This musical style was associated with the work of French paint artists who produced soft, blurry, sensual images based on the relationships between the canvas, color and the reflection of light. Although the main French music composers representing the style disapproved of the comparison between their music and the fine art movement called impressionism, the musicologists and art historians placed the comparison on them anyway. Although sharing a musical heritage and living in the same artistic world, their actual and musical personalities differed. Sympathetic to the poetry of the symbolists, Claude Debussy was more impulsive and stylistically relaxed. His music was very much a product of his freely-expressive individuality while paying homage to French tradition. Musically, Maurice Ravel was a formal craftsman, stating that he "followed a direction opposed to that of the symbolism of Debussy." There was no apparent malice between the composers - to the contrary, their music was performed on the same bill and they acknowledged one another's work publicly and privately. Ravel was considering revisions to his String Quartet because he thought some of it was too spontaneously written. After hearing a reading of it, an impressed Debussy supposedly told Ravel not to change a thing about it. Ravel, a master orchestrator who performed piano works of Debussy in concert, supposedly said that he would re-orchestrate Debussy's La mer, if he had the time.

This is an extensive musical, historical and philosophical analysis because this period of music had such a profound impact on the course of modern music that would follow. Jesus said - there is none good but God. None of us are perfect, but God works His will through us all and a fortunate few are the elect to receive His priceless gifts of grace, mercy and everlasting salvation. God has set the standards and rules by which we live if we are led by the Holy Spirit and hope to approach being worthy of the merciful grace of the salvation of God. We can't earn salvation - it is a gift from God. But, if we are truly saved, we will desire to become more like God and the Holy Spirit working within us will help us to change from what we once were. People are miraculously changed by the power of God as well. Although many of us live in a grey area between the extremes of light and dark, we cannot separate the spiritual man from the physical man. God didn't create us to be fragmented - our spiritual nature is a part of everything we do and the Holy Spirit of God should guide all of the things we are, do and say.

Claude Debussy is listed as one of the Grand Masters of the real or imagined Priory of Sion. The self-penned poetry from some of his songs features telling lines that speak of knights seeking the Holy Grail, the fleur de lis and an affinity for darkness. The opera that made him famous was based on a Merovingian play. According to some historians, his interests included the occult, alchemy and his social contacts included some who shared his interests. The poetry that he set to music was often dark or obscure. The expressive text for the first movement of the Épigraphes antiques, a late work for piano, 2 or 4 hands, states - pour invoquer Pan, dieu du vent d'été (to invoke Pan, god of the summer wind.) Debussy is said to have dealt with frequent depression, especially after the beginning of World War I, and may have smoked opium. His personal life is marked with failed love affairs and scandal. Some of his music is sensual and quite beautiful while some is tense and sinister. Often there is an interplay between the two in the same work.
According to various music historians, Maurice Ravel was an atheist due to the influence of his mother. He never married but rumors include one or two long-lasting liaisons with married women, the possibility of a very secretive homosexual life or, at times, visitations to Parisian bordellos. His personal life may have been mostly one of excessive dedication to his work.
Perhaps, the revelation of some of the darker aspects of their personalities will shed some light on the darkness of some of their music.
Debussy is often considered the most influential composer of the late 19th and early 20th century. According to many music historians, Igor Stravinsky stated (paraphrase) that Debussy led the way for the experimentation and departure from traditional musical concepts and gave the modern composers the license and freedom to write anything they wanted. [Stravinsky, discussed on the modern music page, was the composer of many modern musical monstrosities such as "The Rite of Spring." It was the music for a ballet about a pagan ritual of human sacrifice. The ballet was choreographed by Sergei (Pavlovich) Diaghilev (1872-1929), Russian ballet impresario.] Debussy led the assault on traditional music with an attitude of, "do what you will," a motto of satanists. Passages of alluring sensuality and seductive beauty would lead to passages which, for the time, were considered dark and sinister. According to music historians, at the premiere of En blanc et noir, one of Debussy's later works for 2 pianos, French traditionalist composer Camille Saint-Saens exclaimed, "One must at all costs bar the doors of the Institute to a gentleman capable of such atrocities!"

