The Influence of Impressionism in Music

Impressionism has brought big influence in the field of music. Started by Claude Debussy, impressionism has been adapted by various musicians to portray a new style in classical music. The era of this music is to entertain and educate the audience in their time. To some extent, they have also found themselves in the edge of political criticism. The music artists of this era intended to compose and perform music of value to the audience. The musicians also endeavor to express emotions vividly but without ignoring the music structures. This paper, therefore, shall assess the influence of impressionism into music, national histories, and the modern music.

Impressionist Movement

Debussy, the mastermind of the impressionist movement, began it in order to abandon the informal romanticism that was practiced by most artists during the period before his inventions (All 2012, p.6) Once started, the wave spread throughout Europe into the whole of western region including North America. The music style also spread into churches, ballrooms, schools and theatre halls. The audience got impressed so much with the impressionist music that they embraced it to facilitate its spread. Debussy, in his influence, led the break away from the public fascination of monolithic style of music. He changed the public’s perception from the romantic classical music to liking the impressionist style. Debussy and the likes ensured that their impressionist composition was in agreement with the piano. The harmony created by this kind of music, inspired most musicians who then opted to embrace the style (Weijters, Goedertier and Verstreken 2014, p.539). The music became so powerful that it was destructive to the artists. The artists as a result abandoned their own composition style and adopted the impressionist composition.

Moreover, impressionist movement created strife in France. Political unrest envisaged ironically from impressionism which ought to have been perceived as a social morality. The social disturbance caused by this movement is comparable to modern situations where liberal habits stirred riots among the people. The impressionist movement also led to unofficial political anarchy in France. The government of the day was rendered useless and powerless. In the struggle the socialists and democrats used impressionism as a weapon to fight the government. On the other hand, politicians viewed impressionism as a school of thought conveying opinion about the France’s politics. The thought was further intensified by the fact that the impressionist musicians were French. It was therefore concluded that their music was sided and targeted the political immoralities of the French government. For instance, the impressionist musicians like Debussy Claude and Satie unconsciously became political figureheads in France. Their music was thrilling and moving to the French people. Their enjoyment fueled the movement more and more.

During impressionism, music genres like pop, band and theatre were founded. These techniques are employed in the current music and film production.  The impressionist styles have dominated even the movie industry where the crew employs the technique in the background music. For example, Celine Dion’s song, my heart will go on has been used on several occasions. Celine artistically composed this song to embrace the impressionist movement. It contains impressionist styles like, harmonic chord progressions, a drifting melodic lines, classical and romantic tone. She has also used irregular chromatic intervals and whole tone scales in the instrumentation of her songs. In fact, the song underscores absolutely the impressionistic styling. In addition some modern rock music has been influenced to contain impressionistic styles. One dominant artist in this category is Elton john.  Elton has used a lot of themes from the impressionist era. Some of the themes include political justice, love and betrayal. The artist just like all the impressionist singers has been influenced to embrace the movement in their works.

Impressionism also faced opposition from the art community in France. Louis Leroy, a critic of that time as a result coined a satirical literature analysis of the impressionism. The criticism was majorly based on the themes and style of music that came with impressionism. Again the movement stirred analogous styles in the media. The analogous style was due to the use of impressionism in the visual art. Further, the style was developed to come up with impressionist music and literature. The effect of impressionism in music was diverse. The artists based their music on suggestion, atmosphere and emotions. The impressionist composers also preferred short forms such as prelude, arabesque among others. Moreover, they adventured into the use of whole scales different from the past composing styles which mostly engaged half scales.

Impressionistic music was simple and conventional. The ordinary key ABA is applied. This key is articulated with a modulation which begins from two to six sharps and back. Sometimes, however, the tone sounds unconventional especially if the key is applied between the first and the second measures. In this case, a leading tone A# is applied to B to produce a tonic effect (Pasler 2012, p.197). Debussy for instance, played his music in this manner. As an impressionist singer, he believed that this kind of music really attracted the audience and entertained them to the fullest. The music produced real emotions that were meant to underscore a feeling in the audience. The feelings were majorly produced through the calculated themes that the composers aimed to underscore.

The impressionists also composed their music to produce a tonic note with two mysterious shadows. The tone here is created by a press on the G. It is let to sound continuously except in a fluctuating colour which has to go for about four measures. Soon, it is followed by an F which is introduced by an arching chord that has to fall back to B. To enhance the sound; the pattern is reinforced by the two bassoons at the octave. On the contrary, impressionists would add the three notes, G B F to constitute a dissonant harmony which would only be used under normal tonal conditions (Brown 2012 p. 65). The music productions through these tones embrace factors of timbre and register which in return brings a cool sense of calmness. It is true that the impressionist music brought good sense of impression to the audience. They produced aesthetic effects on the listeners.

