Impressionist Music

[Ten thumbs]

The classification as developed seems to have become a little nebulous. We will have to include early Stravinsky too, especially The Fire Bird and The Rite of Spring. Personally I find, for instance, Scriabin, about as far removed from Impressionism as it is possible to get. Maybe Art Nouveau would fit the bill better!

[drogulus]

     

Bridge can be impressionist in some piece, as is John Ireland. But in general, I wouldn't say so. Impressionism puts sensation above abstraction, and Bridge usually has some concern with such abstract techniques. But then, as I said, not even Debussy is always impressionist; in fact, the hard core of Debussy's impressionist pieces is fairly small though stuffed with masterpieces - the piano Preludes, Images and Estampes plus some individual pieces, the orchestral Nocturnes, Images, La Mer and Eric's Prelude being the major ones IMO.

     Wouldn't be ironic if impressionism was given a formal definition? If any category justifies the "walks like an impressionist" criterion it's impressionism. The point of impressionism is not the abandonment of forms so much as the subordination of them to the subjective.

     

Laying aside the debate about what Impressionism is, or if it exists in music, a couple of other composers who used similar styles, sounds and methods are Arnold Bax and Charles T. Griffes. 

     Yes, Bax is at once highly impressionistic and in the symphonies as architectural as you can get, as Vernon Handley points out in the interview included in his Bax cycle. I think impressionism is a vexed category for this reason. It makes more sense as a descriptive term for the listener. I guess you could follow Luke and make a discrimination based on detectable structural features or take impressionism as a received category and not think about it.

     

The classification as developed seems to have become a little nebulous.

     The classification of nebulosity is a little nebulous. You have a music that rejects forms for supposedly pure substance, and now you want to define it formally. So what you come up with is that if you can trace some kind of structure, preferably one derived from tradition, it isn't impressionist. This is close to what Luke is after, I think.

We will have to include early Stravinsky too, especially The Fire Bird and The Rite of Spring. Personally I find, for instance, Scriabin, about as far removed from Impressionism as it is possible to get. Maybe Art Nouveau would fit the bill better!

    This captures the evanescence of impressionism as a musical category. As soon as it can be identified as something else it stops being itself. I think of impressionism as concerned with a rejection of romantic drama in favor of the poetic and allusive. These qualities are never absent from music, though.

[jimmosk]

I'll second that Respighi has written almost nothing that I'd call impressionist, and say the same about Dukas. I tend to think of the term's prerequisites as being a fascination with instrumental color/timbre over thematic development and structure (I think 'impressionistic sonata form' would be self-contradictory), and usually slow and meandering tempi.
At least in the first of those criteria, Henri Dutilleux is a descendant of Debussian impressionism. So is Olivier Messiaen (happy 100th!) to an extent.

I don't believe it's a requirement that the composer be French, but it seems to help a lot!  There are several Brits who often feel close to that style, including Bridge, Bax, and Cyril Scott.  And I'd include many works of the American Charles Tomlinson Griffes and the Finn Uuno Klami.

-J

--
Jim Moskowitz
The Unknown Composers Page:  http://kith.org/jimmosk/TOC.html

[eyeresist]

For me, the archetypal Impressionist composer is Debussy, of whom I am not a fan, and those nebulous harmonic shiftings and ever-present harp make me think not so much of the Impressionist paintings, and more the kitsch of the late 19th century aesthetic movement - pretty fairies and pixies in dancing in green woods, along side of the most harmless elements from Ancient Roman and Greek mythology; exemplified by Debussy's pastel-shaded faun. If you actually like this stuff, I believe some of Myaskovsky's symphonies are somewhat in this vein.

(Sorry, I think I've done this rant before. At least the Myaskovsky reference is new.)

[Homo Aestheticus]

Hi Eyeresist,

Make me think not so much of the Impressionist paintings, and more the kitsch of the late 19th century aesthetic movement - pretty fairies and pixies in dancing in green woods, along side of the most harmless elements from Ancient Roman and Greek mythology; exemplified by Debussy's pastel-shaded faun.

If you actually like this stuff...

Like this stuff ?  This music is my full-time hobby....  Pure adoration.  0:)   

Here are some of my favorite comments:

1. For once, a revolutionary work's newness did not engender hostility: the premiere audience was so enthusiastic that Gustave Doret, who conducted, was obliged to repeat the performance. Only the critics were less impressed; it was to be several years before most of them caught up with what the public recognized at once -- Mark Windsor

2. The potential of youth possessed by this score defies exhaustion and decrepitude  --  Pierre Boulez

3. 'Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun' is really the first effective revolt against Wagnerism and Germanism in the orchestral music of the late nineteenth century, and it is conclusive. The old regime is out and the new one is in, without a cannon fired!... No guns!... No soap-box oratory!... Debussy goes quietly away from the fuss and turmoil into his tower of ivory. He consults his own spirit and that of his antique culture and civilization. His music, in fact, goes back to a period before Bach and Beethoven ever existed, for it is essentially pagan, non-ethical, unphilosophic, and worshipful of beauty as it was known to the wise of an ancient world. Its workmanship is equally precise and subtle, and it has, in its finest manifestations, the indestructibility of the perfect thought. But Debussy does not pursue the methodical and symmetric ideal of the German symphonists. He develops a theme—yes—and squeezes the juice out of it as surely as ever Beethoven did; but in place of an, ordained procedure, a scheme of architecture, determined in advance, Debussy seems to set his themes free, to let them wing their way untrammeled through space, or float indolently on the current of his deep-tinted harmonies, as if the melody followed a will of its own which had nothing at all to do with the clumsy artifices of man  -- Lawrence Gilman

_____

But as in all matters aesthetic... 'de gustibus non est disputandum', always.  )

[eyeresist]

Like this stuff ?  This music is my full-time hobby....  Pure adoration.  0:)   

I won't hold it against you.  0:)

[Ten thumbs]

Perhaps it is the association with Impressionism in art that is confusing. This was not so much a revolt against anything but a continuation of the work of artists such as Turner. The point was the exploration of light. The subject became of secondary importance but form was not abandoned one jot. Art moved on - there was the 'Reaction against Impressionism' typified by Van Gogh. So who represents this in music?