The application and shifting of tone color, harmony and rhythm as elements of formal development and the replacement of traditional linear melodic development with these devices had a profound effect on the history of music. In much of the work of Debussy, the augmented triad adds a sinister, dark or dreamy quality. That triad with a raised 5th is based on the whole tone scale which Debussy is credited with inventing. Many of his compositions were symbolic representations of ideas, concepts or feelings. He used veiled or fragmented associations of melody, harmony, rhythm and tone color, often in a dream-like manner. Subtlety of shading, texture, tone color and a musical construction based on the flow and communication style of the French language were hallmarks of his work.

The melodic flute whole tone scale dominates the quiet, colorful pan-pipe atmosphere of Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn, an early work for orchestra. The Nocturnes call for a large orchestra that is often quiet and subdued in the 1st and 3rd movements - Nuages (clouds) and Sirenes (sirens), the latter featuring a wordless female chorus. Fetes (festivals or parties) begins calmly, in a sinister tone, but gradually grows in intensity until the end which dissolves chaotically as does drunken revelry. Another ponderous and calm work for a large orchestra is La Mer (The Sea.)
Although Debussy contributed to the orchestral repertoire, the opera (Pelleas et Melisande, which debuted in 1902, made him famous) and the chamber ensemble, his most significant and popular contributions are found in the literature for the piano and French chanson (song.)

Ravel is perhaps best known for the orchestral Bolero, but, again, his contribution to the piano literature is exceptional. His style was more formally traditional, perhaps neo-classical when compared with that of Debussy. His melodies are often more linear in the traditional sense and his music more deceptively hypnotic with a calm intensity that draws the listener in to its often melancholy beauty. Ravel's music, in some cases, is deeper, more complex and more fascinatingly beautiful in its sonority and construction. At times, it has a clockwork, mechanical quality to it. According to friend Stravinsky, that was due to Ravel's Swiss heritage. For certain, one of many things that Debussy and Ravel shared in common was a tendency to compose piano music of great difficulty - some of which is considered among the most difficult in the literature to perform.

The music of Debussy could be playful (Children's Corner Suite, selections from Preludes Books 1 and 2,) romantic (Clair de Lune) or quite modern and forward looking (some of the Preludes, Hommage a Rameau from Images and other piano works after 1900.) Debussy was somewhat undisciplined as a youth. His early influences were Emmanuel Chabrier and Gabriel Faure. The music dramas of Richard Wagner were to have an influence on his mature style although Debussy did not personally care for Wagner or for his practice of making grandiose philosophical statements in his music dramas. Originally planning to be a pianist, Debussy left the rigors of the practice rooms at the Paris Conservatoire, choosing instead to be a composer. Many of his compositional projects were left unfinished including an opera based on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." At the Paris exhibition in 1889, Debussy discovered the calming and transcendent music of the Javanese gamelan. Oriental scales and Spanish themes would also influence his music.

Of course, Ravel had the advantages and disadvantages of being 12-13 years younger than Debussy. Undoubtedly influencing each other, there were musical disputes driven by the two camps of Debussy and Ravel fans. There were questions over who discovered or did what first or better and, because of his relative youth, Ravel was sometimes labeled the "copycat." Speaking of cats, Ravel liked them, having two Siamese at his home "Le belvedere" (the viewpoint.) To some, this is a strike (or two) against him!

After stormy youthful affairs, Debussy married and abandoned his first wife for a supposedly more intellectual and musically sensitive woman who also may have been more financially secure. His first wife attempted suicide. Debussy remarried and a daughter was born by his second wife. His "Children's Corner Suite" was dedicated to the daughter. In a photograph of the two of them together in the park, Debussy looks very fatigued. Ravel, who did not marry, is said to have led a quiet life, living and visiting regularly with family and close single and married friends, a number of them Jewish, in times when anti-Semitism was rising in Europe. An accomplished pianist, he accompanied singers on European tours. He was a member of Les Six, a group of young French composers. Ravel's father, an automotive engineer and accomplished amateur musician, was Swiss and his mother, Basque. (It is said she planted the seeds of atheism in his spirit that another of his friends, the devout Spanish and Catholic composer Manuel de Falla, attempted to disuade.) Ravel was often the target of criticism for being too classical in style and he appreciated the "German expansiveness" of Arthur Honneger's music which was in contrast to the "French reserve." The other members of Les Six were avant-garde and often at odds with Ravel, considering him to be part of the establishment.

