The Role of Impressionism in Late Nineteenth Century French Music

Paper Summary:

This paper compares Claude Debussy's music "Prelude a lapres-midi dun faune" (1894) (Prelude to the afternoon of a faun) and the impressionist poem upon which it was based, Stephane Mallarme's "Lapres-midi dun faune." It discusses the role impressionism played in the visual arts in the development of impression in French music at the end of the nineteenth century. A discussion of the movement away from Wagnerian and Romantic ideals is also included.

From the Paper:

"By the late nineteenth century, Romantic music in Europe had reached the pinnacle of its success, in terms of both mastery of the art form and popularity among the public. Epitomized by the musical accomplishments of the Germans (Wagner and Brahms) and those of the Russians (Tchaikovosky), music composed in the Romantic style was markedly sentimental and quite non-evasive in its presentation of ideas, particularly those of "true passion" (Wright, 320). It was in direct opposition to these norms of expression of true passion through sentimentality and overt symbolism that the Impressionist movement in music began. Beginning in France and drawing its ideals from the rebellions against Romantic and Classical styles in such other artistic mediums as painting and literature (particularly poetry), Impressionist music attempted to express true emotion in more subtle ways, in ways other than "sheer volume of sound and epic length" (Ibid). A principal example of this new fin-de-sicle style can be found in Claude Debussy's Prelude lapres-midi dun faune (1894) (Prelude to the afternoon of a faun). Based loosely on Stephane Mallarm's 1876 poetic work, Lapres-midi dun faune, the Prelude exemplifies the Impressionist tendency to suggest ideas rather than explicitly set them forth. Debussy, in working in close conjunction with Impressionists representing alternate artistic mediums, extracts many of the Prelude's compositional strategies from ideals prevalent in Impressionist art and Symbolist poetry. The resulting composition exhibits all the ideals of the Impressionist movement, and it served to bring the Impressionist movement to the general public, quickly preparing the way for the genesis of modern music."

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