[eyeresist]

Perhaps it is the association with Impressionism in art that is confusing. This was not so much a revolt against anything but a continuation of the work of artists such as Turner. The point was the exploration of light. The subject became of secondary importance but form was not abandoned one jot. Art moved on - there was the 'Reaction against Impressionism' typified by Van Gogh. So who represents this in music?

This reminds me of the Matthew Collings series "This is Civilisation", which has been showing on SBS (Australia) recently. The third episode was on John Ruskin, who was a champion of Turner for transcending the strictures of the Academy (and being transcendant in general). However, later in life he was unhappy with the Impressionist trend in painting, for reasons I don't recall.

For a musical analogy to Postimpressionism, I'd suggest the neoclassicism of Prokofiev and Stravinsky, which must have seemed rather boldly primitive in comparison to its nebulous predecessor.

[Ten thumbs]

For a musical analogy to Postimpressionism, I'd suggest the neoclassicism of Prokofiev and Stravinsky, which must have seemed rather boldly primitive in comparison to its nebulous predecessor.

This seems reasonable. Expressionism certainly involved bright colours and bold brushwork. It's probably a good thing that most composers can't be classified precisely though. It allows us each to have our own opinions and our own preferred classifications. Personally, I prefer to use Post-Romantic for Debussy et al.

[Ugh!]

There are many issues related to placing impressionist painting and music into the same basket.

Take Seurat's pointillism. Rather than mixing colors on the pallete, small points of separate colors were placed together to create the illusion of secondary colors when observed from a distance. This technique was more fully developed musically by Webern, the german expressionist, than any impressionist.

Primitivism in visual arts was developed by post-impressionists like Gaugin who were disappointed with the lack of symbolic depth in Impressionism. Impressionist on the other hand was from the outset heavily influenced by eastern music, in Debussy's case, Indonesian in particular. This influence was arguably instrumental (pun intended) in developing the characteristic impressionist timbre. 

Note also that Debussy reacted against German schools of composition, refusing to let his musical ideas develop within their predefined structures. The meditative character of impressionist music owes as much to this as to any direct references within visual arts.

Another name for your list: Toru Takemitsu.

[schweitzeralan]

Good topic.  I also brought uo the topic after I had briefly introduced myself. Debussy and Ravel were perhaps the progenitors of tis aesthetic style.  There are those pre-impressionist composers who influenced Debussy.  Recall he detested the term. I had metioned several composers whose works smack of, or incorporate the style of many of the impressionists.  I particularly like the folloeing, and I repeat from my earlier posting. Bax, Delius, Schmitt, Joseph Marx, Moeran, Cyril Scott, V. Novak, Suk ( in part),   Vaughn Williams (who studied one summer with Ravel), Vaino Raitio, Merikanto, (some) Sibelius, Maderoja (a disciple of Sibelius), Scrabin (later works only; some would disagree), Krein, Griffis, Paul Creston, Takemitsu, York Bowen, one piano sonata of Enescu, Klami, Arthur Farwell,The British composer who wrote "The Island whose name escapes me for the moment, plus many others. 

[schweitzeralan]

It's like a painting.  Sure you can paint an 'impressionist' painting today.  You can even paint something that looks baroque or modern.  You try your hand at abstract or anything else.  But will it really be that style?  No.  It won't because you made it today.

Same goes for music.  If you write in the classical Mozartian style it'll be called Neo-Classical.  It'll sound classical but it won't be because you're not in that period.  You're just copying.

Indeed.  My problem is that I like the musical language (with all its complexities) that developed in the first 2 decades of the last century.  Composers of te last two or three decades of the 20th century could realized a musical sensuosity or transparency in its overall impressionistic effect.  Take Takemitsu for example.  Yet for me it's not the same.  I think I've exhaused most of those orchestral, pianistic works that evince that sensuous, colorful, hazy "ambiente" associated with impressionistic technique.

[Ten thumbs]

    This captures the evanescence of impressionism as a musical category. As soon as it can be identified as something else it stops being itself. I think of impressionism as concerned with a rejection of romantic drama in favor of the poetic and allusive. These qualities are never absent from music, though.

Indeed, the poetic and allusive are essential features of romantic music. The difference for me is that the romantic is often concerned with yearning or searching for meaning. The impressionist takes a more objective view of what is portrayed. I use portrayed in the broadest sense, ie not necessarily visually. There are very few or no composers who stuck to this ideal throughout their oevre.

[schweitzeralan]

Bridge can be impressionist in some piece, as is John Ireland. But in general, I wouldn't say so. Impressionism puts sensation above abstraction, and Bridge usually has some concern with such abstract techniques. But then, as I said, not even Debussy is always impressionist; in fact, the hard core of Debussy's impressionist pieces is fairly small though stuffed with masterpieces - the piano Preludes, Images and Estampes plus some individual pieces, the orchestral Nocturnes, Images, La Mer and Eric's Prelude being the major ones IMO.

I was listening to the Symphonic Poems of Bridge.  Stupendous harmonies.  One of the few impressionist works by Bridge.