Question

Discuss the primary musical features of these twentieth-century styles or “-isms” using at least 2 elements of music and an explanation of the basic artistic concept or meaning behind each “-ism.” Your response should be in the form of a short essay with at least three sentences in paragraph format.

A	Impressionism
B	Minimalism
C	Expressionism
D	Neo-Romanticism
E	Aleatoricism (otherwise thought of as “Chance Music”)

Answer 1

A. Impressionism was a movement in 19th and early 20th century Western classical music which was inspired by the impressionist school of paintings of Clude Monet. Within music, it represented a means of conveying the moods and emotions aroused by the subject rather than a detailed tone?picture with a sense of detached emotional expressions .

Like the impressionist painters, the music composers tried to present a perspective of colours in music through starkly contrasting tones, blurry foreground and background, flattening perspective, etc. to make the observer focus his attention on the overall impression.

The central features of impressionistic music was the use of "color", or timbre, which was achieved through orchestration, harmonic usage and texture gradient. For instance, a renowned impressionist musician and composer Debussy, evolved his impressionist style of music by the use of extended harmonies, parallel motions, extra-musicality, and evocative titles to create a highly visual association in the listeners such as that noticed in “ Reflets dans l'eau” (Reflections on the water).