FIRST QUARTER

UNDERSTANDING
THE MUSIC OF
THE 20 Th

CENTURY
MUSIC OF THE 20th CENTURY
IMPRESSIONISM
Historical and cultural background
Composers: Claude Debussy and Maurice
Ravel

EXPRESSIONISM
TOPIC Composer: Arnold Schoenberg

S OTHERS
Electronic music
Chance music
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Fill the chart below and write as many information as you can with regards to the 20 th –
century music
History and Background Electronic and Chance Music

Music of the 20th century

It is a movement in painting that started in

France in the 1860.
Impressionism Expressionism
What is 20 Century Music?
th

music
What is Impressionism?
Impressionis
m
Just like other art and music influences, impressionism is a
movement in painting that started in France in 1860.

It is characterized by visual impression of the moment in terms of the

shifting effects of color and light.

Impressionist artists paint with many colors, and their usual

subjects are the outdoors; for example, nature’s landscape.
History and background of Impressionism
It is an art movement that started in the mid-19th century and became popular in
the last quarter of the century.
It was inspired by different factors that include anti-establishmentism, foreign or
Asian influences, and a desire to paint modern life instead of academic subjects of
mythology and history.
Rosa Bonheur
Gustave Courbet Artists who started anti-establishmentism
Jean-Francois Millet They painted real-life images (Realism) instead of myth,
fantasy, and historical topics, but they were still painting
using traditional techniques in painting.

Subsequently, the term “impressionism” started to enjoy much popularity and

captured more interest due to various critics in the world of art.
What is Impressionism in music?

It has been said that Impressionism in music was adapted

from Art Impressionism.

In music, Impressionism is a style of music that makes use

of sound to let the listener feel their moods that focus on the
structure of music.

Impressionism in music also started and developed

in France in the 19th century.
What are the characteristics of Impressionism
in music?
The rhythm of Impressionism music is irregular in terms of phrases.
It avoids traditional harmonic progression.

It has unresolved dissonance. Is the lack of agreement and consistency in the

progress of harmony of music.
It uses the whole-tone scale, uses the 9th chord, and also frequently uses
modality and exotic scales.
MODALIT
Is
Yderived rom the word “modal”, which refers to the modes (the existence of which predates
keys) in music composition, meaning that the traditional way of composing was abandoned
in Impressionism music.
Who are the notable 20th century composers
and musicians that belong to the genre of
Impressionism in music?

Claude Debussy Maurice Ravel

How does Impressionist music sound like?
How do you find the flow of music?

How will you describe

Impressionism based on what you
have heard?
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Achilles-Claude Debussy was born in France on the 22nd of
August 1862.

His parents were Manuel-Achille Debussy and Victorine

Manoury.

He was the favorite among the siblings and was sent to his first
formal school at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 10.

Debussy’s first documented musical experience dates back

from 1870-1871, during the visit of his Aunt Clementine in
Cannes.

Debussy died on the 25th of March 1918 due to rectal cancer,

but he died with his great compositions like the Engulfed
Cathedral and Claire De Lune.
L’enfant prodigue

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

La Mer

Nocturne

Images

Pelleas et Melisande

Engulfed Cathedral

Claire De Lune
 What made Claude Debussy’s work known to the world are the
following characteristics.

According to Rodulf Reti, Debussy The use of bitonality, or at least bitonal

established a new concept in tonality in chords
European Music.

He used glittering passages and webs of Use of the whole-tone and pentatonic scales. Whole
tone is a scale which each note is separated from its
figurations, which distract from neighbors by interval of a whole step; there are only
occasional absence of tonality. two complementary whole-tone scales.

Frequent use of parallel chords, which

are “in essence not harmonies at all”, Unprepared modulations, “without any
but rather “chordal melodies, enriched harmonic bridge.”
unisons”; some writers describe these as
non-functional harmonies.
MAURICE RAVEL (1875-
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was born at 10:00 pm on
1937)
March 7, 1875 to Marie Delourat and Joseph Ravel in the town
or Ciboure, France.

He was baptized in a Catholic ceremony in the local parish

church of Saint Vincent, and then after three months, he and
his family moved to Paris.

In 1882, shortly after his 7th birthday, Maurice took his first
piano lesson under Henry Ghys, who observed his young
pupil to be “intelligent” and gave the youngster his first
lesson in harmony, counterpoint, and composition.

In the piano competition held on July 10, 1890, Maurice

Ravel was awarded 2nd place, in making his initial year at the
Conservatoire rather successful.

He died on December 28, at the age of 62, in Paris. The famous

works of his lifetime of compositions are Bolero, La Valse, Ma
mere l’oie, and Miroirs.
Bolero

La Valse

Ma mere l’oie

Miroirs
What are the similarities of Debussy
and Ravel’s musical compositions?

What made them unique in

their compositions is the
use of the whole-tone scale.
 What is a whole-tone scale?
A whole-tone scale is the arrangement of pitches in the scale which are
separated by a whole step in contradiction to the chromatic scale, which
consists of half steps (also known as semitones) and various diatonic
scales, such as the major and minor scales, which are different
arrangements of a whole and half steps.

Chromatic scale means a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone above or
below it’s adjacent pitches. Moreover, in equal temperament, all the semitones have the
same size. As a result, the notes of an equal-tempered chromatic scale are equally spaced.

Diatonic scale is one of the scales used in music. It is also called heptatonic scale,
because it uses seven distinct pitch classes.