Impressionism in music
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (December 2019) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
Major eras of Western classical music | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Early music | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
Common practice period | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
Neue Musik | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
Impressionism in music was a movement among various composers in Western classical music (mainly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries) whose music focuses on mood and atmosphere, "conveying the moods and emotions aroused by the subject rather than a detailed tone‐picture".[1] "Impressionism" is a philosophical and aesthetic term borrowed from late 19th-century French painting after Monet's Impression, Sunrise. Composers were labeled Impressionists by analogy to the Impressionist painters who use starkly contrasting colors, effect of light on an object, blurry foreground and background, flattening perspective, etc. to make the observer focus their attention on the overall impression.[2]
The most prominent feature in musical Impressionism is the use of "color", or in musical terms, timbre, which can be achieved through orchestration, harmonic usage, texture, etc.[3] Other elements of musical Impressionism also involve new chord combinations, ambiguous tonality, extended harmonies, use of modes and exotic scales, parallel motion, extra-musicality, and evocative titles such as “Reflets dans l'eau” (“Reflections on the water”), “Brouillards” (“Mists”), etc.[2]
History
Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are two leading figures in Impressionism, though Debussy rejected this label (in a 1908 letter he wrote "imbeciles call [what I am trying to write in Images] 'impressionism', a term employed with the utmost inaccuracy, especially by art critics who use it as a label to stick on Turner, the finest creator of mystery in the whole of art!") and Ravel displayed discomfort with it, at one point claiming that it could not be adequately applied to music at all.[4][5] Debussy's Impressionist works typically "evoke a mood, feeling, atmosphere, or scene" by creating musical images through characteristic motifs, harmony, exotic scales (e.g., whole-tone and pentatonic scales), instrumental timbre, large unresolved chords (e.g., 9ths, 11ths, 13ths), parallel motion, ambiguous tonality, extreme chromaticism, heavy use of the piano pedals, and other elements.[2] “The perception of Debussy’s compositional language as decidedly post-romantic/Impressionistic—nuanced, understated, and subtle—is firmly solidified among today’s musicians and well-informed audiences."[6] Some Impressionist composers, Debussy and Ravel in particular, are also labeled as symbolist composers. One trait shared with both aesthetic trends is "a sense of detached observation: rather than expressing deeply felt emotion or telling a story"; as in symbolist poetry, the normal syntax is usually disrupted and individual images that carry the work's meaning are evoked.[2]
In 1912, the French composer Ernest Fanelli (1860–1917) received significant attention and coverage in the Parisian press following a performance of a symphonic poem he wrote in 1886, titled Thèbes,[7] incorporating elements associated with Impressionism, such as extended chords and whole-tone scales.[8] Ravel was unimpressed by Fanelli's novelties, maintaining that these were already utilized by past composers such as Franz Liszt.[9]: 36 He also opined that Fanelli's Impressionism stemmed from Hector Berlioz rather than Liszt or Russian composers.[10]
Other composers linked to Impressionism include
Characteristics
One of the most important tools of musical Impressionism was the tensionless harmony. The
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-19-861459-3.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-393-93280-5. [page needed]
- ^ Nolan Gasser, "Impressionism". Classical Archives. Accessed 9 November 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-486-43078-2.
- ISBN 978-0-674-19429-8
- S2CID 239438810.
- JSTOR 905497.
- ^ Adriano (2002). Anderson, Keith (ed.). "Fanelli: Symphonic Pictures – Bourgault-Duboudray: Rhapsodie cambodgienne | About this recording" (CD booklet). London: Marco Polo – via naxos.com.
- ISBN 978-0-521-64856-1.
- ISBN 978-0-486-43078-2.
- ^ [1] By Sylvia Typaldos, Nocturne for violin (or flute) & piano
- ^ [2] By Sylvia Typaldos, Pie Jesu for mezzo-soprano, string quartet, harp & organ
- ^ Ivar Henning Mankell and Blair FairchildImpressionism, in Music", The Columbia Encyclopedia, sixth edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) (Archive copy from 3 April 2009, accessed 25 December 2012).
- ^ ISBN 978-1-135-92946-6.
- ^ Christopher Palmer, Impressionism in Music (London: Hutchinson; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973): 208.
- ^ "Musikalischer Impressionismus in Musik | Schülerlexikon | Lernhelfer". www.lernhelfer.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-06-12.
Further reading
- Fulcher, Jane. Debussy and His World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN 978-0-691-09042-9.
- Machlis, Joseph, and Kristine Forney. The Enjoyment of Music, seventh edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995. ISBN 0-393-96643-7.
- Pasler, Jann. "Impressionism". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001.
- Thompson, Oscar. Debussy, Man and Artist. New York: Dodd, Mead & company, 1937.