Post 4: Impressionism in music

Water reflections "painted" by Debussy

                                                                     

The Seine at Giverny, Morning Mists 1897
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
88.9 x 91.4 cm, oil on canvas
Monet Mists North Carolina Museum of Art

Enjoy this painting while listening to: Reflections in Water by Debussy 1905. Rubinstein playing Debussy's Reflections. "Rubinstein personally knew Impressionist composers and played their music often even when the audience would "boo" it.

The main source for this post is the book Images The Piano Music of Claude Debussy by Paul Roberts

  

Claude Debussy (1865-1918), was the first academically educated composer to break away from the norms of classical music. In his opinion, though, the real "precursor" was Eric Satie (1866-1925). Academia had big hopes for the young Debussy, he won the most prestigious award, the Prix de Rome intended to solidify his classical education. Following his restless nature, he mastered all the rules (established by then mostly by German composers) and then composed in an innovative way that broke every single one of them. For that reason and for opening the door to individual expression in music, the group of French composers around Debussy: Ravel, Gabriel Fauré, and Satie, were called The Impressionists in music.

                                         

Clair de Lune, 1894
Felix Vallotton (1865-1925)
27.1 x 42.7 cm, oil on canvas
Vallotton Moonlight The Met Museum

Enjoy the painting while listening to: Debussy plays Debussy | Clair de Lune (1913)

Clearly, this is not an Impressionist painting. I just had to show it here, because, among other directions successfully taken, this painter and extraordinary artist, Felix Vallotton, was a member of the Les Nabis group. Les Nabis were symbolist painters, inspired by poetry, dreams, and the invisible. Debussy felt a stronger connection with them than with the Impressionists. "Fin de siècle" was a period of intense speculation about the relationships between different art forms. Debussy's poet and painter friends talked of sounds as colours, paintings as symphonies, and poetry as music (Roberts, p3).

Debussy's masterpiece "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" was based on the poem "The Afternoon of a Faun" by his friend poet Stephane Mallarmé. Talking about the crossover of arts, here is a link to the scene from an American movie about the Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Nijinsky who created a ballet to Debussy music after a poem. Nijinsky was also breaking some rules of his time, you'll understand which: Ballet scene movie Nijinsky - Afternoon of a Faun

While we are in the opera as the Impressionists were often and for long hours, here are some of the masterpieces they painted inspired by it:

Musicians in the Orchestra (Portrait of Desire Dihau), 1870

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

48.9 x 59.7 cm, oil on canvas

Degas Orchestra Legion of Honour San Francisco

The Opera Orchestra, circa 1870
Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
56.6 x 46 cm, oil on canvas
Degas Opera Musee d'Orsay

Degas was the Impressionist with the strongest connection to music. Music was important to his whole family. His father hosted the famous Monday musical Salons where amateurs, like his sister (an excellent singer), and members of the Opera orchestra, performed. Scenes from backstage, in front of and on the Opera stage, remain the main focus throughout his career.  

In the Loge, 1878
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926)
81.28 x 66.04 cm, oil on canvas
Cassat Loge Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Even just by reading Debussy's music titles (Nocturnes, Images, Préludes, Estampes...), we can notice that something has changed in classical music. Narratives or tales are of no importance to this new generation of composers. Their themes are conceptual, almost abstract, dreamy, and surreal. The keyword for this music at the time would be "unexpected". Today that is how we see Impressionist paintings. Debussy is changing standard meter, chords, triads, tones, harmonies... 

Here is a link to The Debussy Movie, which was made about Debussy by Ken Russel in 1965. Debussy estate protested against it, finding it banal and overfocused on his intimate life, so the movie didn't enjoy many public screenings.

Although he always dismissed the connection to the Impressionists, like them Debussy was also attracted to Turner's great seascapes and the Japanese woodblock prints of Hokusai and Hiroshige. In his later years, he owned many of these.

 Modern music after this generation of composers was unstoppable. Musicians and composers took their inventions and built upon them new ones. Bill Evans was one of the jazz players who after leaving Miles Davis' band and starting his own, used impressionist harmonies and was said to be the pioneer and one of the best modern jazz pianists (Nardis by Bill Evans).

We are now lucky to be contemporaries of another "once in 50 years" composing and playing talent- John Batiste. Classically trained, he also mastered the old rules as Debussy (one of his musical icons) and is now stretching those rules by creating dialogues with different composers and genres. He says: "So with any form of music, I try to get beyond the technical and get to that space and really try to figure out how to get to the human aspect of it all. For me, Beethoven is the same as Kendrick Lamar or Duke Ellington or any form of music because it comes from that same well of human experience and expression. And once you find the heartbeat of something, that's where the opportunity for creative transformation lies". Recommendation: his album: "Beethoven Blues"!

Sources: 

Book: Images The Piano Music of Claude Debussy (1996 by Paul Roberts)

3. Debussy: Reflets dans l’eau (pianistlost.com) - interesting link

Microsoft Word - (washington.edu) - Debussy education and influences, life-long obsession with water

Bing Videos - Debussy film

Sonate pour violon et violoncelle de Ravel — Wikipédia (wikipedia.org)

Impressionism in music Debussy - Search (bing.com)

Lecture 21. Musical Impressionism and Exoticism: Debussy, Ravel and Monet - YouTube

What Makes Debussy Sound French?

Debussy and Impressionism: The Shaping Of Modern Classical Music - CMUSE

Lifestyle | The Influence of Impressionism on The Evolution of Jazz Music.

Microsoft Word - Mozart Studies - Vol 1_ultima corectura 17 ianuarie.docx
Debussy on JSTOR

Impressionism In Music: A Journey Through French Influence - Ourmusicworld

Jon Batiste reinterprets the classics on his new album 'Beethoven Blues': NPR