The Contemporary The Contemporary PeriodPeriodPost-Romanticism – Germany, AustriaPost-Romanticism – Germany, Austria

Impressionism -- FranceImpressionism -- France

Impressionism

French! Movement began with the painters . . .

Use of light and color to create their “first impressions”

Subjects – preferred stills, dancing girls, nudes, everyday scenes of middle-class life, picnics, boating and café scenes; nature

La Promenade (1875)

Poppies (1873)

Fishing Boats Leaving the Harbor (1874)

The Boat Studio (1876)

Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)The Girl with the Watering Can

At the Theatre

Poet Counterparts – the Symbolists

Direct poetic expression unspoiled by intellectual elements. Sought to suggest rather than describe

Baudelaire, Mallarme, etc. Greatly influenced by the famous

American poet, Edgar Allan Poe

Impressionism – origins and influences

Paris Exhibition – attracted to other sounds

Got away from the “normal” sounds of the previous period

Scale typesChromaticWhole tone

Chords/Color/Rhythm

Parallel chords Ninth chords Use of orchestra

“veiled” sounds Flutes/clarinets in lower registers (unusual) Use of harp Instruments used differently

Rhythms “veiled”

Forms

Smaller forms (got away from larger forms, i.e., symphonies)

Descriptive titles

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Claude Debussy

“Let’s go . . . He’s beginning to develop.” “The idea of spreading one drama over

four evenings! Is this admissible, especially when in these four evenings you always hear the same thing? . . . My God! How unbearable these people in skins and helmets become by the fourth night.”

Music

Subtle, discreet Short, flexible forms Evokes images Wrote wonderful orchestral music Wrote much for piano – was one of the most

important composers for the piano of that time Vocal composer

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

Best known orchestral work (1894) From a poem by the Symbolist, Stephane

Mallarme Image of a faun, who wakes from a

dream . . . Wondering if it was a dream A-B-A