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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'sImpression, 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]
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]
One of the most important tools of musical Impressionism was the tensionless harmony. The dissonance of chords was not resolved, but was used as timbre. These chords were often shifted parallel. In the melodic field the whole tone scale, the pentatonic and church tonal turns were used. The melodics were characterized by their circular melodic movements. The timbre became the stylistic device of Impressionism instead of concise themes or other traditional forms.[16][better source needed]
^Michael Kennedy, "Impressionism", The Oxford Dictionary of Music, second edition, revised, Joyce Bourne, associate editor (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). ISBN978-0-19-861459-3.
^Maurice Ravel, A Ravel Reader: Correspondence, Articles, Interviews, compiled and edited by Arbie Orenstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990): p. 421. ISBN978-0-231-04962-7. Unaltered paperback reprint (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2003), ISBN978-0-486-43078-2.
^Orledge, Robert (2000). "Evocations of exoticism". In Mawer, Deborah (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Ravel. Cambridge Companions to Music. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 27–46. ISBN978-0-521-64856-1.
^Ravel, Maurice (2003). Orenstein, Arbie (ed.). A Ravel Reader: Correspondence, Articles, Interviews. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. pp. 349–350. ISBN978-0-486-43078-2.
^[1] By Sylvia Typaldos, Nocturne for violin (or flute) & piano
^[2] By Sylvia Typaldos, Pie Jesu for mezzo-soprano, string quartet, harp & organ
^ abcdRichard Trombley, "Impressionism in Music", Encyclopedia of Music in the 20th Century, edited by Lol Henderson and Lee Stacey (London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999). ISBN978-1-57958-079-7; ISBN978-1-135-92946-6.
^Christopher Palmer, Impressionism in Music (London: Hutchinson; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973): 208.