# Impressionist Music



## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

Ok, so maybe that's a bit of a dirty label, Debussy certainly didn't like it, but I think it's the best one I have for the kind of music I really enjoy. I need help in finding more composers and pieces to listen to, deep cuts as it were. I know Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Roussel, Dukas, Honegger, Faure etc I've listened to some of the works of Les Six, which were supposedly a move away from Impressionism but I must be too 'cloth eared' to recognise the difference. I am also well acquainted with the Spanish composers of the period like Falla, Ibert, Granados, Albeniz, Turina. I've heard Respighi. What else can I listen to that has the Impressionist vibe to it?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Ives Concord Piano Sonata, but with a warning: it is a thorny, difficult work.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I'll mention a composer and a good introduction to his work


Griffes - three tone pictures
Delius - walk to the paradise garden
Koechlin - les heures persanes 
Sorabji - Gulistan
Szymanowsky - third symphony
Scriabin - Prometheus
Tomasi - Trumpet concerto
Fanelli (the man who inspired Debussy) - Tableaux symphoniques
I think that Messiaen and Takemitsu too could be mentioned, at least for certain works.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Ives wrote certainly impressionistic music (I'm thinking especially many of his songs, but I don't think the Concord sonata could be considered like that). It's free atonality closer to Schoenberg than to Debussy in my opinion.


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## wolkaaa (Feb 12, 2017)




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## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

Sorabji, in nocturnes like _Le jardin parfume_ and _Djami_. Messiaen's preludes. You could also try Deodat de Severac - I forget which pieces are the more "impressionistic" ones though, it's been years since I've heard his work.


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## Sisyphus (Jul 2, 2017)

A historically and musically curious one is _Clairs de lune_ by Abel Decaux. Remarkably modern for something started in 1900 and the only thing he ever published. Here it is on YouTube; I'd recommend the recording by Hamelin:


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

You might want to hear Villa-Lobos. The best introduction are the Bachianas Brasileiras.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

norman bates said:


> I'll mention a composer and a good introduction to his work
> 
> Griffes - three tone pictures
> Delius - walk to the paradise garden
> ...


Griffes and Koechlin! Classical music's best kept secrets, especially Koechlin.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I can only think of two more to add.

Joseph Jongen:





And perhaps Jean Cras:


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## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

Sisyphus said:


> A historically and musically curious one is _Clairs de lune_ by Abel Decaux. Remarkably modern for something started in 1900 and the only thing he ever published. Here it is on YouTube; I'd recommend the recording by Hamelin:


Thanks for mentioning those! I remember how I heard them the first time (on Hamelin's CD) and they blew my socks right off. I've always thought it was incredibly strange that Decaux hasn't really composed anything else of note.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

You could give Takemitsu's magical soundscapes a go:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Is Night Fantasies (Carter) an impressionist piece representing a sleepless night? How about Finnisy's Snowdrift? 

Where I'm coming from is that the genre needs to be explained a bit.


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Is Night Fantasies (Carter) an impressionist piece representing a sleepless night? How about Finnisy's Snowdrift?
> 
> Where I'm coming from is that the genre needs to be explained a bit.


I agree that it's a difficult thing to define and I'm far from an expert. To me it seems to be more a symphonic poem type of piece, think Debussy's Prelude to an afternoon of a faun, something that works on creating a feel rather than a logical progression through movements. Sometimes it's kind of nebulous I enjoy lots of hanging strings and ebbs and flows. I don't know if that helps and I certainly cannot explain it from a musicological point of view.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

classical yorkist said:


> I agree that it's a difficult thing to define and I'm far from an expert. To me it seems to be more a symphonic poem type of piece, think Debussy's Prelude to an afternoon of a faun, something that works on creating a feel rather than a logical progression through movements. Sometimes it's kind of nebulous I enjoy lots of hanging strings and ebbs and flows. I don't know if that helps and I certainly cannot explain it from a musicological point of view.