Ravel was sociable as was necessary in his profession, but he alienated himself from others as well. He failed to win the Prix de Rome five times, the last, in 1905, caused a scandal that resulted in Gabriel Faure (Ravel's teacher and friend) being appointed to head the Paris Conservatoire. Ravel refused honors from his countrymen later in life, perhaps because they had rejected him when he was younger.

Debussy's father, Manuel Achille, may have accounted for Claude's fascination with Spanish music. In photographs, Debussy is seen with a cigar; Ravel with a cigarette. One frequently seen photo of Debussy is taken from an angle to the front of his left profile. He seems to be concealing a smile while sitting at a desk in a darkened room with the light source being the sun filtered through the white curtains behind the desk.

Debussy influenced harmony (tone color melody) and rhythm in precedence over melodic development; he is a transitional figure between the romantic and modern eras, considered by most to be the most influential composer of his time. When it comes to his solo piano collections, his "Suite Bergamasque" (1890-1905) is an all-time favorite. This group of piano works were written, revised and completed in time for publishing 15 years later. This suite, along with Pour le piano (1896-1901) harken back to baroque and classical forms (at least in name.) Debussy includes a Prelude, a Menuet, the beautiful Clair de lune and a Passepied. The title for this group of 4 piano works was taken from a line in the same poem and possibly refers to party-goers and festival participants in the city of Bergamo, Italy. The harmonies explored in this group are often exquisitely beautiful.
Debussy also wrote a song titled "Clair de lune" or moonlight, with text from a symbolist poem by Paul Verlaine.

CLAIR DE LUNE.
Your soul is as a moonlit landscape fair,
Peopled with maskers delicate and dim,
That play on lutes and dance and have an air
Of being sad in their fantastic trim.
The while they celebrate in minor strain
Triumphant love, effective enterprise,
They have an air of knowing all is vain,--
And through the quiet moonlight their songs rise,
The melancholy moonlight, sweet and lone,
That makes to dream the birds upon the tree,
And in their polished basins of white stone
The fountains tall to sob with ecstasy.

Make what you will of the allusions in the text about a sad party-goer with a dark, moonlit soul whose life is peopled with similar souls, celebrating temporary material victories to hide their sadness while knowing that their lives are vain and empty. The selection of a text for setting to music is a revealing indicator of the life of the composer.
Another popular piano solo favorite is "Reverie."

One of the Preludes - Les collines d'Anacapri (The Hills of Anacapri), is an animated tour up and down the landscape of the Isle of Capri, with echoes of strumming guitars and floating clouds under a sunny sky and over a deep blue sea.

From his chamber music portfolio, the Trio for piano, violin and cello (1879) is an early work. It is as neo-classic and neo-romantic as Debussy gets. The brisk 4th movement may be the most rewarding for the listener - it opens with rapid repeated chords reminiscent of Schumann or Schubert and from which Rachmaninov took a few cues, no doubt.

The sound of the machine, alternatively playful and sinister, can be heard in Debussy's "Mouvement" from Images, Book 1 (1905). Listen to the beginning of Ozark from Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays (Pat Metheny Group - As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, 1981 ECM Records) and the opening section of Debussy's Mouvement and listen for the shared tonal, rhythmic and stylistic similarities.

This impressionist trio of piano works includes two of his best and most representative works. "Reflets dans l'eau," in the key of Db major, shares some similarities with the mood of his most famous work, Clair de lune. Instead of moonlight through the trees, imagine soft rain turning into a thunderstorm and then back again. Or perhaps a calm sea that turns into a mass of stormy waves and back again. This harmonically and rhythmically-driven gem is full of pentatonic and whole-tone runs interspered with chords of the seventh and ninth. Jazz roots can surely be found here (bars 9, 10, 14.)

