It covers what Schoenberg theorised and expands on it, so it should give you a comprehensive view of the different elements that go into writing this sort of music, and impart you the ability to analyse existing music effectively.

[u/heavyweather77]

Assuming you already have a strong musical background, Schoenberg's "Fundamentals of Musical Composition" is excellent for exactly this topic. It's my personal favorite book of its type and I found it extremely helpful even though I don't typically work on the "classical" side of things, exactly.

It probably won't do you much good unless you've already studied and played quite a bit of good music, though. The fundamentals gotta be there, as others have said.