Saint Augustine’s School

Tagudin Ilocos Sur

S.Y. 2020-2021

Name:_________________________________________________________ Section:__________________________________
SUBJECT: MUSIC 10 Teacher: Ms. Roselyn M. Lantano
TOPIC: UNIT I-MUSICAL STYLES OF THE 20TH CENTURY Contact Number: 09485599024
Lesson 2: Debussy and Impressionism
LEARNING COMPETENCIES: The learner….
explains the historical and cultural background of Impressionism
sings melodic fragments from music with impressionistic style
listens perceptively to selected Debussy’s composition
identifies the compositions of Claude Debussy
I. EXPLORE PRE-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY #1

Instruction: Answer the questions below:

1. Have you experienced the need of saying something but you’re not heard? Or you want to complain but nobody
dares to listen?
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2. What do you do when this happens?
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3. Have you tried resorting to playing or listening to music when it happens?

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4. What are songs do you love to play or listen to when you’re faced with such situation?
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PRE-ASSESSMENT ACTIVITY # 2

Sunrise (1874) by Claude Monet Napoleon at the St. Bernard Pass (1800)

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Look at the pictures above. Compare and Contrast the two painting.
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Reflection:
Sunrise is a slight sketch, almost certainly completed on the spot in a single sitting, depicting the harbour at Le
Havre as the sun rises over the cranes, derricks and masts of the anchored ships. It was actually painted in one
sitting by Monet, standing at a window overlooking the harbour at sunrise. The painting is credited with inspiring
the name of the Impressionist movement. Impression, Sunrise depicts the port of Le Havre, Monet's hometown.
Since the 1900s, there are number of stylistic trends in music. These trends do not follow a chronological sequence.
They are not develop one after the other. Instead, these developments overlap each other. Some last longer. Others
are widely and favourably known. Even a single composer could utilize more than one trend in his style by
synthesizing these trends.
II. FIRM-UP

 CHARACTERISTICS OF IMPRESSIONISTIC MUSIC

Generally, music with impressionistic style:

 is programmatic;
 describes emotions based on what the composer sees;
 demonstrates vague-sounding scales, clouded tonality, and a luminous quality

Specifically, music with impressionistic style has the following characteristics:

 Neomodality – going back to the use of church modes
 Open chords – chords having fifths and octaves but without thirds
 Whole tone mode – a scale having six whole steps to the octave
 Parallelism – two or more melodies moving simultaneously in the same direction and by the same
intervals
 Free rhythms and less use of regular rhythms
 Wide intervals (leaping melodic contour)
Toward the 20th century, the first important stylistic trend in music is impressionism. The term impressionism in
music was borrowed from the field of visual arts particularly in painting. In 1874, Claude Monet along with other
French painters had an exhibition in Paris. His painting entitled Impression.

IMPRESSIONISM

 One of the earlier but concrete forms declaring the entry of 20th century music
 It is a French movement in the late 19th and early 20th century.
 The sentimental melodies and dramatic emotionalism of the preceding Romantic Period (their themes
and melody are easy to recognize and enjoy) were being replaced in favor of moods and impressions.
There is an extensive use of colors and effects, vague melodies, and innovative chords and progressions
leading to mild dissonances.
 Sublime moods and melodic suggestions replaced highly expressive and program music, or music that
contained visual imagery. With this trend came new combinations of extended chords, harmonies,
whole tone, chromatic scales, and pentatonic scales.

