1. End of a Century End of an Era
Fin de Siecle
End of a Century
End of an Era

2. Late 19th Century & early 20th
Cultural center of Europe is Paris.
Conflict between the German-Italian style of music & the French style.
Eventually the French tradition would become more important & influence music in Europe.
The musical culture of Europe was closely connected to other arts, particularly painting & literature.
Impressionism had not only changed the art world but it would influence music too.

3. Impressionist artists sought to capture the visual impression of their subject matter.
They were concerned with the way light played on an object.
Mood & atmosphere became important in their works; nature was their inspiration.
Symbolist poets also influenced music.
These poets experimented with rhythm, sound, & the clustering of images to suggest moods or emotions.
Fin de siecle music & art were characterized by experimentation & change.

4. Characteristics Emphasized mood & atmosphere
Nature is main source of inspiration
Fragile & decorative beauty
Sensuous tone colors
Subdued atmosphere
Elegance & refinement
(It cast off the more pompous, heavy, & serious quality of the German tradition that was heard in the works of Wagner.)

5. Claude Debussy
“In an age when airplanes fly in the sky, music cannot stay the same.”
Debussy studied at the Paris Conservatory where he received traditional training in late romantic style.
He used much of this in his early works, but eventually rejected much of what he was taught.
He rejected the strict tonality of the Germanic tradition

6. According the Debussy the primary goal of music was to give pleasure & to appeal to the senses.

7. Debussy’s Style
His music is considered to be program music (not that it tries to tell a story though.)
Music tries to create a mood or atmosphere to correspond to the subject.
He was the first European composer to break with the old system of tonality.
His music is organized around sound patterns.
Spacing of notes were all the same, so the music was not in any specific key.

8. Main influences were
Chopin & Liszt
Mussorgsky
Exotic influences of the music of the South Sea Islands (Bali & Java.)
Literature, particularly the symbolist poet Stephane Mallarme
Sound & rhythmic patterns of the French language.

9. Debussy’s Works NO symphonies or concertos
Wrote mostly for piano; his early works are non-
Impressionistic
Piano works include
Clair de lune (“Moonlight”) written in 1890
Suite Bergamasque (1893)
Pour le Piano (1901) piano suite
Orchestral works include
Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune (1894) “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun”

10. These are called “symphonic sketches.” String Quartet/chamber music
Nocturnes (3; 1894)
Nuages (Clouds)
Fetes (Festivals)
Sirenes (Sirens; from Greek mythology)
La Mer (The Sea; 1905)
These are called “symphonic sketches.”
String Quartet/chamber music
1893: Quartet in G Minor for strings
Opera (1)
Pelleas et Melisande
Incidental music & art songs from poems.
First to incorporate titles.

11. Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un Faune “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun”
Based on a poem by Mallarme
Debussy’s first orchestral work
Choice of instruments (small group)
3 flutes
2 oboes
English horn
2 clarinets
2 bassoons
This wind group would play the main melody

12. Full strings (muted & divided) The Sound
Brasses
4 horns
2 harps
1 pair of tiny cymbals
Full strings (muted & divided)
The Sound
ﺦ The opening theme is a sensuous melody (solo flute); this melody would be heard throughout the piece in various transformations.
ﺺ In general, the piece has a delicate, restrained, dreamlike quality; relaxed, vague rhythmic movement w/out a strong beat.

13. ﻍ There is a sense of floating on a gentle summer breeze.
ﻖ The music is to describe the dreamy afternoon of a faun (similar to the Greek satyrs.)
ﻺ Satyrs & fauns have human torsos with
the body of a goat below the waist.
ﻂThe faun dreams of 2 nymphs, female woodland spirits, he had seen earlier in the day.
ﺳ He can’t remember if he carried them off to his lair or was it just a dream…..so he drifts off to sleep again.
It’s the impression that is important, not a literal interpretation of the poem.