At the beginning of the twentieth century, the world got acquainted with a whole pleiad of eminent scientists and artists; politics and musicians. Greater was the impression of mankind when new genres and streams began emerging in the spheres of painting, music, and other arts. Some of the most eminent in music and art are Impressionism and Primitivism. That is why this paper is dedicated to explore and discuss the cultural background of that time with definite instances of works made by outstanding artists.
First, it is necessary to point out the notion and historical framework about the emergence of Impressionism. As it is concerned, “Impressionism (French Impressionnisme) a major movement, first in painting and later in music, that developed chiefly in France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” (From Romanticism to Modernism 19) The most famous representatives in painting were, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir. Of course, the movement was not so popular and significant without works of Paul Cézanne, the artist who became famous in spite of his contemporaries while alive. On the assumption of the movement name, it is easy to realize and, moreover, imagine the intentions which the artists urged to deliver to the sight of an ordinary spectator.
Later appearance of this movement in the music collapsed people’s minds with energetic and solemn motives in expressing the wide range of emotional shapes. “Musical Impressionism is often thought to refer to subtle fragility, amorphous passivity, and vague mood music.” (From Romanticism to Modernism 25) Such peculiarities of the Music Impressionism were supported by the social, societal, political, and at least cultural interchange taking into account and considering all pros and cons of the philosophies and social trends which impacted on the elaboration of styles and streams in music.
A more accurate characterization of Impressionist music would include restraint and understatement, a static quality, and a provocatively colourful effect resulting from composers’ fascination with pure sound as a beautiful and mysterious end in itself. Technically, these characteristics often result from a static use of harmony, ambiguous tonality, a lack of sharp formal contrasts and of onward rhythmic drive, and a blurring of the distinction between melody and accompaniment. (From Romanticism to Modernism 25)
Here one cannot but mention the influence of Romanticism with all the details this epoch of culture included. Nevertheless, the music improvisations as music itself always and perpetually emphasized the aesthetic side of a man’s thinking creating new ideas of its implementation for musicians. The way of influence was stronger on the society from the side of music, but not the society dictated the norms and trends of musical reality in each epoch.
Music is an important tool to stimulate people providing the clear aims of their further steps on the way to success, for example, or just giving the opportunity to create the tempo, rhythm, timbre, and other additional peculiarities. Such attempts, for instance, were described during the Revolution in France at the end of the eighteenth century. “Marseillaise” was generating people to stand for their rights, and still it is the national anthem of the country aimed even nowadays at gathering people for the idea of freedom. In other words, music in the best way possible underlines the inner intentional state of people’s souls with some attitudes to the various significant shapes of them.
There is no doubt that such attempts to outline the current feelings in masses of people mathes only creative people able to fancy and come true all the pictures made by the imagination. The predecessors of Impressionist musicians, especially in France, were encouraged to maintain their creativity as a mandatory requirement. So the field of multiple ideas as for the expression of music in a new way was grave enough to start searching new motives grown then into Impressionism.
The revolutionary leaders took music seriously – they realised it is a very useful tool for changing the way people think and feel. In 1795 a school was set up to train bands for the new army, the National Guard. A new law was passed forcing audiences to sing republican hymns in theatres before operas were performed. Composers were encouraged to write revolutionary songs – and between 1789 and 1800 more than 1300 were written. (The French Revolution and Music 2)
Romanticism, as it is seen from the historical background, presents a complex of dominating previous trends in culture and music in particular. Reminding the most fascinating musicians in this period of cultural and historical flow one cannot but point out German composer Richard Wagner who was compared by one critic describing his talent width through the formula “Shakespeare + Beethoven = Wagner” (German Romantic Opera) Many others were striving to forestall the further steps of music evolution.
In another country rich in briliant talents, meaning Italy, the common flow of musical development was based on the previous works of baroque movement and current realistic manner to depict characters in literature. Vicenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti are one of the representatives of colourful and trendy at the moment and nowadays manner of Italian execution. The list of Italian fascinating and marvelous musicians will be not full unless admitting the works of Giuseppe Verdi. His works bear in mind sudden drops of thoughts and states of soul tending to erect the listener’s view on the theme of his own replacement in the sphere of musical reality.
