ANYWAY I need to stop procrastinating (there was like a full 24 hours before finishing writing the previous paragraph and starting this one) and get on with this blog post.
So. 20th Century. Comes pretty much right after the Romantic Period, if you can really define start and end dates for a period. Just as nearly every period can be argued to be both an extension of and a reaction against what the trends were in the previous period (e.g. forms like sonata form etc. carried on from the Classical Period to the Romantic Period, but different Romantic composers adapted the forms in different ways to express the emotions that they wanted to convey), so can the music of the 20th century be regarded as an extension to and a reaction against Romanticism.
Of course there's a whole array of different styles in the whole past century, but I'm only really going to mention a few in this post before focusing on impressionism. The 20th century saw a whole variety of scales that hadn't been used in Western music over the past few hundred years, like the whole-tone, pentatonic and modal scales. (I say "over the past few hundred years" because modal scales have their roots in medieval church modes. The other two I think weren't really a part of Western music until this point, but I'm not sure.) The 20th century also saw atonality- music that wasn't centred on any particular degree of the scale. Atonality is comprised of different systems of organisation like the "12-note system" in which music is created from "tone-rows" consisting of all 12 notes of the scale, and it's systems like this that inspired composers like Stravinsky and Messaien.
The nationalistic sentiments that were common during the Romantic period continued through to the 20th century. The USA, a young country at that time, was starting to acquire its own major composers who were composing distinctively "American" music, like Gershwin and Copland. Some of the major events of this period also inspired composers, particularly the two world wars. Ravel, for instance, was an ambulance driver during the WWI. If I remember correctly, he wrote his Piano Concerto for the Left Hand for a soldier who had lost his right hand during the war. Some of the major events reduced compositional output- for example, the Great Depression limited resources, so composers had to compose for smaller groups. Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia also severely limited the freedom of composers, so many composers from Germany and Russia had to flee in order to continue writing freely.
And now for one of the main subjects of this post: impressionism! Impressionism is another one of those things that is kind of a continuation of and a reaction to the previous movement. While Romantic-era music was often programmatic- that is, the music tells stories- Impressionist music simply conveys an image or a mood without getting into specifics like Romantic music did with different themes for different characters and whatnot. Impressionist music also follows fewer rules than Romantic music (i.e. it's not so concerned about parallel 5ths and 8ves and stuff)- it just does whatever it needs to in order to make sure the mood or image or whatever is being portrayed. Colour is also more important in Impressionist music than in Romantic music.
Impressionist music didn't spring out of nowhere- it was often inspired by Impressionist art or Symbolist poetry. Symbolist poetry uses a lot of symbols (hence the name) to convey objects rather than the object itself. Also, in symbolist poetry, the sounds that words make are just as important as the meanings of the words themselves. Impressionist art uses vague, hazy brush strokes and lines in order to convey a mood or an atmosphere of the place. Lots of impressionist art uses cooler colours like blues and greens.
One of the pioneers of Impressionist music was Claude Debussy, but if you ever time-travel and meet up with him, don't call him an Impressionist, since Debussy hated having such labels stuck on him. Still, though, it's often heralded that his Prelude à L'aprés-midi d'un Faune (I hope I got all the accents right there!) marked the start of 20th-century Impressionist music. It wasn't all that well-received to start off with, though- people thought that the orchestra was just tuning up when they heard it! This could be because it doesn't have a strong sense of meter as most music from previous eras did, and tends to flow in a wash of sound and colour- the musical equivalent of Impressionist art.
A bit more about Debussy: He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10 and wowed/shocked his teachers with his non-adherence to musical rules. One of his teachers said something along the lines of, "it sounds nice, but it doesn't follow the rules!" (One of my fellow students complained that Debussy's music "didn't make sense" because Debussy's "crazy." When asked why he thought that Debussy's "crazy," he replied "because Debussy's music doesn't make sense." A bit of circular reasoning there...) He also won the Prix de Rome in 1884 with his cantata L'enfant prodigue. Ravel, another French composer often thought of as Debussy's "rival," never managed to win this prize despite entering 5 times.