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 Impressionism was an attempt not to depict reality, but merely to suggest it. It was meant to create an
emotional mood rather than a specific picture. In terms of imagery, impressionistic forms were
translucent and hazy, as if trying to see through a rain-drenched window.
 In impressionism, the sounds of different chords overlapped lightly with each other to produce new
subtle musical colors.
 Chords did not have a definite order and a sense of clear resolution.
 Other features include the lack of a tonic-dominant relationship which normally gives the feeling of
finality to a piece, moods and textures, harmonic vagueness about the structure of certain chords, and
use of the whole-tone scale.
 Most of the impressionist works centered on nature and its beauty, lightness, and brilliance. A number
of outstanding impressionists created works on this subject.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)

 One of the most important and influential of the 20th century

composers
 He was the primary exponent of the impressionist movement
and the focal point for other impressionist composers
 He changed the course of musical development by dissolving
traditional rules and conventions into a new language of
possibilities in harmony, rhythm, form, texture, and color
 It was his aunt who first noticed how musical he was

Debussy’s mature creative period was represented by

the following works:
 Debussy was born in St. Germain-en-Layein
France on August 22, 1862
 His early musical talents were changed into
piano lessons
 He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1873. He
gained a reputation as an erratic pianist and a
rebel in theory and harmony
 In 1884, he won the top prize at the Prix de
Rome competition with his composition L’
Enfant Prodigue (The Prodigal Son)
 This enabled him to study for two years in
Rome, where he got exposed to the music of
Richard Wagner, specifically his opera Tristan
und Isolde
 His musical compositions total more or less 227
which include orchestral music, chamber
music, piano music, operas, ballets, songs, and
other vocal music.
 Ariettes Oubliees
 Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
 String Quartet
 Pelleas et Melisande (1895)—his famous
operatic work that drew mixed extreme
reactions for its innovative harmonies and
textural treatments.
 La Mer (1905)—a highly imaginative and
atmospheric symphonic work for orchestra
about the sea
 Images, Suite Bergamasque, and Estampes—
his most popular piano compositions; a set of
lightly textured pieces containing his
signature work Claire de Lune (Moonlight)

 The creative style of Debussy was characterized by his unique approach to the various musical elements.
Debussy’s compositions deviated from the Romantic Period and is clearly seen by the way he avoided
metric pulses and preferred free form and developed his themes.
 From the visual arts, Debussy was influenced by Monet, Pissarro, Manet, Degas, and Renoir; and from the
literary arts, byMallarme,Verlaine, and Rimbaud.

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  Most of hisclose friends were painters and poets who significantly influenced his compositions. His role
as the “Father of the Modern School of Composition” made its mark in the styles of the later 20th
century composers like Igor Stravinsky, Edgar Varese, and Olivier Messiaen. Debussy spent the
remaining years of his life as a critic, composer, and performer. He died in Paris on March 25, 1918 of
cancer at the height of the First World War.
Other compositions written by Debussy are the following:
 Orchestral Works
 Prelude to the afternoon Faun
 La Mer (The Sea)
 Nocturnes
 Piano Compositions
 Petite suite
 Suite bergammasque – including “Claire de lune”
 Children’s Corner
 Estampes
 Images
 Jeux –Debussy’s ballet
 Pelleas and Melisandde –Debussy’s only opera
 The term “impressionism,” borrowed from the field of visual arts,
refers to one of the sytlistic trends in 20th century music
 Debussy is the founder of musical impressionism
 Musical impressionism employs neomodality, open chords, whole
tone scales, parallelism, free rhythms, and wide intervals

Did you know that…

Another composer impressionist techniques was Debussy’s younger contemporary Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Ravel
was born in France and as known for his innovative modal melodies. In treating his melodies, he preferred the old
church modes like Mixolydian, Aeolian, Dorian, and Phrygian

MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937)

 Joseph Maurice Ravel was born in Ciboure, France to a Basque

mother and a Swiss father.
 He entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of 14 where he
studied with the eminent French composer Gabriel Faure.
During his stint with the school where he stayed until his early
20’s, he had composed a number of masterpieces.
 The compositional style of Ravel is mainly characterized by its
uniquely innovative but not atonal style of harmonic treatment.
 It is defined with intricate and sometimes modal melodies and
extended chordal components. It demands considerable
technical virtuosity from the performer which is the character,
ability, or skill of a virtuoso—a person who excels in musical
technique or execution.