This approach helps people listening to Verdi’s music become more humane and acute. Though, the main features of his style are as following: daring harmonic effects; “reminiscence motives”; distinctive themes or motives that recur at crucial points in the opera; common technique among other composers used in Rigoletto, La Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschera, and other operas. (Nineteenth-century Italian Opera 14)
These and many other musicians provided the cultural and theoretical framework for the new ones to create music with shades of new feelings, pictures, and influences. Here the throughout accepted idea of positive thinking propping up against Positivism which emerged out of many inventions made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Realism as the current movement in literature only emphasized the formation of Impressionism in Europe and abroad. Light and color were used as the main pointers of describing the suggestions of the reality. Along with the current movements appeared the style of Primitivism represented by Igor Stravinsky and his outstanding work “Petrushka”.
The point is that in his music, there is a distinct feature of mathematical “irregular accents” – a tendency which is appropriate for the beginning of the twentieth century in terms of some parallels with the current tradition of modernists in literature to appeal to the previously restricted issues. (Stravinsky 7) One of the methods which is somehow paralleled with Stravinsky’s music is the stream-of-consciousness technique.
Impressionism in music drew to a head main;ly in France due to the efforts of the most popular, favourite, outstanding musician to have been thought “the principal Impressionist.” (From Romanticism to Modernism 27) It is, without any doubt, Claude Debussy. This author stood at the very beginning of Impressionism creation in music and felt his mission in contradicting dynamic and emotional manner of romantic music. One of his opponents in this case was Wagner, whose manner of execution provoked Debussy to create his marvelous works but in the flow of Impressionism. Notwithstanding, Debussy’s music is also full of mathematical approach when imitating in his works mood and color.
Debussy was perpetually lack of original technique and found no one appropriate to his way of composing except Franz Liszt’ one. This was the core point which Claude Debussy took as the main tool for his creative work. Then he will definitely write: “I am sure the Institute would not approve, for, naturally it regards the path which it ordains as the only right one. But there is no help for it! I am too enamored of my freedom, too fond of my own ideas.” (Thompson 77) Then many musical critics and observers figured out distinctive features in the realization and implementation of Debussy’s musical masterpieces.
- Glittering passages and webs of figurations which distract from occasional absence of tonality;
- Frequent use of parallel chords which are “in essence not harmonies at all, but rather ‘chordal melodies’, enriched unisons”;
- Bitonality, or at least bitonal chords;
- Use of the whole-tone and pentatonic scale;
- Unprepared modulations, “without any harmonic bridge.” (Réti 45)
With the help of main motives developed in the art of Impressionist painting, he took the notions of atmosphere and mood embodied in strong feeling realized deep inside of a man’s reasoning.
He used new chord combinations, whole-tone chords, chromaticism, and exotic rhythms and scales. In place of the usual harmonic progression, he developed a style in which chords are valued for their individual sonorities rather than for their relations to one another, and dissonances are unprepared and unresolved. (Palmer 21)
The main merit of this composer touches upon the fact that he did not made any try in order to make parallels with the tools of Impressionist used in painting. He worked out a detailed structure of his music and along with Maurice Ravel is definitely considered to be the bearer of Impressionist frameworks within the historical development of music. Sharp and distinct were the intentions of the composer in depicting various variations in his works.
Furthermore, the characteristics of Debussy’s music are so variable from the first through the last of his compositions that even a general sense of Impressionism might best be restricted to most of his music composed between about 1892 to 1903 and to certain specific later compositions strongly resembling those works in style. (From Romanticism to Modernism 27)
The works of Claude Debussy pretend to separate the worlds of reality and emotions in terms of their major impacts on the consciousness of a man. l’Apres-midi d’un Faun, Pelleas et Mellisande, and La Mer are the most essential works created by him. The symbolic attitudes cross one another in each of the above mentioned works. To my mind, the most powerful and greatest work by Debussy is his La Mer (The Sea), the symphony well-detailed in form and performance.