So is Holst's Egdon Heath an Impressionist work? Genuine question: it seems to meet the working definition, but I would not have thought of Holst as an Impressionist composer, more as part of the English Pastoral Tradition. Finzi and Bax wrote works that would meet the definition of Impressionist, too?


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Satie shouldn't really be included as an "impressionist".


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

Pat Fairlea said:


> So is Holst's Egdon Heath an Impressionist work? Genuine question: it seems to meet the working definition, but I would not have thought of Holst as an Impressionist composer, more as part of the English Pastoral Tradition. Finzi and Bax wrote works that would meet the definition of Impressionist, too?


Well I haven't heard it so maybe it is impressionist. This is only my very unscholarly definition and the kind of things I like to hear.


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

eugeneonagain said:


> Satie shouldn't really be included as an "impressionist".


I'd be interested to know why, it might help us define impressionist music better. I will still adore Satie whatever.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> Satie shouldn't really be included as an "impressionist".


To my ear, Satie does count as an impressionist because he uses many of its defining characteristics: parallel chords, pentatonic and whole-tone scales, and chords with sevenths and ninths that don't resolve. Also, pseudo-modal cadences such as minor dominant followed by major tonic. To me, those features are sufficient to classify a composer as impressionist. Of course, I realize that there isn't an exact formula for this, but in my opinion if a composer uses 3 or more features of a style, I would classify him (or at least some of his work) as belonging to that movement.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

classical yorkist said:


> I'd be interested to know why, it might help us define impressionist music better. I will still adore Satie whatever.





Bettina said:


> To my ear, Satie does count as an impressionist because he uses many of its defining characteristics: parallel chords, pentatonic and whole-tone scales, and chords with sevenths and ninths that don't resolve. Also, pseudo-modal cadences such as minor dominant followed by major tonic. To me, those features are sufficient to classify a composer as impressionist. Of course, I realize that there isn't an exact formula for this, but in my opinion if a composer uses 3 or more features of a style, I would classify him (or at least some of his work) as belonging to that movement.


That's true and there is overlap, but Satie was initially doing it in mimicry of Church music/plainchant. After his plainchant fascination it was just one strand of his experimentation; there are works from the same periods which differ markedly. I consider him to have been onto this well before Debussy anyway, but whereas Debussy went full-on with the shimmering effects, huge intervals, whole-tone scales, tone-pictures etc, Satie's output of that period moves back and forth between sharp and angular, café chansons, mock-romantic. By 1905 he'd already gone all neo-classical and then during 1906-1916 jumped back and forth between that, some utter cubist/dada stuff - like _Heures séculaires et Instantanées_ - and his idiosyncratic, probably slightly tongue-in-cheek- version of impressionism like _Avant Dernières-Pensées_ and his _Nocturnes_(especially 2 & 4) which were produced a year after Debussy had died and "impressionism" was fading anyway.

His work lacks some typical features of "impressionism" such as that layered sostenuto/pedalling, obviously Eastern-influenced melodies (though he couldn't have avoided that using the pentatonic). Those sevenths and ninths of the Sarabandes are pre-Debussy (or unknowingly concurrent) and before the idea of "Impressionism". I see Satie as apart from it and having influenced it more than anything. He shifted away from it and onto other things pretty rapidly.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Weston said:


> Griffes and Koechlin! Classical music's best kept secrets, especially Koechlin.


Along with Charles Loeffler.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bettina said:


> To my ear, Satie does count as an impressionist because he uses many of its defining characteristics: parallel chords, pentatonic and whole-tone scales, and chords with sevenths and ninths that don't resolve. Also, pseudo-modal cadences such as minor dominant followed by major tonic. To me, those features are sufficient to classify a composer as impressionist. Of course, I realize that there isn't an exact formula for this, but in my opinion if a composer uses 3 or more features of a style, I would classify him (or at least some of his work) as belonging to that movement.


