# If Debussy don't consider himself an impressionist...



## ethanjamesescano (Aug 29, 2012)

If Debussy don't consider himself an impressionist... does he consider himself as romantic? a romantic composer who uses pentatonic and whole-tone scale?
what do you think?
but for me, obviously he's an impressionist


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ethanjamesescano said:


> If Debussy don't consider himself an impressionist... does he consider himself as romantic?


Heck no!

Debussy was against the Wagnerites and post-Wagnerites and Brahmin with all his heart. Saint-Saens, Franck, d'Indy...they were useless as far as he was concerned.



ethanjamesescano said:


> a romantic composer who uses pentatonic and whole-tone scale?
> what do you think? but for me, obviously he's an impressionist


He hated the term impressionism because he didn't consider his work tied to the impressionist movement in painting, not because it wasn't tied to what is referred to as the Impressionist movement in composition.

Debussy should be classified, if he needs to be, as a Modernist, because he played with and subverted traditional tonality (you cannot write functionally tonal music on the whole tone scale, as there are no fifths).


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I'd wager he considered himself a composer. It is only we listeners who feel the need to categorize and pigeonhole as a matter of conversational convenience.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

I don't get why impressionism is insisted as its own special thing, like its so far removed from the aesthetic of Romanticism.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> I don't get why impressionism is insisted as its own special thing, like its so far removed from the aesthetic of Romanticism.


Well, it had its predecessors in Romanticism, in some of the early Russian music as well as that of Grieg and (despite Debussy's desire to remove himself from this influence) Wagner.

But the techniques used are carried further than they had been in others' music, leading to the subversion of functional tonal relations. This is the main thing that separates any Modernist music (Expressionism, Neoclassicism, Futurism) from what preceded it.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

BurningDesire said:


> I don't get why impressionism is insisted as its own special thing, like its so far removed from the aesthetic of Romanticism.


I would say the same thing for 20th century music movements, collectively they might as well be called "1001 ways to make noise".


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## Guest (May 5, 2013)

BurningDesire said:


> I don't get why impressionism is insisted as its own special thing, like its so far removed from the aesthetic of Romanticism.


Wasn't it because of the scale of the works he/they wrote? Only one symphony, for example. Debussy's output includes many small piano pieces that seem to fit no standard format, and are light years away form the grand and overwrought compositions of the Romantics.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Wasn't it because of the scale of the works he/they wrote? Only one symphony, for example. Debussy's output includes many small piano pieces that seem to fit no standard format, and are light years away form the grand and overwrought compositions of the Romantics.


Not everything by Romantics is grand. Chopin wrote plenty of miniatures. And not everything "impressionists" wrote was small.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Debussy should be classified, if he needs to be, as a Modernist, because he played with and subverted traditional tonality (you cannot write functionally tonal music on the whole tone scale, as there are no fifths).


Oh, I thought he was an impressionist because of the harmonic fog his music creates. :lol:


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> I don't get why impressionism is insisted as its own special thing, like its so far removed from the aesthetic of Romanticism.


I find some of Debussy's music sounds somewhat Romantic, but certainly different enough to deserve a separate category, Ravel's music is generally much more neoclassical, (yes some Romantic influences here too, but what composers aren't influenced by the previous forms?) to my ears there is certainly as much difference between the impressionists and Romantics as there were between the Romantics and Classicists, if not more.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I don't think composers consider themselves anything typically. When I compose, I'm not really thinking "Ya I'm going to compose a neo-impressionist baroque industrial piece now because I am a neo-impressionist baroque industrialist." I just sort of compose in whatever style is my own and if I become a famous composer people will try to fit my music into some category based on hindsightful observations.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

violadude said:


> I just sort of compose in whatever style is my own and if I become a famous composer people will try to fit my music into some category based on hindsightful observations.


Hear hear! Enough of putting things in boxes.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I always thought Impressionism as early french modernism.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, it had its predecessors in Romanticism, in some of the early Russian music as well as that of Grieg and (despite Debussy's desire to remove himself from this influence) Wagner.


There was a French interest in "exoticism" (Ravel's Bolero, Rhapsody Espagnol) which was due to the proximity of Spain and Moorish influences, thus the pentatonicism and parallel chord-movements which imitate fretted-instrument ways of movement (guitar, vihuela).



Mahlerian said:


> But the techniques used are carried further than they had been in others' music, leading to the subversion of functional tonal relations. This is the main thing that *separates* any Modernist music (Expressionism, Neoclassicism, Futurism) from what preceded it.


But what *connects* Impressionism to tonality is that it is still "harmonic" music.