Some jazz certainly has African-rooted rhythms and stylistic tendencies rooted in the black experience, but much of the harmony is solidly rooted in western European classical music and its extensions and alterations. Rachmaninov and Copland (Reflets bars 18-19, see Four Piano Blues # 4 - bars 21-22 and the final 3 bars) can both acknowledge the influence of "Reflets" in their work. Play through and analyze or listen to the first movement of Aaron Copland's Piano Sonata after studying or listening to Debussy's Hommage a Rameau. These works share an open, sparse, sometimes cold and distant landscape and an exploration of ninth chords. "Hommage a Rameau" is an open, stately, sometimes somber and distant work that exhibits a Spanish/Moorish opening theme stated briefly above parallel chords (bars 5-9) followed by shimmering, crystalline chords. In measure 14, there is a similar harmony and style reflected in the film score for Jaws, with different orchestration of course. This is early in the film when the chief is at home, sitting at the table talking to his family and later when the chief and the shark expert are using the depth finder and run across a sunken boat. A floating, submerged sound is created throughout the film and owes much to Debussy - listen also to Le Cathedrale Engloute. That passage leads to a section (beginning at bar 17) where Debussy becomes harmonically adventurous, exploring the juxtaposition of major, minor, dimished, augmented and altered triads and ninth chords along with clusters. In bar 22, there is a beautiful quartal ninth chord built on E topped by a third (d to f#) with a full b minor root position chord above it. This work is better experienced by hearing or playing it than describing it. The open parallel fifth sound of the opening theme is common in impressionistic music, giving those sections an ancient atmosphere.

The French style of painting known as pointillism is reflected the music of Ravel (listen to #3 "Une barque sur l'ocean" from Miroirs, "Jeux d'eau" and "Ondine" from Gaspard de la Nuit.) Ravel specializes in melodies placed on top of rapidly moving complex chords, rapid arpeggios and runs, complex shifting chordal figurations accented by notes which are prominent due to their volume, length or placement in the chord, a wide dynamic range and extremes of range (particularly in the lower register of the piano where he likes to employ soft dynamics.) This musical style is composed of many points of sound as the paintings are composed of many small points of paint which reflect the light.

The exploration of ninth chords figures prominently in the music of Ravel, as does his fascination with extending and exploring the form of the waltz and 3/4 time ("Valses nobles et sentimentals" "La valse" and "Bolero".) In Valses nobles et sentimentals, Ravel expands the waltz form in sometimes beautiful, sometimes playful, always fascinating and often harmonically complex ways. He explored augmented and diminished harmonies as did Debussy, but surrounded them with more traditional harmonies. The effect is less harsh on the spirit and ears than a constant barrage of these harmonies. "Bolero" was music for the ballet and Ravel refered to it as an orchestrated crescendo.

Ravel wrote some absolutely beautiful music in its simplicity and sonority - Prelude (1913), Ma mere l'oye (the Mother Goose Suite No.1 - a piece which rocker Joe Walsh included on his album "So What!" - and No.5 - a passage from which was reflected in John Lennon's # 9 Dream from "Walls and Bridges") and the Pavane pour une infante defunte. The Mother Goose Suite was written for the children of friends. Le tombeau de Couperin is neo-baroque, neo-classic and modernist all at once, in the form of a baroque dance suite. Interestingly, it predates Stravinsky's neo-classicism. The movements are dedicated to Ravel's friends who were killed in World War I.

Written for baritone voice, Don Quichotte a Dulcinea (Don Quixote to Dulcinea,) 3 songs written in 1932-33 were originally to be sung by Chaliapin, the famous Russian bass, in a film which was never made. We are given the momentary flavor of what would later become blues and jazz style in some of his work. George Gershwin travelled to Paris to study with Ravel, but after a visit Ravel refused to take him on as a student, musing that it was better to be a first-rate George Gershwin than a second-rate Maurice Ravel.

A very sensitive composer, his work left him emotionally and physically drained and he would rest for extended periods after completing works.

Hollywood composers have always reflected the French impressionists. Debussy was fascinated with Spanish music and some of his work reveals Spanish melodic, harmonic and rhythmic influence.

While on the subject, the Spanish impressionist composers Isaac Albeniz (1860-1909) and Enrique Granados (1867-1916) left their mark on the period with a body of work that included works for solo piano and guitar.