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 Ravel’s works include the following:
 Pavane for a Dead Princess (1899), a slow but lyrical requiem
 Jeux d’Eau or Water Fountains (1901)
 String Quartet (1903)
 Sonatine for Piano (c.1904)
 Miroirs (Mirrors), 1905, a work for piano known for its harmonic evolution and imagination,
 Gaspard de la Nuit (1908), a set of demonic-inspired pieces based on the poems of Aloysius Bertrand which is
arguably the most difficult piece in the piano repertoire.
 These were followed by a number of his other significant works, including Valses Nobles et Sentimentales (1911)
 Le Tombeau de Couperin (c.1917), a commemoration of the musical advocacies of the early 18th century French
composer Francois Couperin,
 Rhapsodie Espagnole
 Bolero
 Daphnis et Chloe (1912), a ballet commissioned by master choreographer Sergei Diaghilev that contained rhythmic
diversity, evocation of nature, and choral ensemble
 La Valse (1920), a waltz with a frightening undertone that had been composed for ballet and arranged as well as
for solo and duo piano.

 The two piano concerti composed in 1929 as well as the violin virtuosic piece Tzigane (1922) total the relatively
meager compositional output of Ravel, approximating 60 pieces for piano, chamber music, song cycles, ballet, and
opera.
 Ravel was a perfectionist and every bit a musical craftsman. He strongly adhered to the classical form, specifically
its ternary structure. A strong advocate of Russian music, he also admired the music of Chopin, Liszt, Schubert, and
Mendelssohn. He died in Paris in 1937

Links:
La Mer = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOCucJw7iT8
Prelude to the Afternoon Faun = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_7loz-HWUM
String quartet debussy =https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ZcXt5BJYg
Jeux = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXSWFlwX9a4
Nocturnes =https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obv33I2Kf10

Debussy walked to his own tune instead of playing to Ravel played his music in order to please the
what people wanted. audience no matter what his personal decision would
have been.

Debussy had more of a French influence to his music Ravel grew with the times and adjusted his music to
no matter what style was considered in at the time. fit the changing times.

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 Debussy did put his all into his music while also Ravel perfected his music, but always seemed to hold
expecting perfection. back when he wrote.

COMPARISON BETWEEN DEBUSSY AND RAVEL

As the two major exponents of French Impressionism in music, Debussy and Ravel had crossed paths during their
lifetime although Debussy was thirteen years older than Ravel. While their musical works sound quite similar in
terms of their harmonic and textural characteristics, the two differed greatly in their personalities and approach to
music. Whereas Debussy was more spontaneous and liberal in form, Ravel was very attentive to the classical
norms of musical structure and the compositional craftsmanship. Whereas Debussy was more casual in his
portrayal of visual imagery, Ravel was more formal and exacting in the development of his motive ideas.
Ravel has been described as a Swiss watchmaker, such is the precision of his notation, the clear intent of every dot,
every line, and every slur. Debussy could never be mistaken as a time-keeper. Many of his pieces could lose their
barlines or time-signatures without losing their way. You always see the individual drops of rain in Ravel's mists,
whereas Debussy invites us to look at the garden beyond, blurred by the moisture.

III. DEEPEN
ACTIVITY # 1

Instruction: Compare Debussy and Ravel in terms of their musical style and musical influences.

CLAUDE DEBUSSY MAURICE RAVEL

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 ACTIVITY # 2

Instruction: Give an example of a musical work of Debussy and Ravel. Describe each composition.
COMPOSER TITLE OF MUSICAL COMPOSITION DESCRIPTION

Question/s you want to ask:

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IV. TRANSFER
Instructions: Watch and listen to Debussy’s Claire De Lune in YouTube and describe or draw your interpretations
of the song.
Link for online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea2WoUtbzuw
Link for offline: See the file provided.