Medieval c. 500–1400 Baroque Romantic c. 1780–1910 | Renaissance c. 1400–1600 Classical c. 1730–1820 Impressionist c. 1875–1925 | |
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 suggestion and atmosphere, "conveying the moods and emotions aroused by the subject rather than a detailed tone‐picture". "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 to make us focus our attention on the overall impression.
The most prominent in musical impressionism is the use of "color", or in musical term, timbre, which can be achieved through orchestration, harmonic usage, texture, etc. Other elements of music impressionism also involve new chord combinations, ambiguous tonality, extended harmonies, use of modes and exotic scales, parallel motions, extra-musicality, and evocative titles such as Reflets dans l'eau (Reflections on the water, 1905), Brouillards (Mists, 1913) etc.
History
Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are two leading figures in impressionism, though Debussy rejected this label (he mentioned in his letter that "imbeciles call 'impressionism', a term employed with the utmost inaccuracy") and Ravel displayed discomfort with it, at one point claiming that it could not be adequately applied to music at all. 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. 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.
Some of the key forerunners of and influences on the impressionist style include Modest Mussorgsky, Emmanuel Chabrier, Edvard Grieg, Gabriel Fauré, Henri Duparc, and Ernest Chausson. Elements of impressionism can also be traced back to works by Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner.
Ernest Fanelli was claimed to have innovated the style in the early 1880s, though his works were unperformed before 1912. The performance of his works in that year led to claims that he was the father of musical Impressionism. Ravel wrote, "this impressionism is certainly very different from that of present-day composers...Mr. Fanelli's impressionism derives more directly from Berlioz." He added that Fanelli's alleged priority does not in any way diminish the achievements of later composers: "the investigations of the young Fanelli could not have diminished those of his colleagues...It is peculiar that these investigations suddenly assume importance because their embryo is discovered in a work written 30 years ago."
Other composers linked to impressionism include Leoš Janáček, Isaac Albéniz, Frederick Delius, Paul Dukas, Erik Satie, Enrique Granados, Alexander Scriabin, Manuel de Falla, John Alden Carpenter, Joaquín Turina, Ottorino Respighi, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, and Federico Mompou. The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius is also associated with impressionism, and his The Swan of Tuonela (1893) predates Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (regarded as a seminal work of musical impressionism) by a year. The American composer Howard Hanson also borrowed from both Sibelius and impressionism generally in works such as his Second Symphony.
In addition to its enduring influence on the work of later composers in the classical tradition, such as Alan Hovhaness, György Ligeti, and Toru Takemitsu, impressionism has also exerted a notable influence on certain jazz musicians, especially Bix Beiderbecke, Duke Ellington, Claude Thornhill, Dave Brubeck, Gil Evans, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Frank Kimbrough, and others.