You seem to imply that Impressionism was an overt attempt to subvert functional tonal relations. Is this the case, or is it simply the result of these non-Western influences? After all, Debussy is still "harmonic" music, and still uses triads, scales, modes, and other vestiges of CP tonality, thus "stumping" many listeners who think it sounds "tonal," or at least "not atonal." 

What would you say to these people if you were a teacher, and they were your students in your classroom?


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## Guest (May 5, 2013)

BurningDesire said:


> Not everything by Romantics is grand. Chopin wrote plenty of miniatures. And not everything "impressionists" wrote was small.


True. Yet not all 'Romantics' wrote in the same vein. If Debussy was 'writing in boxes' at all, he was not rejecting all works of all composers that preceded him (he loved Chopin), but particular aspects of some of the compositions of some of the composers.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Debussy is on record as having spoken of himself as: 
"un Musicien Français" 
…part of the frame of mind of Nationalism, and in reaction to the hegemony of the dominance of German music and its influence throughout Europe. _Sooo neither impressionist or romantic._

"An harmonic chemist" 
…who created new harmonies. just as a scientist creates new compounds in a lab. _Sooo neither impressionist or romantic._

...and a thoroughly modern composer. _Sooo neither impressionist or romantic._

When only one and a half composers even come close to similar in one stylistic vein, (Debussy, Ravel) and the rest are watered-down stylists with a touch here and there of the techniques used by either Debussy or Ravel, slapping any stylistic name on it is kind of senseless.

Debussy thought of himself as - uh -- Debussy. He had more in common with Stravinsky, musically and personally, than he had in common with Ravel.

In so being and doing, his contextual place in history now is that of the first truly MODERN composer.

He had no more truck with -- but rather found annoying to repellent -- being named 'an impressionist' at least as much as Chopin _(Chopin, like Debussy, steeped in the classicist aesthetic)_ hated all the sentimental associations people assigned to his music.

Impressionism, is the name first given to the style of painting in exhibition of the early impressionist painters by an art critic: it was used as a deliberate and extreme pejorative, meant to say the artists so called could neither draw or render an image clearly enough that all they could do was come up with an 'impression' of the scene.

The same term, again from some critic or journalist, was 'slapped onto' Debussy's music.

P.s. The editors of the Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, ca. late 1960's, mid 1970's, changed the date for the Modern Era to 1890, agreeing that to not do so would exclude Debussy, about whom they all agreed is the first entirely 'modern' composer.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> I don't get why impressionism is insisted as its own special thing, like its so far removed from the aesthetic of Romanticism.


It is actually about as fully divorced from the aesthetic [[ADD, and harmonic procedure, and forms used]] of romanticism as it gets. Perhaps Mr, or Mrs. Romantic never got the official notice, or is still in denial that their spouse walked out on them, filed for and won a divorce


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Not sure what the best label is. But it is great music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

"If Debussy don't consider himself an impressionist, then whut the hell is he? Pass the biscuits, please. I said pass the biscuits!"


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> It is actually about as fully divorced from the aesthetic of romanticism as it gets. Perhaps Mr, or Mrs. Romantic never got the official notice, or is still in denial that their spouse walked out on them, filed for and won a divorce


I think what he means is that it's "romantic" sounding music, you know, like those paintings of ladies holding parisols, and Paris in the Spring, and flowers, and lavender...


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## Guest (May 5, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I think what *he *means


Do keep up million...even I know that BD is not a *he*. (At least, insofar as I 'know' the gender of anyone in the virtual world).


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

No, no, no, he was the CoAG of his time! 

/ptr


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> "An harmonic chemist"
> …who created new harmonies. just as a scientist creates new compounds in a lab. _Sooo neither impressionist or romantic._
> 
> ...and a thoroughly modern composer. _Sooo neither impressionist or romantic._


I find this discussion (which recurs often) interesting. Yes, Debussy objected to being called an "impressionist." But people keep seeing a connection between his music and paintings of the impressionist school of the time. I have a suspicion that perhaps Debussy objected too much...


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## ethanjamesescano (Aug 29, 2012)

violadude said:


> "Ya I'm going to compose a neo-impressionist baroque industrial piece now because I am a neo-impressionist baroque industrialist." .


never heard of industrialist music


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## hello (Apr 5, 2013)

Why the need to pigeonhole?


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## Guest (May 5, 2013)

hello said:


> Why the need to pigeonhole?


No 'need' at all. But it raises an interesting question. Do composers see themselves as working with or against any established traditions or published manifestos?


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Dvorak and Sibelius made me live without Debussy easily. If I want to listen to impressionism I have Ravel and his music is enough.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

ethanjamesescano said:


> never heard of industrialist music


It's a type of electronic music.


