Musical Impressionism

French music in which harmony becomes colour and timbre takes over from melody.

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ImpressionistTimbreFluteHarp

Musical impressionism is a French style of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which harmony becomes colour and melody gives way to timbre and light.

Origins and dating

In the 1880s and 1890s Debussy heard Javanese gamelan in Paris and absorbed symbolist poetry and impressionist painting. He wrote Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and the Images; Ravel and Dukas worked nearby in related ways. The main span runs from about 1890 to 1920.

Listening features

Listen to the chords first. Sevenths, ninths and whole-tone scales sit side by side, and functional progressions weaken, so chords become blocks of colour rather than signposts. Melody is assembled from short fragments instead of long lines. Woodwind, harp and muted strings are favoured, with shimmering high registers. Tempo is flexible and pedal blurs the sound. Do not count beats; follow changes of colour.

Figures

Debussy wrote Clair de lune, Reflets dans l'eau and La mer. Ravel wrote Jeux d'eau and Miroirs, and Dukas wrote The Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Lineage

It draws on romantic harmony and Russian orchestration and leads to twentieth-century timbre music, spectralism and film scoring.

Misconceptions

Impressionism is not formless, since Debussy's structures remain clear. Nor is it only hazy, because many passages have sharp rhythms and bright brass.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Impressionism — style definition checked, not quoted
• Paul Griffiths, Modern Music and After, 3rd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2010) — French repertoire and dates checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.