It's interesting that for you Impressionism is just a harmony thing. Not about the poetry of the composition or the objectives of the composer. I don't know if that's the best way of seeing it (it's like defining impressionist painters by their colour palate. It misses the point, it's too low level. )


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

I like both your posts, I don't particularly understand them but I think what you both said is why I really like both Debussy and Satie above all other composers.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> It's interesting that for you Impressionism is just a harmony thing. Not about the poetry of the composition or *the objectives of the composer*. I don't know if that's the best way of seeing it (it's like defining impressionist painters by their colour palate. It misses the point, it's too low level. )


I agree that the poetic meanings of the composition and the aesthetic aims of the composer are important. However, the composer creates these meanings through specific musical features, including certain types of melody, harmony and timbre. How else could aesthetic objectives be expressed in music? In my post, I was listing the technical means by which impressionism achieves its characteristic effects - its sense of timelessness, dreaminess, fleeting images, and half-remembered experiences. I wasn't attempting to describe the moods associated with impressionism, although that would certainly be a worthy way of approaching the topic. Instead, I was listing the devices which help to evoke an impressionistic aesthetic.

Many of the features enumerated in my post serve to create the blurry, atmospheric tone which often characterizes impressionistic music. For instance, the whole-tone scale tends to create a dreamy, floating mood, reflecting an impressionistic approach to time: the desire to suspend time or to explore the ephemeral sensations of a single moment. The "antique" modal cadences create a sense of nostalgia for some imagined Greek/Renaissance past, a past which is depicted as distant and blurry as though its edges were dissolving.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I have no doubt that the musical features partly cause the poetic features.


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## Melvin (Mar 25, 2011)

I second Charles Griffes. I've heard a bit of Frederick Mompou that sounded quite impressionistic. Certain works of Messiaen, but he had a wide variety of styles.

I agree, the "impressionist" style is one of my favorite things in all of classical music. It is something I can really feel.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> I have no doubt that the musical features partly cause the poetic features.


The relationship between the poetic and the musical features is quite a complex topic! When addressing the question of how to classify Satie's music, I felt that it might be useful to point out his harmonic affinities with composers who are widely recognized as impressionistic.

However, I certainly didn't mean to imply a one-to-one correspondence between a musical device and a poetic effect. The overall effect is more than the sum of the devices. Also, as you suggested in post #22, extramusical factors also contribute to the impressionistic aesthetic of a piece, such as the titles and the associated poetry (in the case of songs or tone poems with texts, like Afternoon of a Faun).


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> That's true and there is overlap, but Satie was initially doing it in mimicry of Church music/plainchant. After his plainchant fascination it was just one strand of his experimentation; there are works from the same periods which differ markedly. I consider him to have been onto this well before Debussy anyway, but whereas Debussy went full-on with the shimmering effects, huge intervals, whole-tone scales, tone-pictures etc, Satie's output of that period moves back and forth between sharp and angular, café chansons, mock-romantic. By 1905 he'd already gone all neo-classical and then during 1906-1916 jumped back and forth between that, some utter cubist/dada stuff - like _Heures séculaires et Instantanées_ - and his idiosyncratic, probably slightly tongue-in-cheek- version of impressionism like _Avant Dernières-Pensées_ and his _Nocturnes_(especially 2 & 4) which were produced a year after Debussy had died and "impressionism" was fading anyway.
> 
> His work lacks some typical features of "impressionism" such as that layered sostenuto/pedalling, obviously Eastern-influenced melodies (though he couldn't have avoided that using the pentatonic). Those sevenths and ninths of the Sarabandes are pre-Debussy (or unknowingly concurrent) and before the idea of "Impressionism". I see Satie as apart from it and having influenced it more than anything. He shifted away from it and onto other things pretty rapidly.


Those are all great points. Maybe I should amend my statement to say that Satie's earlier period was (proto-)impressionistic, whereas his later work moved more in the direction of neoclassicism, with his increased emphasis on clarity and parody (funnily enough, those rhyme, at least in American English!)