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## Guest (May 5, 2013)

Arsakes said:


> Dvorak and Sibelius *made *me


 [my bold]

Nah, no-one _made _you, you brought it all upon yourself!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ethanjamesescano said:


> never heard of industrialist music


That's good, because I made it up.

(It is a genre within Rock music though).


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Couchie said:


> I would say the same thing for 20th century music movements, collectively they might as well be called "1001 ways to make noise".


Couchie, dear lad, what you've said there covers all eras and styles of music, including non-western musics and pop music, jazz, etc.

Your beloved Wagner came up with one of those 1001 ways to make a very big, loud and long noise....

I expect more and better from you, laddie


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I find this discussion (which recurs often) interesting. Yes, Debussy objected to being called an "impressionist." But people keep seeing a connection between his music and paintings of the impressionist school of the time. I have a suspicion that perhaps Debussy objected too much...


Nice, but musical styles and eras are defined by their use of harmony, regard of what was thought of harmonic function, and form / format, not on the emotional reactions of today's listeners. Just reporting the facts on that case....

The closest musical style, then, to impressionism, with its short strokes of color left for the eye to mix, including the more dot dot dot technique of pointillism (Seurat and the grand-daddy of 'impressionism, Camille Pissaro) is the 'pointillism' of Webern and some later musical approaches coming out of the first and second Viennese schools of serialism.

I still think many a well informed classical fan still associates "romantic" with a very contemporary concept of 'dreamy' or 'pretty' or matters of the heart happy ending romance, vs. the downright lugubrious preoccupations of the romantic era, and its thick, turgid harmonic use and its heavily built large structures. Where Debussy could be seen to fit in any or all of those milieux is -- nowhere.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

_Suite Bergamesque_ 




nearest 'relatives' are the French clavecinistes of the baroque, ergo a very non-Germanic neo-classical music.

The late ballet, _Jeux_ sits more readily as paired on a program with Webern's early Sommerwind than it does with anything more overtly romantic.





And as to that 'musical chemist,' just listen to the Etudes... absolute music, 'picturing' nothing, hardly romantic, or what many associate, even, with 'impressionism.'


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> That's good, because I made it up.
> 
> ... Industrialist music... (It is a genre within Rock music though).


Is that in the bin next to post-tonal deconstructivist retroclassical new complexity goth folk / metal?


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> You seem to imply that Impressionism was an overt attempt to subvert functional tonal relations. Is this the case, or is it simply the result of these non-Western influences?


It's not like we have to choose only one or the other, especially with Debussy, for whom the appeal of "exotic" sounds was surely due in part to the way they suggested or inspired alternatives to functional tonal relations.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> You seem to imply that Impressionism was an overt attempt to subvert functional tonal relations. Is this the case, or is it simply the result of these non-Western influences? After all, Debussy is still "harmonic" music, and still uses triads, scales, modes, and other vestiges of CP tonality, thus "stumping" many listeners who think it sounds "tonal," or at least "not atonal."
> 
> What would you say to these people if you were a teacher, and they were your students in your classroom?


Scales and modes are not inherently tonal.

As for triads, is this not primarily a sequence of them?








This work (whose harmonies have been extracted, enharmonically respelled, and voiced into block position) is by almost anybody considered atonal.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Arsakes said:


> Dvorak and Sibelius made me live without Debussy easily. If I want to listen to impressionism I have Ravel and his music is enough.


Well, there's enough for another thread in itself: Is Debussy the only actual Impressionist?

Isn't Ravel really a Modern Neoclassicist who wears, once in a while, a very slight impressionist scarf?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> There was a French interest in "exoticism" (Ravel's Bolero, Rhapsody Espagnol) which was due to the proximity of Spain and Moorish influences, thus the pentatonicism and parallel chord-movements which imitate fretted-instrument ways of movement (guitar, vihuela)..
> 
> But what *connects* Impressionism to tonality is that it is still "harmonic" music.
> 
> ...


I'd remind them that non-harmonic procedures do not come into the picture until later that semester, or next semester -- depending upon the syllabi of the place I'd be teaching 

the sounds "tonal," or at least "not atonal." would be a non-issue, because I'm thinking _group of music majors in college_ when you said 'students in a classroom.'


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

What about Faure? Do you consider him a Romanticist or a Modernist?


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## Kazaman (Apr 13, 2013)

EDIT: Ignore this.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Do keep up million...even I know that BD is not a *he*. (At least, insofar as I 'know' the gender of anyone in the virtual world).


Really? That avatar looks male, and I've never been compelled to go to "Burning Desire's" profile, if gender is specified there.
...and that's rather nit-picky of you, McLeod. How does my hair look? Does this dress make me look fat?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Kazaman said:


> EDIT: Ignore this.