In addition, the impressionism movement majorly involved the use of English horn through the composition. During the debussyan time, this style of composition was hugely used. It has also continued to feature largely in the twentieth century (Brown 2012, p 43). In the second reappearance of the English horn, the C# note has been replaced by D. The pattern of the English horn in the impression composition will always continue one leading to the next. In point of fact, the solo bit here produces its whole two variant vocabularies. In modern day, the English horn music has been hypothesized to refer to a term that means unchanging association to pitch, timbre and register. In this composition, B is given a functional priority.

The impressionist movement also used symbols to compose their music. Debussy for instance used voiles as a title on the piano prelude (Murdock 2012, p.37).  . Audience and critics were left to interpret the meaning of this title based on their understanding. In most cases, the title was viewed to mean veils. Further interpretation of the word would make it mean a connotation of mystery and concealment.

In impressionism, parallel motions were used to create voice tension as they sang. The contrary fashion used intensified the impression targeted to come out in the music. According to the impressionists, music chords are melodic entities. As a result, the voices should be moved in a parallel fashion so as to give the sonority and harmony required (Murdock 2012, p.27).  Different from the classicism view, the impressionists insisted that musical chords are must just move in parallel fashion. In retrospect, the parallel fashion brought by the impressionism era indeed added more flavor into the modern songs. For example, Celine Dion just like Debussy Claude incorporated this style in her composition which has in most cases thrilled her audience.

It is also significant to note that impressionism resulted into the use of escaped chords. These chords were viewed to create an impression of a changed tonality (Kaminskas and Ricci 2012, p.101). The chords do not have any standard traditional sense. They basically apply to give impression on the tone used by the musician. According to the impressionists, escaped chords are the best to use in composing various songs. In essence, the chords attract the attention of the audience. They make the audience enjoy the music just like a viewer may enjoy watching paint. The fundamental of music is to give impression to the listeners. As a result, it can only be achieved when chords are used to give variant tones.

The impressionism movement also came with the veiling sonority which replaced the climax that was applicable in the romanticism period (Kaminskas and Ricci 2012, p.91). The music is transparent and gives a shimmering sound which comes in a flow in a condescending manner. In addition, flutes and clarinets are used in their dull lower register. In this composition, violins are used to achieve upper sonorities while the horns and trumpets are silenced. Violins play a leading sound. Debussy actually, demonstrated this style in most of his songs. It is also notable that the violin sound portrays the ecstatic emotions in the song. Also depending on the theme of the song, violin can again relay the mood of the song. It was really the intention of the impressionist singers to give the mood and emotions in their musical works.

It is also notable that it was during the impressionism edge that planing was introduced. In planning same music chord is moved around in different positions for effect. Impressionists employ this style especially in piano music so as to reveal the tone of the music and its aesthetic value.  Such singers like Ernest Fanelli were the founders who really practiced piano music to play with chords in this manner (Brown 2012, p.40). . His music was equally thrilling and interesting. The music production of his time largely embrace chording that were varied for the qualities and impression they would have on the audience. The artists gave themselves the freedom to play with the chords in various positions as long as the impression they gave was a pleasant one.

Lastly, non-functional harmony was also a dominant style of the impressionism music. Artists added extra notes to their music. The notes added, however, do not contribute to the voice leading. They are essentially added to with an intention to achieving a particular sound. They basically break the sound patterns of music in order to realize the specific impressing sounds that they need. Debussy is an example of a significant artist who embraced this style of music. He altered the patterns of a given song so that he could come up with the sounds he needed.  In point of fact, Debussy himself gives his assertion about his decision to break the rules, “I broke the rules but I got the sounds I wanted…” (Brown 2012, p.37).

Conclusion

Impressionism movement introduced a new era in music which made it possible for artists to employ musical styles that made music interesting. They employed various forms of instruments to produce choral melody that was pleasant to the ear. We have seen that the impressionism movement began with Claude Debussy. He inspired very many artists to enjoin in his style of music. Some of the artists he influenced include: Paul Benoit, Ernest Fanelli, Maurice Ravel and Carlos Salzedo among others. In the modern music, a close study of Celine Dion will also reveal her as an impressionist composer. Her thrilling style of music poses her as a musician of the movement. The impressionism movement brought diverse impacts in the music history, the details of which have been discussed in this paper.

References

Brown, M., 2012. Debussy Redux: The impact of his music on popular culture. Indiana University Press.pp. 35-74.

Kaminskas, M. and Ricci, F., 2012. Contextual music information retrieval and recommendation: State of the art and challenges. Computer Science Review, 6(2-3), pp.89-119.

Murdock, J.L., 2012. Night music: The twentieth century nocturne in piano teaching, pp. 25-84

 Pasler, J., 2012. Debussy the man, his music, and his legacy: an overview of current research. Notes, 69(2), 2012 pp.197-216.

Weijters, B., Goedertier, F. and Verstreken, S., 2014. Online music consumption in today’s technological context: Putting the influence of ethics in perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(4), pp.537-550.