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Bettina said:


> Those are all great points. Maybe I should amend my statement to say that Satie's earlier period was (proto-)impressionistic, whereas his later work moved more in the direction of neoclassicism, with his increased emphasis on clarity and parody (funnily enough, those rhyme, at least in American English!)


I'm glad you replied and I agree with you. I had noticed another post of yours in an older thread talking about Satie's influence on Debussy. Normally you don't hear much about Satie; either people just like his Gymnopedies and think all his other music is horrible, or he's ignored.

I had wondered if you had played his music, because whatever is said about it there's no denying he knew how to write for the piano and I've met many pianists who say they enjoy playing the pieces, as compared to some stuff that is meant to be for piano but seems more like the work of a frustrated symphonist who couldn't get a date with an orchestra.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm glad you replied and I agree with you. I had noticed another post of yours in an older thread talking about Satie's influence on Debussy. Normally you don't hear much about Satie; either people just like his Gymnopedies and think all his other music is horrible, or he's ignored.
> 
> I had wondered if you had played his music, because whatever is said about it there's no denying he knew how to write for the piano and I've met many pianists who say they enjoy playing the pieces, as compared to some stuff that is meant to be for piano but seems more like the work of a frustrated symphonist who couldn't get a date with an orchestra.


Yes, I enjoy playing and teaching Satie's music. My students love the Gymnopedies, but I try to expand their horizons to include other pieces by him too. The Gnossiennes are great and of course those early Sarabandes are fascinating - so much of Debussy's style is prefigured in those early works! The modality, the parallel chords, the whole atmospheric suggestion of a long-ago time...it's all there.


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

Getting a chance to explore these recommendations slowly and so far I am absolutely loving Decaux (the only piece he ever published!!) and to a slightly lesser extent the Griffes. I'm currently listening to Koechlin's _Les Heures Persane_ and it's also tremendous. Still got a long way to go but so far that Hamelin CD looks like an essential purchase. Many thanks to everyone, I love this kind of music.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> It's interesting that for you Impressionism is just a harmony thing. Not about the poetry of the composition or the objectives of the composer. I don't know if that's the best way of seeing it (it's like defining impressionist painters by their colour palate. It misses the point, it's too low level. )


Yes! Agree completely.

For me, what defines impressionism is the nature of its musical content and its relation to human experience. Unlike romantic, post-romantic and expressionist music, it is not centrally about mental life or the expression of emotion and certainly not about dramatic, goal-oriented striving. There is consequently less emphasis on linear narrative development and thematic process. The composer is not telling the story of his/her internal life or commenting more generally on the human condition. Just look at the titles and subjects of Debussy's works (or of those of Takemitsu cited above) and the difference is perfectly clear: clouds, street fairs, bells heard through the leaves, the sea at different times of the day, sounds and scents on the night air, footprints in the snow, gardens in the rain, moonlight. Contrast that with Mahler's "Tragic" symphony or Strauss's Death and Transfiguration, or with the expressionist emphasis on psychological phenomena in Pierrot lunaire or Wozzeck. This contrast is more generally a French versus German thing. The technical features Bettina and others have noted follow from the nature of the subject matter and the external versus internal aesthetic focus.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Though I wouldn't label him impressionist, Scriabin's Preludes are quite Debussy-esque.

As for the word 'impressionism', the reason it fits so perfectly for me is that the music of Debussy and Ravel _always_ always sounds to me like the perfect soundtrack to a Monet painting. It is impressionism in the visual arts in musical form and of the same time period so it makes sense whether Debussy or Ravel like it or not...:tiphat:


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Yes! Agree completely.
> 
> For me, what defines impressionism is the nature of its musical content and its relation to human experience. Unlike romantic, post-romantic and expressionist music, it is not centrally about mental life or the expression of emotion and certainly not about dramatic, goal-oriented striving. There is consequently less emphasis on linear narrative development and thematic process. [...] Just look at the titles and subjects of Debussy's works (or of those of Takemitsu cited above) and the difference is perfectly clear: clouds, street fairs, bells heard through the leaves, the sea at different times of the day, sounds and scents on the night air, footprints in the snow, gardens in the rain, moonlight. Contrast that with Mahler's "Tragic" symphony or Strauss's Death and Transfiguration, or with the expressionist emphasis on psychological phenomena in Pierrot lunaire or Wozzeck. This contrast is more generally a French versus German thing. The technical features Bettina and others have noted follow from the nature of the subject matter and the external versus internal aesthetic focus.