No problem!...:lol:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Eschbeg said:


> It's not like we have to choose only one or the other, especially with Debussy, for whom the appeal of "exotic" sounds was surely due in part to the way they suggested or inspired alternatives to functional tonal relations.


I think it does matter, because* if *impressionism was* NOT* "an overt attempt to subvert functional tonal relations, but simply a result of non-Western influences," then this places Debussy *closer* to the polarity of tonal music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> millions said: You seem to imply that Impressionism was an overt attempt to subvert functional tonal relations. Is this the case, or is it simply the result of these *non-Western* influences?After all, Debussy is still "harmonic" music, and still uses triads, scales, modes, and other vestiges of CP tonality, thus "stumping" many listeners who think it sounds "tonal," or at least "not atonal."





Mahlerian said:


> Scales and modes are not inherently tonal.


Explain exactly what you mean by that. Why are scales not tonal? Then I will post my response. Or, maybe this response will suffice:

But I didn't say "scales are tonal." I said that Debussy might have used scales, modes, and triads in "non-Western" ways. These ways could still be *tone-centric and harmonic. *This is why many people confuse the issue of Debussy as "sounding tonal." Don't you think they merit an explanation?

Your strict definition of "tonal" might cause you some misunderstanding unless you distinguish it by calling it CP tonal or, alternatively, use and recognize the concept of "tone centric" in non-Western and Bartokian-type (and Debussian) instances.

-----------------------------------------


Mahlerian said:


> As for triads, is this not primarily a sequence of them?
> View attachment 17413
> 
> 
> This work (whose harmonies have been extracted, enharmonically respelled, and voiced into block position) is by almost anybody considered atonal.


I didn't say that Debussy used triads tonally, but that tertial triads are "vestiges of tonality," as modules divorced from function.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Well, there's enough for another thread in itself: Is Debussy the only actual Impressionist?
> 
> Isn't Ravel really a Modern Neoclassicist who wears, once in a while, a very slight impressionist scarf?


Yes, that's a simply _fabulous_ observation! And what's that _dreamy_ cologne he's wearing? _Oh my Ghod! ~giggle~
_


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Really? That avatar looks male, and I've never been compelled to go to "Burning Desire's" profile, if gender is specified there.
> ...and that's rather nit-picky of you, McLeod. How does my hair look? Does this dress make me look fat?


As long as it is _a man's dress_, I'm sure you look just fine in it, and that it flatters you.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, that's a simply _fabulous_ observation! And what's that _dreamy_ cologne he's wearing? _Oh my Ghod! ~giggle~
> _


Most importantly, _*what color is that scarf? If I wear one will it make me Ravel, or Ravellian, or will my identity simply become unraveled six ways from Sunday?*_


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

aleazk said:


> I always thought Impressionism as early french modernism.


What about Les Six?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Explain exactly what you mean by that. Why are scales not tonal? Then I will post my response.


Not _inherently_ tonal. One can use a scale as a non-functional collection of pitches from which to draw harmonies and melodies, without recourse to functional harmony.



Millionrainbows said:


> I didn't say that Debussy used triads tonally, but that tertial triads are "vestiges of tonality," as modules divorced from function.


The example is not from Debussy, it's from Schoenberg. 12-tone Schoenberg, no less. My point is that vestiges of tonality (which triads certainly are) do not make something any more tonal in the eyes of theorists or listeners.


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## Feathers (Feb 18, 2013)

neoshredder said:


> What about Faure? Do you consider him a Romanticist or a Modernist?


Romanticist, because although his life was quite long and spilled into the 20th century, his style is Romantic (or at least strongly rooted in it).


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

PetrB said:


> It is actually about as fully divorced from the aesthetic [[ADD, and harmonic procedure, and forms used]] of romanticism as it gets. Perhaps Mr, or Mrs. Romantic never got the official notice, or is still in denial that their spouse walked out on them, filed for and won a divorce


No it really isn't. They both feature dramatic and colorful harmonies and use of instrumental colors. They both often have connections to other artforms and other extramusical things. They both explore expansions of and alterations of forms. Romantic composers often broke from and altered classical forms, and "impressionist" composers like Debussy wrote things that can be analyzed and fit into older forms.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> T*he example is not from Debussy, it's from Schoenberg. 12-tone Schoenberg, no less. * My point is that vestiges of tonality (which triads certainly are) do not make something any more tonal in the eyes of theorists or listeners.


Well, pardon me! It was too tiny to see! But conversely, vestiges of tonality (which triads certainly are) do not make something overtly non-tonal in the eyes of theorists or listeners, but perhaps just Non-Westernly "functional." After all, CP tonality does not "own" the notion of "chord function." _Or do it?_ Pass the biscuits, please. I said *"Pass the biscuits!"*


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> As long as it is _a man's dress_, I'm sure you look just fine in it, and that it flatters you.


