Impressionist music

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The Impressionist movement in music is a movement in European classical music loosely set between the late nineteenth century, up to the middle of the twentieth century. Like its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focused on mood and atmosphere rather than strong emotion or the story in program music. Musical impressionism occurred as a reaction to the excesses of the Romantic era. While the Romantic era was characterized by a dramatic use of the major and minor scale system, Impressionist music tends to make more use of dissonance and more uncommon scales such as the whole tone scale. Romantic composers also used long forms of music such as the symphony and concerto, while Impressionist composers favored short forms such as the nocturne, arabesque, and prelude.

Musical impressionism was based in France, and the French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are generally considered to be the two "great" impressionists. However, composers are generally not as accurately described by the term "impressionism" as painters in the genre are. Debussy renounced it, saying "I am trying to do 'something different'- in a way realities- what the imbeciles call `impressionism' is a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by art critics."<ref name="tsai">Tsai, Shengdar [1]. URL accessed 22 July 2006.</ref> Maurice Ravel composed many other pieces that aren't identified as impressionist. Nonetheless, the term is widely used today to describe classical music seen as a reaction to 19th century Romanticism.

See also: List of impressionistic pieces

[edit] Impressionist musical style

Philosophically, impressionistic pieces such as Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune did not seek to express a feeling or tell a story, but to evoke a mood or an atmosphere.<ref name="moss">Moss, Charles K. [2]. URL accessed 26 July 2006.</ref> Impressionist composers accomplished this through extensive use of whole tone scales, which created a dreamy, "hazy" effect in their works, much like the blurred paintings of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet. The use of whole tone scales and the overall embrace of dissonance resulted in more subtle harmonic relationships. They deliberately abandoned the major-minor scales which had been in use since the seventeenth century.<ref name="machlis">Machlis, Joseph and Forney, Kristine. The Enjoyment of Music: Seventh Edition, W.W. Norton & Company, 1995, ISBN 0-393-96643-7</ref>

Technically, the impressionists invented or began using a great number of new compositional techniques: bitonality, planing (the use of voices moving in parallel motion; Debussy's prelude La cathédrale engloutie provides an example), extended tertian harmonies, and intentionally ambiguous musical forms.

Also, a sharp focus on tone color led to many new possibilities. Mirroring the impressionist style of painting, images, themes are blended seamlessly so that the transitions are as fluid and undetectable as possible. The use of "instrumental color" has been likened to the theories on pointillist technique in painting.<ref name="tsai">Tsai, Shengdar [3]. URL accessed 22 July 2006.</ref>

[edit] Impressionist composers

Besides the two "great" impressionist composers, Frenchmen Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, other impressionists include Karol Szymanowski (Polish), Charles Griffes (American), Paul Dukas (French), and Ralph Vaughan Williams (English). Impressionism also influenced the music of Manuel de Falla (Spanish), Frederick Delius (English), Isaac Albéniz (Spanish), and Ottorino Respighi (Italian).<ref name="Columbia">The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition [4]. URL accessed 22 July 2006.</ref>, as well as jazz musicians such as Bill Evans.