Debussy believed that his work needed to be "flexible and adaptable to fantasies and dreams." He received inspiration from a variety of different sources, such as Symbolist poetry and the Javanese gamelan music that he heard during the 1889 Paris Exposition. He wrote music for orchestras, chamber ensembles and piano as well as possibly a myriad of other works that don't fall into those categories. I think he wrote ballet music but I'm not too sure.
Debussy was also very French. Apparently he walked out of the Paris premier of Mahler's Second Symphony because he felt that it was too foreign! (But duh, Mahler's German, shouldn't he have the right to write German music?! Unless Mahler's music didn't sound German, in which case maybe Debussy did have the right to protest. In fact, in my notes it says that Debussy and his friends thought that Mahler's Second Symphony was "too Viennese..."). Maybe it was this nationalistic sentiment (I seem to have been using that phrase a helluva lot in this post...) that drove him to compose in his own style unique to him and unique to his country: more delicate and gentle and stuff rather than all that heavy chromaticism and massive displays of emotion as was common in late Romantic German music.
Debussy's style was quite unique. He used many different scales such as whole tone, pentatonic and modal rather than the major/minor tonalities heavily favoured in previous eras. His music tends not to have a strong meter, but rather have a more floating, free quality to it. Harmonic progressions in his music tend not to have a very strong sense of "progression," and tend to be more a series of chords to be appreciated as they are (for example, no cadences or dissonances that need to be resolved). Tone colour was important to him, though, so he thought of the orchestra as individual instruments with unique tone colours to be utilised in many different ways, rather than as four families of instruments.
There's no better way to learn about a composer's music style than by listening to his or her music, though, so let's have a listen to one of Debussy's piano preludes, The Sunken Cathedral (or La Cathédrale engloutie- its original French title).
First things first- the piano piece really is about a sunken cathedral. Although Impressionist music tends not to be very programmatic (i.e. it doesn't strictly tell a story), this particular work does. Debussy does have a lot of other works that convey images or moods rather than stories, but I guess this isn't one of them.
The story is based off a Breton myth in which a cathedral near the Island of Ys rises up from beneath the water on a clear day. Throughout the work, church bells, choirs and waves are suggested through the open harmonies and low rippling figures in the bass line.
The harmony throughout the beginning is very open, with parallel 5ths and 8ves- a fine example of Debussy breaking the standard rules of harmony. The open 5ths and 8ves can suggest organum- one of the earliest attempts to create harmonies, which involved simply adding a line a 5th or an 8ve above or below an original line to create harmony. A wide range is also used, making the chords seem even more open. Additionally, the low notes give the sense of something submerged deep beneath the waves. The dynamic marking here is pianissimo, as the cathedral is still muffled by the water.
This work is another of Debussy's where there is no clear sense of meter, giving a sense of timelessness and I guess an infinite, mystical quality. (I'm not sure if you can use the word "infinite" like that, but whatever.) This is done through the very slow tempo, the open chords that don't resolve to give a strong accent anywhere, and rhythms that cross over bar lines (syncopation).
One way in which Debussy has attempted to convey the story of the Sunken Cathedral is through his use of very specific instructions in French (carrying on from the Romantic tradition of writing instructions in one's native tongue). The piano score has very specific instructions such as "Peu à peu sortant de la brume" (gradually emerging from the haze), "sonore sans dureté" (sonorous without hardness) and "flottant et sourd" (floating and muffled).
When the cathedral is still just emerging from the haze, the bass line changes to a flowing triplet rhythm signifying the waves. There are several series of fairly thick ascending chords, which can be interpreted as the cathedral rising from the waves. The thickness of the chords could very well be the church choirs which are now starting to become audible. Soon, the instruction "augmentez progressivement" (progressively getting louder) is given, as the cathedral is now more above the water and thus its sounds are more readily heard. More open chords are heard, signifying church bells, and then more thick chords, which are "sonorous without hardness" are heard. These chords are fortissimo, a large contrast to the pianissimo at the beginning of the work. Now, the cathedral is completely above the water, and the choirs can be heard loud and strong.
By the way, I have in my notes a fancy little term for this use of parallel diatonic chords. Apparently, it's called "planing."