Why, thank you, ma'am.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Well, pardon me! It was too tiny to see!


Clicking on it makes it bigger.



millionrainbows said:


> After all, CP tonality does not "own" the notion of "chord function."


Within the Western classical tradition, it is the source of it, certainly, but if you allow other kinds of functionality, then you have to consent that just about anything can fulfill a dominant function if used with a traditionally cadential rhythm (like the tritone leap at the end of Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces), which nullifies most harmonic distinctions one could make between various styles.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> No it really isn't. They both feature dramatic and colorful harmonies and use of instrumental colors. They both often have connections to other artforms and other extramusical things. They both explore expansions of and alterations of forms. Romantic composers often broke from and altered classical forms, and "impressionist" composers like Debussy wrote things that can be analyzed and fit into older forms.


You must have missed the part about where the source of those categorizations of era and style comes from -- trained and practiced musicians and musicologists, who base the difference between one era and the other most specifically on harmony, and harmonic procedure.

Debussy, in one clean snap, from the get go, disassociated harmony, until then always thought of as chords with Function ala musical history to that time, from 'function.' Debussy's harmonic usage was a radical free 'colorism' of which there was barely any precedent -- all synergistic realizations of similarities aside!

'Dramatic and colorful harmonies' is not enough to call them alike, when harmonic function is the basis of the distinction between the two.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Really? That avatar looks male, and I've never been compelled to go to "Burning Desire's" profile, if gender is specified there.
> ...and that's rather nit-picky of you, McLeod. How does my hair look? Does this dress make me look fat?


Burning Desire is certainly female.......and yes that dress makes you look fat.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

PetrB said:


> You must have missed the part about where the source of those categorizations of era and style comes from -- trained and practiced musicians and musicologists, who base the difference between one era and the other most specifically on harmony, and harmonic procedure.
> 
> Debussy, in one clean snap, from the get go, disassociated harmony, until then always thought of as chords with Function ala musical history to that time, from 'function.' Debussy's harmonic usage was a radical free 'colorism' of which there was barely any precedent -- all synergistic realizations of similarities aside!
> 
> 'Dramatic and colorful harmonies' is not enough to call them alike, when harmonic function is the basis of the distinction between the two.


I don't appreciate the condescension. I am a trained and practiced musician and a musicologist. Debussy didn't just abandon harmony. He just didn't care to strictly follow the arbitrary and rigid rules regarding harmony and voice leading (and he's not the first composer since the dominance of tonality to do such things.). I really hate that his chords are not thought of as functional. They do function, its just not always in the same manner that the arbitrary rules dictated. There is plenty of precedent for the colorful use of harmonies that Debussy used, even when those harmonies were still governed by traditional tonal procedures. Listen to Beethoven or Chopin, or to Tchaikovsky or Wagner. What is the purpose for having thicker chords, or more imaginative orchestrations of those chords, other than for the coloristic effect?

Saying Debussy is completely removed from Romanticism because he did some things that were different has even less basis. One need only listen to hear the similarities between Debussy's use of harmony and the more traditional romantic harmony from many of his contemporaries.

Perhaps music theorists have merely been too lazy to try and explain how Debussy's (or for that matter the harmonies of much of Satie, Ravel, early Stravinsky, and many others) actually works, and so we get the copout that "it just doesn't have function". Most composers in the traditional tonal idiom weren't really thinking in terms of Roman numerals either.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> I don't appreciate the condescension. I am a trained and practiced musician and a musicologist. Debussy didn't just abandon harmony. He just didn't care to strictly follow the arbitrary and rigid rules regarding harmony and voice leading (and he's not the first composer since the dominance of tonality to do such things.). I really hate that his chords are not thought of as functional. They do function, its just not always in the same manner that the arbitrary rules dictated.


You're right, of course, but that's not the way "chord function" is defined in theory, which is full of things that don't mean what they seem to say.



Burningdesire said:


> There is plenty of precedent for the colorful use of harmonies that Debussy used, even when those harmonies were still governed by traditional tonal procedures. Listen to Beethoven or Chopin, or to Tchaikovsky or Wagner. What is the purpose for having thicker chords, or more imaginative orchestrations of those chords, other than for the coloristic effect?


Well, in Wagner and others, chords like dominant flat ninths were subject to traditional voice leading and resolution, and the point was less the chord itself than the way it is entered and the way it is left. With Debussy, the sound was all.



