Chapter 27: Impressionism and Exoticism

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Chapter 27 Impressionism and Exoticism
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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

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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

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Impressionism in Music

• Melody Motives rather than long themes use of
  whole-tone, 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

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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

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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

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Préludes for Piano (1910, 1913)

• Debussys 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)
• 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

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Voiles
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Exoticism in Music

• A fascination of the other
• 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
• Scales or harmony
• Folk rhythm
• Musical instruments
• Foreign subject for a program

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The Exotic of Spain Ravels 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