Here the composer upheld the view that the unique complex of harmony, melody and rhythm can impress the publicity with a story of the author’s life experience embodied in the music. In fact, when in childhood small Claude heard a lot of stories of his father who was a sailor and travelled much. These picturesque stories manipulate Debussy’s imagination. Later he got acquainted with works of William Turner, which rallied his thoughts over the problem of self-expression and self-evaluation of the realities in life. “The three movements are entitled “De l’aube a midi sur la mer” (From dawn to midday at sea), “Jeu de vagues” (Play of the waves), and “Dialogue du vent et de la Mer” (Dialogue of the wind and the sea).” (Impressional Influences)
This way of, on the one hand, logic and, on the other hand, gradual description from the very beginning of one’s looking through the prospect of the symphony puts people into the picture of what will happen next. In accordance with the plot of the symphony, Debussy made some emphasis on his making out of the symphony and the reason which intended him to work in this way. His words to support this idea stated as follows: “But I have an endless store of memories, and to my mind, they are worth more than the reality, whose beauty often deadens thought.” (Impressional Influences)
It is necessary to figure out that the first two parts of the symphony are light and lyrical. They are aimed at depicting the harmony of the sea and the author’s gentle interpretation of the silent and unruffled weather on the sea. The third part accumulates the striving and unrestrained nature of the waves which reminds the ominous intentions while the “dialogue of the wind and sea” takes place. This method is targeted to make some distinct impulses in order to make the audience comprehend the main idea implemented in the aesthetic contemplation of the work with its spontaneous drop of the rhythm and melody. The main “hero of such occasion” was Japanese Impressionist painter Hokusai works of whom inspired Debussy with the beauty of colour and light delivery.
Like most of Debussy’s works, La Mer stirred up great controversy at its onset. Debussy’s was revolutionary in that he took a radical approach to harmony, melody, rhythm, and form. His music had a lyricality, a fluidity which was to transfigure 20th century music. In La Mer, Debussy began the so-called “impressionist” use of harmonies, which according to critic Arnold Schoenberg, “served the colouristic purpose of expressing moods and pictures.” (Impressional Influences)
Nonetheless, it is worth saying that the Debussy’s work is modulated with chords and progressions of a new kind. They are too grave and vivid, so that to grab listener’s attention on the fact that Impressionist music, his particularly, designates the fulfillment of emotions from the unity of elements of the reality. In other words, “La Mer” strives to depict the character of nature through the clear to make outbursts of sounds to describe bursts of the improvising sea with its tremendous and somehow terror urge to demonstrate or even manifest the authority in the world of nature.
Debussy’s extended tonality enabled rapid shifting and movement, while retaining precise musical and technical basis. Rhythm patterns were irregular, giving way to almost free-form measures, losing the feeling of a strict barline. The use of a sharp fourth and flat seventh brought out interesting modulations and fluid changes of key. (Impressional Influences)
Thus, the creative activity of Claude Debussy made him in a class by itself and glorious due to the innovative trends which he widely used throughout the whole period of his art. He made Impressionist music mainly of French origin and making France the country in which the tendency of realizing music shapes along with spatial characteristics and presentation of colours and light. “A more suitable term for Debussy is symbolism as this seemed to be the greatest defining influence on his work. Even better, is the term Debussyism, as Debussy himself embodied all the qualities which are representative of Impressionism in music.” (Impressional Influences)
To sum up, the world of arts creates new ideas every now and then to describe the creative approach towards realizing of world peculiarities. The aim of a definite art is to make people develop by means of so-called “fruits of the mind” made out through the painting, literature or music. Many of the artists and musicians were strived to touch people’s minds and souls in order to impress their imagination with colourful and striking implementation of rhythm, melody, and harmony as well as transfiguring of colours and light.
Impressionism was the movement which replaced romantic features in realization of music and painting. It gave birth to other methods of impact on a man’s consciousness and in music particularly was crowned with creative works of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and other great composers whose works intend to be more humane until present days.
References
From Romanticism to Modernism (2007). Slides of works.
Nineteenth-century Italian Opera (2007). Slides of Works.
German Romantic Opera and Richard Wagner (2006). Slides of works.
The French Revolution and Music (2009) HUM 204 Major Works of Classical Music.
Igor Stravinsky (2007). Slides of works.
Palmer, C. (1973). Impressionism in Music, Columbia University Press.
Shengdar Tsai (2009). Impressionist Influences in the Music of Claude Debussy. Web.
Thompson, Oscar (1940). Debussy: Man and Artist, Tudor Publishing Company.
Réti, Rudolph (1958). Tonality, Atonality, Pantonality: A study of some trends in twentieth century music.