Burningdesire said:


> Saying Debussy is completely removed from Romanticism because he did some things that were different has even less basis. One need only listen to hear the similarities between Debussy's use of harmony and the more traditional romantic harmony from many of his contemporaries.
> 
> Perhaps music theorists have merely been too lazy to try and explain how Debussy's (or for that matter the harmonies of much of Satie, Ravel, early Stravinsky, and many others) actually works, and so we get the copout that "it just doesn't have function".


All of them grew from Romanticism, as we have said. PetrB and I both love Debussy's music, and mean it as no slight whatsoever when we say that it is at something of a remove from the Romantic style.



Burningdesire said:


> Most composers in the traditional tonal idiom weren't really thinking in terms of Roman numerals either.


Absolutely true. If they analyzed them at all, it would be post-hoc. The fact remains that an analysis of CPT music using that notation tells us something (but certainly not everything important) about its structure, while a similar analysis of Debussy tells us little to nothing about how the music works.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Debussy's music... [was] something of a remove from the Romantic style.


That Debussy's music was "something of a remove" from Romanticism is surely indisputable. Even that his music was (eventually) anti-Romantic is indisputable. But that it was a clean break from the moment he encountered impressionism or whatever is a bit too simplistic and, I think, the source of a much of the disagreement here.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Eschbeg said:


> That Debussy's music was "something of a remove" from Romanticism is surely indisputable. Even that his music was (eventually) anti-Romantic is indisputable. But that it was a clean break from the moment he encountered impressionism or whatever is a bit too simplistic and, I think, the source of a much of the disagreement here.


How is his music anti-Romantic? Romanticism isn't defined by being common practice tonal music. Its in style, and artistic attitude and vision.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Question: Debussy is said to have denied that his music was "impressionist." But if his music wasn't, whose was? If nobody's, then how could he deny it, never having heard "impressionist" music?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Question: Debussy is said to have denied that his music was "impressionist." But if his music wasn't, whose was? If nobody's, then how could he deny it, never having heard "impressionist" music?


As I said earlier, he denied the label because he didn't see a connection between his music and the on-going movement in painting which was known by that name.

If anything, he would have associated himself with Maeterlinck's Symbolist movement.



Burningdesire said:


> How is his music anti-Romantic? Romanticism isn't defined by being common practice tonal music. Its in style, and artistic attitude and vision.


If one defines Romanticism by its expansion of tonality and form, then it might be argued that there are aspects of these things in Debussy's music.

But some of the things that had been the driving forces behind it, in particular that searching, yearning quality that comes from the strings of dissonances treated within the common practice tonal system (particularly dominant and diminished chords), the expressions of _sehnsucht_, were anathema to Debussy and he purposefully removed them from his style. The "floating" feel of Impressionist music cannot exist without breaking tonal function wide open.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> How is his music anti-Romantic?


The determinedly undescriptive works of his late phase (roughly 1914 onward), in which he abandons all pretense of expressing anything, whether emotions or images, were explicitly intended as both anti-Romantic and anti-German. In his letters during the war, he describes the music he was then composing (especially the late chamber sonatas) as "pure music," which he contrasts with the music of the Germans (who he refers to in derogatory terms); he also wrote to a friend that his current works were a "secret tribute" to the Frenchmen who were at that moment being slain by said Germans.



BurningDesire said:


> Romanticism isn't defined by being common practice tonal music. Its in style, and artistic attitude and vision.


I don't disagree with that.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> I don't appreciate the condescension. I am a trained and practiced musician and a musicologist. Debussy didn't just abandon harmony. He just didn't care to strictly follow the arbitrary and rigid rules regarding harmony and voice leading (and he's not the first composer since the dominance of tonality to do such things.). I really hate that his chords are not thought of as functional. *They do function, its just not always in the same manner that the arbitrary rules* dictated. There is plenty of precedent for the colorful use of harmonies that Debussy used, even when those harmonies were still governed by traditional tonal procedures. Listen to Beethoven or Chopin, or to Tchaikovsky or Wagner. What is the purpose for having thicker chords, or more imaginative orchestrations of those chords, other than for the coloristic effect?
> 
> Saying Debussy is completely removed from Romanticism because he did some things that were different has even less basis. One need only listen to hear the similarities between Debussy's use of harmony and the more traditional romantic harmony from many of his contemporaries.
> 
> Perhaps music theorists have merely been too lazy to try and explain how Debussy's (or for that matter the harmonies of much of Satie, Ravel, early Stravinsky, and many others) actually works, and so we get the copout that "it just doesn't have function". *Most composers in the traditional tonal idiom weren't really thinking in terms of Roman numerals either.*


Who said Debussy 'abandoned harmony?' I did say he was the first, from very early on, to consistently treat traditional CP harmony -- always based on 'function' -- without the prior regard / sense of 'chord function,' as to then 'a given -- which is a completely different matter, and should be read, and kept in the context as said.