More of these chords are heard, still at fortissimo, until it decrescendos back down to piano, as the cathedral is now beginning to sink back underwater and the choirs and bells are becoming more muffled again. Further on, there are some parallel dominant 7ths, none of which resolve to a tonic chord of any kind. Towards the end, more rippling figures are heard as a sort of ostinato, "comme un echo de la phrase entendue précedemment" (like an echo of the preceding phrase), once again signifying the waves.
Other stuff to notice: There's a fair few pedal notes. Yay. Tonality-wise, even though Debussy doesn't often use major/minor tonalities, there are some sections of this work which could be classed as B Major, but then again there's a whole bunch of other sections which could be considered pentatonic, mixolydian, whole-tone or phrygian. If this is your cup of tea then take a look at this harmonic analysis of The Sunken Cathedral here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwvtwlSh5U
That's pretty much it from me for now on The Sunken Cathedral. Now to briefly talk about some other stuff!
The Sunken Cathedral is just one piano prelude of Debussy's. Debussy wrote two books of piano preludes. The preludes either have ambiguous titles (e.g. "Voiles," which means "sails" or "veils") or descriptive titles like "The Girl with the Flaxen Hair." In some editions of his books, the titles are placed at the end. The idea is that you listen and work out an image and a meaning for yourself, and then find out what Debussy really intended. Aside from piano music, Debussy also wrote lots of music for different combinations of instruments, like his orchestral work "La Mer" (the sea). A lot of Debussy's works involve the ocean or water in some form or another.
Now let's have a look at some other French composers, just for comparison! (And I've just realised that Debussy's The Sunken Cathedral kind of got delegated to the position of "the other stuff" in the title of this blog post. Sorry, Debussy.)
Okay, well, first of all I should probably talk about Ravel, since Ravel often gets compared to Debussy. Ravel and Debussy often influenced each other. Ravel's inspiration came from Javanese gamelan music (which also inspired Debussy), Russian music, and the music of some German composers like Wagner. He was also influenced by poetry and by world events such as WWI. Another influence on his music was the death of his mother.
Ravel entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 14 and graduated in 1985. Two years later, he studied composition with Gabriel Fauré. He was a member of the artistic circle "Les Apaches." He wrote a variety of compositions, but is probably best known for his work Bolero, which includes a rather repetitive but catchy snare drum pattern. Ravel was often known for his orchestration, and often had instruments' tone colour in mind- just like Debussy, in a way. However, unlike Debussy, he wrote works that were sometimes considered "Neo-Classical" due to the presence of firm structures and clear melodic contour reminiscent of the Classical period- a far cry from Debussy's freer structure and floating melodies.
Fauré, Ravel's teacher in 1987, became a boarder at the Ecole Niedermeyer at age 9, where he learned church music, organ, piano, harmony, counterpoint and literature, and graduated with awards in almost every subject. He took on various organist positions as well as taught music. He formed the Société Nationale de Musique with his friends. Apparently a lot of his works were premiered there too. In 1986, Fauré became the composition professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1905 became the director of the Conservatory. Fauré wasn't as well-known for his orchestration as Debussy and Ravel, but that certainly didn't stop him from composing lots of music. One of my favourites is his Pavane.
Satie was a pretty crazy guy. He did all kinds of weird things like buy 12 identical velvet suits just for the hell of it and put his umbrella under his coat if it was raining because he didn't want his umbrella to get wet. He wrote a lot of music with weird titles, like "Three Flabby Preludes for a Dog" and "Three Preludes in the Shape of a Pear." His music also had a bunch of bizarre instructions as well- apparently the former work had instructions in "Dog Latin" or something like that. One of his most famous works is his Gymnopédie No. 1.
Poulenc composed an awesome sonata for clarinet and piano. He was the leading member of the group "Les Six," a group of composers who aimed to turn music away from impressionism and intellectualism. He once said that his music was not to be analysed, but to be enjoyed. After his friend passed away, he started composing more sacred music, like his Gloria.
That's it from me- it's late-ish now (well, late for me anyway) and I have to touch up my Lit essay a bit and then go to sleep since I have orchestra tomorrow morning and then the Athletics Carnival which I'll go to if it's not raining. (I can't really afford to get too sick in such a vital term.) Good night, or good morning/afternoon, depending on what time of day it is when you're reading this.