This is all true, yet the impressionist aesthetic still had a musical style, approach or modus operandi and it was as I described. There are many musical works about the sea, snow, gardens in the rain and street fairs, but they do not sound much like what Debussy, and others like him, wrote.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

eugeneonagain said:


> This is all true, yet the impressionist aesthetic still had a musical style, approach or modus operandi and it was as I described. There are many musical works about the sea, snow, gardens in the rain and street fairs, but they do not sound much like what Debussy, and others like him, wrote.


Yes, of course. You and others (I wrote Bettina and others because she was directly addressed by Mandryka, to whom I was responding) had already handled some of the technical details. I was suggesting that the choice of a particular vocabulary, the treatment of dissonance, and the rest of the stylistic minutia, are in service of a unified aesthetic that goes a long way to explaining these technical choices.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Szymanowski (Polish) was more or less a contemporary of Ravel & Debussy. One writer described him as "dangerously intoxicating". There is a lot of his music on youtube.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

QuietGuy said:


> Szymanowski (Polish) was more or less a contemporary of Ravel & Debussy. One writer described him as "dangerously intoxicating". There is a lot of his music on youtube.


After checking youtube I see that I've previously watched/listened to his 'Masques' for piano. Played by Piotr Anderszewski. I'm listening to _Metopes_ now. It is a sort of blend between 'impressionism' and the new music to come.


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

Spent all day listening to some of these pieces recommended. Some truly amazing music but quite a few of them are bit spiky and difficult I found. I was quite tired by the end of the day. Many thanks to everybody and don't hesitate to make any remark on what may be termed Impressionist music as I have a voracious appetite for new information.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Tallisman said:


> Though I wouldn't label him impressionist, Scriabin's Preludes are quite Debussy-esque.


I agree some pieces sound like that. But it was just a phase, around the time he wrote the second sonata, it seems. I'm not quite sure he actually knew Debussy's music. Anyway, he moved on to greater things.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Tallisman said:


> As for the word 'impressionism', the reason it fits so perfectly for me is that the music of Debussy and Ravel _always_ always sounds to me like the perfect soundtrack to a Monet painting. It is impressionism in the visual arts in musical form and *of the same time period* so it makes sense whether Debussy or Ravel like it or not...:tiphat:


Is it though? Impressionism in the visual arts seems to extend from the late 1860s to the early 1890s, and it's in the latter decade that Debussy began developing his style. Ravel of course comes some years later (and much of his later work is straight up Neoclassical but that's for another time).

As it has been mentioned before on TC, people tend to associate the pictures with which the music is usually displayed (like on books and videos) with the music itself, even when on many cases what the composer associated the music with was very different from those now common depictions. Think of "Morning Mood" from Grieg's _Peer Gynt_, it represents a moment in Ibsen's play when the character wakes up in a desert, yet most people, myself included, tend to think of a beautiful Scandinavian landscape. Sibelius was thinking about Don Juan/Don Giovanni while writing his 2nd symphony, etc.

As for Debussy, we could more accurately call him a Symbolist or a French Modernist. Most of the time in music it seems that names like Baroque, Impressionism or Minimalism have no good justification behind them but somehow become attached to the style or period, and people rationalize it afterwards. Like it or not...


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Chronochromie said:


> Impressionism in the visual arts seems to extend from the late 1860s to the early 1890s, and it's in the latter decade that Debussy began developing his style.


Yes--the core of Debussy's "impressionist" phase is usually thought to be about 1900-10, starting approximately with _La mer_ and ending approximately with the the second book of Preludes. So, a decade or so after the decline of the impressionist movement in painting.


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