Explanation about Impressionism.

1. MUSIC OF THE 20TH
CENTURY

2. Starry Night by Van Gogh

3. Tiger in a Tropical Storm

4. Sunrise by Claude Monet

5. Twentieth Century Music
• The Common Practice Period is now
over.
• Composers (and listeners) must now
find something other than key to
organize their music.
• The “Organization of Sound in Time”

6. Musical style of the
Twentieth Century.
• Harmony - much more dissonant,
now that we have left Common
Practice
• Melody - angular, disjunct, harder
to discern - maybe not primary
importance

7. Musical style of the
Twentieth Century.
• Duration - rhythm is the feature that has
been the most changed by 20th century
music
• Dynamics - volume changes are
sometimes the only constant in the form!
• Timbre - many new sounds are created.
Most notably: traditional instruments used
in non-traditional ways

8. Musical style of the
Twentieth Century.
•Form - very often, the forms in
use during the 20th century
mirror those of earlier times.
However, new forms are also
being created.

9. Impressionism
Claude Monet Impression: Sunrise

10. Impressionism
• French movement
• Started in painting
• An objective, detached snapshot of an
external moment. “Blurry” - no clear lines
• Explored light colors and textures -
especially sunlight over water

11. Impressionism
Musical similarities:
• “Blurry” - no clear lines (line is
melody or meter)
• Explored light colors and textures
- woodwind instruments and
unusual combinations of timbre

12. Impressionism
• Most of the impressionist works
centered on nature and its beauty,
lightness, and brilliance.
• A number of outstanding
impressionists created works on this
subject.

13. MUSICAL GENIUS OF
INDIVIDUAL COMPOSERS

14. Claude Debussy
• August 22, 1862
• Born in St. Germain-en-Laye in France
• Musical talents were channeled in Piano
lessons
• Gained a reputation as an “erratic pianist
and a rebel” in theory and harmony.

15. Claude Debussy
• He changed the course of musical
development by dissolving traditional
rules and conventions into a new
language of possibilities in harmony,
rhythm, form, texture, and color.

16. Claude Debussy
• 1862-1918
• Weakening of tonality by use of parallel
chords and whole-tone scales
• Large orchestra, but not all used at once
• Clair de Lune - piano. Non metric
• He won the top prize at the Prix de Rome
competition with his composition L’
Enfant Prodigue (The Prodigal Son)

17. WORKS AND
COMPOSITIONS
• Ariettes Oubliees
• Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
• String Quartet
• Pelleas et Melisande – his famous operatic work
• La Mer – a highly imaginative and atmospheric
symphonic work--about the sea
• Images, Suite Bergamasque, and Estampes – his
most popular piano compositions

18. ALEKSEI GOROKHOV - Debussy The Prodigal Son

19. Suite Bergamasque - Passepied

20. Maurice Ravel
• Born in Ciboure, France to a Basque
mother and a Swiss father
• His compositional style is mainly
characterized by its unique innovative
but not atonal style of harmonic
treatment.

21. Maurice Ravel
• Harmonic progressions and modulations –
pleasantly dissonant and elegantly sophisticated
• His works used extensively of a programmatic
nature
• Many works deal with water flowing or stormy
moods, as well as with human characterizations.

22. Maurice Ravel
• Ravel was a perfectionist and every bit a
musical craftsman.
• A strong advocate of Russian music, he
also admired the music of Chopin, Liszt,
Schubert, and Mendelssohn. He died in
Paris in 1937.

23. WORKS AND
COMPOSITIONS
• Pavane for a Dead Princess (1899), a slow but lyrical
requiem
• Jeux d’Eau or Water Fountains (1901)
• String Quartet (1903)
• Sonatine for Piano (c.1904)
• Miroirs (Mirrors), 1905, a work for piano known for its
harmonic evolution and imagination

24. Ravel - Jeux d'eau

25. WORKS AND
COMPOSITIONS
• Gaspard de la Nuit (1908), a set of demonic-inspired
pieces based on the poems of Aloysius Bertrand which is
arguably the most difficult piece in the piano repertoire.
• Valses Nobles et Sentimentales (1911)
• Le Tombeau de Couperin (c.1917), a commemoration of
the musical advocacies of the early 18th century French
composer Francois Couperin,
• Rhapsodie Espagnole
• Bolero

26. Le tombeau de Couperin, for orchestra

27. André Rieu - Bolero

28. WORKS AND
COMPOSITIONS
• Daphnis et Chloe (1912), a ballet commissioned by master
choreographer Sergei Diaghilev that contained rhythmic diversity,
evocation of nature, and choral ensemble
• La Valse (1920), a waltz with a frightening undertone that had been
composed for ballet and arranged as well as for solo and duo piano.
• The two piano concerti composed in 1929 as well as the violin
virtuosic piece
• Tzigane (1922) total the relatively meager compositional output of
Ravel, approximating 60 pieces for piano, chamber music, song
cycles, ballet, and opera.

29. COMPARATIVE STYLES OF DEBUSSY AND RAVEL
• As the two major exponents of French Impressionism in
music, Debussy and Ravel had crossed paths during their
lifetime although Debussy was thirteen years older than
Ravel.
• While their musical works sound quite similar in terms of
their harmonic and textural characteristics, the two differed
greatly in their personalities and approach to music.
• Whereas Debussy was more spontaneous and liberal in form,
Ravel was very attentive to the classical norms of musical
structure and the compositional craftsmanship.
• Whereas Debussy was more casual in his portrayal of visual
imagery, Ravel was more formal and exacting in the
development of his motive ideas.