Page 230 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

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Impressionism
SHADOW YOU BEFORE
1891 Gabriel Fauré’s “Cinq
mélodies ‘de Venise’” uses
subtle, elusive harmonic
HAVE BECOME progressions, similar to the
“impressionist” style.
1882–1892 Ernest Chausson’s

PRÉLUDE À L’APRÈS-MIDI D’UN FAUNE Poème de l’amour et de la mer
contains passages and chord
(1894), CLAUDE DEBUSSY progressions, which more
vividly prefigure the harmonic
language of Debussy’s Prélude.
AFTER
1912 In the ballet Daphnis
et Chloé, Maurice Ravel uses
fast-moving “dots” of sound,
the musical equivalent of a
pointillist painting.
1928–1929 The young Olivier
Messiaen composes his
Préludes, a collection of pieces
heavily influenced by Debussy.

omposed between
1891–1894, and based on
C the poem by Stéphane
Mallarmé, Claude Debussy’s first
published orchestral work Prélude
à l’après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to
the Afternoon of a Faun) has since
been hailed as the first significant
“impressionist” musical work. Later
the composer Pierre Boulez even
claimed that the work marked the
very beginning of modern music.
Debussy’s musical language
was an ideal counterpart to
Mallarmé’s symbolist poetry. The
composer described the work as
“the general impression of the
poem … it follows the ascending

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