Impressionist and Expressionist Music Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Impressionist and Expressionist Music - Essay Example Music, like any other arts, had its share of changes as the generations of artists changed their tastes and styles. In the 20th century, the impressionists and expressionists arose. Impressionism in paintings, based from the name, created an impression that called for the mood and setting that the paintings depicted. Similarly, impressionist music had similar characteristics although one of the pioneers, Claude Debussy disliked the term used. His aim then was to make something different from what seemed to be an overuse of the romantic approach to music. However, no matter how the great Debussy argued about the term used for his music, there was not much he could have done but to continue to create the sound that he wanted to let people listen to (Ajero). It was such a great success, obtaining the goal of the composer that is, creating a new kind of music and has influenced other musicians from that time on. Impressionist music uses alternating slow and fast sounds that creates an im pression of action and emotions. The slow music evokes emotions such as love, sadness, happiness, despondency or a reflective mood. On the other hand, the fast movement of the sounds in an impressionistic music suggests activity like dancing, or perhaps jumping for joy. This is probably the reason why the music is called impressionist, because it does leave an impression of what must be the composer’s imagination when the music was being created.... The sound is never loud when the movement goes slow and vice versa. This shows that in impressionist music, the volume and speed complement each other. The impressionist music also has a smooth flow in changing its speed and volume, making the transition beautiful to listen to (modernexample). Moreover, the changes in the volume of sound in the music create an impression of moving far or near to the listener. For example, when the sound is amplified, it gives a feeling of being very near the source of the sound but when the sound softens, the sound seems to be coming from a distance. The pitches created in the impressionist music are similarly varied with similar effects as the motion and volume of the sound. The overall impact of these sound qualities is the creation of a beautiful composition that stirs different emotions in just one piece of music (modernexample). The expressionist music on the other hand is not as beautiful to listen to. This is perhaps because the music was deli berately created to express feelings that were often suppressed. The high pitch in this kind of music is similar to how the fear of a woman or a child is expressed through a high sounding scream. It evokes a chilling feeling that listeners might not like to listen to for entertainment purposes. The sounds are similar to those often played during Halloween and in horror movies. Often, a note is played for a short period in between silence. This makes the music seem chopped or fragmented. At one point, the musician seems to be very careful in his movements that the sound is soft and slow. This expresses the fear the character in the music is feeling. For this reason, most of the sounds made in the expressionist music are low and slow. At another, the