Isaac Manuel Francisco Albeniz was born in 1860 and from 1880 toured widely, playing many of his own piano works. He was prolific, composing 250 piano pieces between 1880 and 1892, most of them employing Spanish rhythmic and melodic idioms. Moving to Paris in 1893, he was influenced by Faure and Dukas. Sadly, many of his 500 plus composition have been lost. One 1901 photograph of him looks very much like a bearded Debussy, only a bit heavier.

Although the echoes of a Spanish guitar playing the Asturias-Leyenda while castanets and a flamenco dancer's heels crackle may be the most familiar association, Albeniz' Iberia Suite of 1909 (4 books, not unlike Debussy's 2 books of Images in concept) evokes the sound of Spanish dances and native life along with the Spanish past with its Moorish history. Titled after the European peninsula containing Spain and Portugal, these short gems are masterpieces in their own right and one listening reveals why Debussy was fascinated with the music of Spain. Rhythmic interplay between parts, harmonically adventurous, stretching the technique of the performer with finger gymnastics and difficult keys, Iberia is music that shows the influence of other composers but it broke new ground that would influence the music to come. This music is often strikingly futuristic and ahead of its time while having a strong formal structure enhanced by the techniques of repetition and sequence. There is often melodic or harmonic dissonance, but it passes by quickly or in such a rhythmic manner that it is not harsh or disturbing.
It definitely explores the impressionistic idiom but the harsh, oppressive drone of the augmented fifth in some of Debussy's music is thankfully missing. Albeniz explores this harmony in the Spanish way . . . rhythmically. Of course, to enjoy these works you must have an appreciation of the Spanish style . . . very rhythmic and modal with repetitive, ornamented melodic phrases supported and driven by arpeggiated, broken and block chord patterns. Some of this music could have been written for either piano or guitar and certainly has been arranged for both, as the very character of much Spanish music is directly associated with the sound and style of the acoustic guitar.

There is a Leonard Cohen song (the name is "Priests" . . . it was covered by Judy Collins) that sounds to be very much influenced by a modal passage introduced 19 bars into the Poco meno mosso (the middle, slower B section) of Iberia, Book 2-1, "Rondena", is a favorite. Its A B A' form is worked to perfection by Albeniz. The rhythmic vitality and harmonic complexity of this piece is astonishing. Albeniz often avoids the expected melodic or harmonic direction. His chords are rich with added tones and often not the usual ones. There's even a chord near the end that can be heard in a Manhattan Transfer tune and other jazz works. The ABA form is employed with varying degrees of strictness in many impressionist works and for my ears, due to the rhythmic interplay, employs the augmented triad more musically and in a more pleasing manner than any of the impressionist composers.

Another familiar technique in impressionistic piano compositions was to make a reasonably simple piece much more difficult to play by placing it in a difficult key and/or having the left and right hands crossing over one another or playing in close proximity with the fingers intertwined. Albeniz does this in a harmonically fascinating piece, in the key of C flat major, called "Evocation" (Book 1-1.) "Jerez" (Book 4-2) is 18 pages of blurred harmonies, rhythmically intertwined, revealing that modern harmony was already being explored by Albeniz, a child prodigy said to have an amazing facility for improvisation. At about 6:27 into the piece, listen for a passage quoted almost verbatim by Lyle Mays in one of the tunes from the Pat Metheny Group. In Iberia book 3-2, "El Polo," Albeniz introduces a punctuating chord in the opening bars that sounds very much like a famous heavily and irregularly accented chord that Stravinsky will use in an ostinato for "The Rite of Spring." (Stravinsky's music and the Diaghilev choreography sent many first time listeners running in horror from the concert hall to the streets of 1913 Paris because of the pagan subject matter of the ballet and the dark, oppressive, irregularly accented music.)

Among his other piano music, the Suite Espanola (No.6, "Zortzico") is very entertaining, sometimes Joplinesque and comfortable to perform for the intermediate pianist. In Six Little Waltzes, Op. 25, Albeniz explores 3/4 time (which he does throughout his works) with amazing facility, recalling styles past and present from Europe. "No. 6" has a final section that refers back to Satie and "No.1" and the "Cotillon Valse" have the flavor of Scott Joplin. Along the same line, a melodic fragment in Recuerdos de Viaje (Travel Impressions), Op. 71 # 2.Leyenda-Barcarole (Legend) sounds very much like a theme heard in Antonin Dvorak's "From the New World" Symphony No.9, 2nd mvt (1893). Lyrics in the "minstrel" style were later added to this theme, forming a popular Negro Spiritual called, "Goin' Home."

