Transcript Chapter 15: European Impressionism and Modernism

Chapter 27:
Impressionism and Exoticism
Modernism: An Anti-Romantic Movement
• Turning away from the predominantly idealistic,
sentimental aesthetics of Romanticism
– Partially due to the upheaval of the Franco-Prussian War
and WWI
• Developments in the arts mirrored the unsettled times
• Move away from conventional musical expression
Impressionism
• Impressionism: late 19th-century movement that sought
to re-create the impression of a single, fleeting moment;
began in France and centered around Paris
• Began in the visual artists:
– Claude Monet (1840-1926)
– Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
– Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
• Artistic style:
– Against representational art
– Importance of light
– Spots of color create movement and fluidity
Impressionism in Music
• Melody: Motives rather than long themes; use of wholetone, pentatonic, and chromatic scales to obscure tonic
• Harmony: Static harmony instead of strong cadences; use
of 7th and 9th chords; parallel motion
• Rhythm: Free, flexible rhythms with irregular accents
• Color: emphasis on woodwinds and brass; “new “colors”
• Texture: Varies from thin and airy to heavy and dense;
• Form: Adapted to the particular composition; avoidance
of traditional forms
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
• Career spent in Paris
• Studied piano, composition, and music theory at the Paris
Conservatory
• Travelled to Italy, Russia, and Vienna thanks to his patron
Nadezhda von Meck
• Won the Prix de Rome in 1884
Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun (1894)
• Written to precede a stage reading of the poem The
Afternoon of a Faun by Stéphane Mallarmé
– Symbolist poetry
• Dream-like mood, vague and elusive
• Use of distinctive orchestral colors, especially
woodwinds
• Tonal impressions swirl, dissolve, and form again
• No repeating rhythms or clear-cut meters
• Languid beauty
Préludes for Piano (1910, 1913)
• Debussy’s last and most far-reaching attempt at
evocative writing in music
• Challenge to create musical impressions without the use
of the colorful orchestra
• Voiles (Sails) from the first book of Préludes (1910)
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Depiction of the sea
Fluid descent in mostly parallel motion
Hazy, languid atmosphere
Use of the whole-tone scale and the pentatonic scale
Use of ostinato
Voiles
Exoticism in Music
• A fascination of the “other”
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Classical composers imitated Turkish bands
Spain: Bizet, Debussy, Ravel
African art may have influenced Cubism
The Far East was particularly intriguing
• Any sounds drawn from non-Western music
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Scales or harmony
Folk rhythm
Musical instruments
Foreign subject for a program
The Exotic of Spain: Ravel’s Bolero (1928)
• Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Bolero (1828)
– Bolero: A sultry Spanish dance in a slow tempo and triple
meter
– Repetitive, hypnotic music, moving inexorably towards a
frenzied climax
– A single melody
– Instrumental color and gradual crescendo create a
spellbinding atmosphere