I think music theorists have been far too _busy_ over-explaining things, including being overly zealous in coining precious and unnecessary neologisms meant to make their paper / premise (publish or perish) sound like the topic or theory is 'new' - and that spawns similar thought in their students.

Most composers are never thinking in terms of roman numerals once they are out of school and actually composing (I suppose that is wholly shocking to students and to those devoted fans of theory who are self-taught, believe theory drives art and not that it comes after the fact of art instead. On that score, I couldn't agree with you more.)

I do wish you would have stated more of the specifics you did here the first time around... not your 'qualifications' but the musical specifics... the first post reads like a generality based entirely upon emotion / feelings without adding any support of 'argument.'

There is this sudden departure with Debussy, and yes, he did not abandon all previous, re-invent the wheel and was not dropped in from outer space, unaffected by the romantic sensibility.

While a student, Debussy did jerk the chains of his conservatoire professors by playing parallel chains of ninth chords  He was not as far removed from Wagner as his reactive self would like to be, as say, in the third movement of his String Quartet, For a composer so conscious of reasserting the traditions of his country's earlier composers, and "Being French" rather than continuing in the predominant German -- and romantic tradition, he got far away from that very quickly.

Whatever the matrix of the composer's circumstance and influences, he does not, most importantly 'sound' very 'romantic' at all, the music seems to have very little of the musical or emotional concerns of that era.. If he did, more musicians of all stripes would be objecting to calling him 'modern,' and would be 'slotting' him as a late romantic going to modern or some such -- more thought of as in the 'position' which Faure, perhaps is generally 'assigned.'

There is in some of his music something redolent of 'the romantic gesture' -- a type of contour, etc, but nowhere either the sound or - impossible to pinpoint or prove, the emotional 'import' of anything remotely romantic ala the Germanic school of romanticism dominant at the time. The slightest salon piano piece has a different weight and flavor from its norther neighbor counterpart.

There is almost never a 'complete break' in music history, simply too much of a continuum to say that. Debussy is a very quick departure and no return from romanticism, though, especially if compared to, say, Schoenberg, a true musical 'romantic' his entire career.

I am thrilled to hear another musician, trained, who calls 'the rules' "arbitrary." Because I believe they are, including our 7 or 12 note system, its tuning, 'the rules of harmony,' the very notion of 'a leading tone,' and all the rest.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Another damned dupe: I'm going to blame it on a rather old and slow computer, not a 'senior moment.'


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Question: Debussy is said to have denied that his music was "impressionist." But if his music wasn't, whose was? If nobody's, then how could he deny it, never having heard "impressionist" music?


You can assuredly and most decidedly know you are French, without knowing what a Tibetan is.

Who else at the time, him being the first, and the first so called. Would you let some critic identify and name your music, after a stylistic moniker (pejorative at that) given to a group of painters?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> I do wish you would have stated more of the specifics you did here the first time around... not your 'qualifications' but the musical specifics... the first post reads like a generality based entirely upon emotion / feelings without adding any support of 'argument.'


I "do wish" you and Mahlerian would stop being so literal and strict about "function" and categories, and make more of an effort "the first time around" to try to grasp what it is that others are saying; and I think you both need to reassess your views on Debussy as being so "distant" from tonality. There are shades of grey, you know.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Who said Debussy 'abandoned harmony?' I did say he was the first, from very early on, to consistently treat traditional CP harmony -- always based on 'function' -- without the prior regard / sense of 'chord function,' as to then 'a given -- which is a completely different matter, and should be read, and kept in the context as said.


But I don't think the "function" argument is central, because much of Debussy has non-traditional function; it also has "tone-centric" qualities, as all harmonically-based "world" and folk musics do.

To assert that "tone-centric" music, such as an Indian raga, is "atonal" or "non-tonal" is somewhat confusing in light of the fact that the Indian raga does have a "root," played by the tamboura as a drone to which all other notes in the raga are related to. This amounts to a "tonal hierarchy" which, functionally, is a "I" function, or "root."

You and Mahlerian tend to overemphasize "function," which is horizontal, refers to progression-in-time, but is nonethelss derivative of the vertical aspect of harmony, and derives its hierrarchy of function (I-IV-V, etc.) from factors of vertical consonance/dissonance (1/2, 2/3, 3/4, etc.).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> millions said: After all, CP tonality does not "own" the notion of "chord function."





Mahlerian said:


> ...Within the Western classical tradition, it is the source of it, certainly...


That's a redundant answer. I'm talking about "function" as being "non-exclusive" to the Western classical tradition.