Enrique Granados' "Danzas Espanolas" may be the best and most representative of his work. "No. 2" is filled with interesting harmonies, including that Moorish flavor so familiar in Spanish music.

With a deceptively simple bass line pattern (built around the C pure minor scale with an occasional raised 7th and a Bb add 9 chord ) that repeats and shifts its starting tone, the melody enters in thirds. In the B section, the bass become a more complex broken chord pattern of Cm, Bb, D, Fm and Gm rooted by a C bass moving to G7 with the C minor melody (with raised 4th and 7th - F#, B natural) becoming more embellished and ornamented in the Spanish style with triplets, grace notes and rapidly rolled chords. Ending with the return of the A section, the piece gradually slows and quietens to a close.

"Los Requiebros" from Goyescas has some Wagnerian moments as the left and right hand parts move in broken chord patterns, melodic runs and chordal figurations, climbing to a climax somewhat independent while supportive of each other. This piece shows Granados' pianistic idiom of using a constantly moving bass line, which can be melodic/broken chord/arpeggiated/rolled, while the melody moves in a single line or chords that are simple or embellished.
Goyescas made Granados internationally famous as he turned it into an opera that was performed in New York by the Met.
There is a melodic theme in the B section of "Playera" that could have been the inspiration for a phrase in the popular song "I Could Have Danced All Night." His "Fandango" is quite good as well and might have served as an inspiration for Ernesto Lecuona's "Malaguena" . . . or perhaps not. There are other Malaguenas including one from Albeniz.

Norwegian Edvard Haverup Grieg (1843-1907) wrote one of the most famous and beautiful piano concertos in the repertoire, the first movement being separate from the 2nd and 3rd which are joined. Although historically classified as a romantic, his style is marked with the impressionist stamp, by the use of colorful 7th and 9th chords, some of the sounds and stylistic tendencies of the French and Spanish impressionists and the unique musical personality of one who lives near the rugged high mountains and fjords of the cold northern regions of Scandinavia. From his Lyric Pieces, Op.12, No.1 - Arietta, bars 13 and 14, is a potential source for thematic material in Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano concerto, 2nd movement. And the sound of Ravel's Pavane is heard from bar 9 of the same opus, No.3, Watchman's Song. From a later opus, No.53, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen is among his best work. It's a longer piece with a festive, rhythmic style, a beautiful melody and enchanting harmonies. This piece is a keepsake from a time when a man could be assured that his wedding day would be a happy and memorable occasion.

A friend and protege of Grieg, Frederic Delius (1862-1934), sometimes refered to as the "English impressionist," wrote in a very personal style. His works have a consistency and familiarity yet they are also alternatively predictable and elusive. His musical movements are normally either very lush and mellow or playful and pastoral. Clear and simple melodies follow the pattern and style of his movements. Delius' harmonic language allowed for chromaticism and foreshadowed rich string jazz harmonies employing the impressionistic ninth chord.
Born in England to German parents, he bought a Florida orange plantation with a friend, studied organ and listened to the local black folk music. The Florida Suite, written in 1888, recalls the music Delius heard while living in Florida. He moved back to Leipzig and later Paris after his plantation failed. On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (MIDI sequence by Yu Nakajima) is an outstanding work, perhaps his most well-known, perhaps due to Eumir Deodato's 1973 album named "First Cuckoo," on which he presented a lush, abridged arrangement of the work. Even one of the Pat Metheny's tunes (Tell Her You Saw Me from "Secret Story") echoes the short, transitional passage at the section ends and a reminiscence of this three section (ABA') work. One from the Group (Letter from Home) shares a little of the same feel. Something may be heard in one work that reminds you of another piece of music, not that there was any conscious choice or effort to use certain chords, rhythmic patterns or whatever. Sometimes, it's simply a flowing, musical feel or mood.

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