Mahlerian said:


> ...but if you allow other kinds of functionality, then you have to consent that just about anything can fulfill a dominant function if used with a traditionally cadential rhythm (like the tritone leap at the end of Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces), which nullifies most harmonic distinctions one could make between various styles.


I'm allowing it for the reason that if a non-Western "harmonic" or "tone centric" music has a root "I" function, then any pitch that is derived from a vertical/harmonic hierarchical relation to that central root can fulfill whatever function that relation yields.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> That's a redundant answer. I'm talking about "function" as being "non-exclusive" to the Western classical tradition.
> 
> I'm allowing it for the reason that if a non-Western "harmonic" or "tone centric" music has a root "I" function, then any pitch that is derived from a vertical/harmonic hierarchical relation to that central root can fulfill whatever function that relation yields.


*And WHAT, Which part of the above has ANYTHING TO DO with Debussy being categorized as either 'Romantic' or "Modern?"*

<<<<<<< zOMG >>>>>>>


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> I "do wish" you and Mahlerian would stop being so literal and strict about "function" and categories, and make more of an effort "the first time around" to try to grasp what it is that others are saying; and I think you both need to reassess your views on Debussy as being so "distant" from tonality. There are shades of grey, you know.


Mitsuko Uchida ~ on Schoenberg, his piano concerto, and making a very interesting statement about the 'advanced' modernity of both Schoenberg and Debussy (@7'25'') -- whole interview very worthwhile....




Perhaps you'd rather pick up this dialogue with Madame....

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Mitsuko Uchida ~ on Schoenberg, his piano concerto, and making a very interesting statement about the 'advanced' modernity of both Schoenberg and Debussy (@7'25'') -- whole interview very worthwhile..
> 
> Perhaps you'd rather pick up this dialogue with Madame...."


That's illuminating, but the interview has more to do with Schoenberg and thematic development. She says that Debussy "dropped the hierarchy of tonalty," which is true in many instances, but still, to many people it sounds tonal because it has areas of tone-centricity. At many times Debussy is ambiguously tonal, as in the use of whole-tone scales.

But just because Uchida mentions Debussy in a Schoenberg interview is no proof of the degree to which Debussy's music is still tied to tonality.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> That's illuminating, but the interview has more to do with Schoenberg and thematic development. She says that Debussy "dropped the hierarchy of tonalty," which is true in many instances, but still, to many people it sounds tonal because it has areas of tone-centricity. At many times Debussy is ambiguously tonal, as in the use of whole-tone scales.
> 
> But just because Uchida mentions Debussy in a Schoenberg interview is no proof of the degree to which Debussy's music is still tied to tonality.


So you ran right over the 'drop it part,' I gather, in order to perpetuate a point you're wanting to get across, somewhat off-topic from the most salient thing here, there was a hierarchy, to ignore it when thinking of Debussy is fatal, since his 'slot' has everything to do with the dramatic discarding of that 'hierarchy?' And just how many of the members and all the numbers of visitors to the site are wanting to follow much beyond that, or find it 'interesting?'

Maybe a new OP? 
"Post it, and they will come."


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> That's illuminating, but the interview has more to do with Schoenberg and thematic development. She says that Debussy "dropped the hierarchy of tonalty," which is true in many instances, but still, to many people it sounds tonal because it has areas of tone-centricity. At many times Debussy is ambiguously tonal, as in the use of whole-tone scales.
> 
> But just because Uchida mentions Debussy in a Schoenberg interview is no proof of the degree to which Debussy's music is still tied to tonality.


So you ran right over the 'drop it part,' I gather, in order to perpetuate a point you're wanting to get across, somewhat off-topic from the most salient thing here, there was a hierarchy, to ignore it when thinking of Debussy is fatal, since his 'slot' has everything to do with the dramatic discarding of that 'hierarchy?' -- and the OP is most about Debussy being a 'romantic' or not!

Then, how many of the 5700 or so outside readers of this forum are wanting to follow much beyond that, or find it 'interesting.'

Maybe a new OP? 
"Post it, and they will come."


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> That's illuminating, but the interview has more to do with Schoenberg and thematic development. She says that Debussy "dropped the hierarchy of tonalty," which is true in many instances, but still, to many people it sounds tonal because it has areas of tone-centricity. At many times Debussy is ambiguously tonal, as in the use of whole-tone scales.
> 
> But just because Uchida mentions Debussy in a Schoenberg interview is no proof of the degree to which Debussy's music is still tied to tonality.


*And WHAT, Which part of the above has ANYTHING TO DO with Debussy being categorized as either 'Romantic' or "Modern?" I think Uchida's very brief yet complete statement is pertinent to that argument.*


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

There seems to be an interesting parallel with Scriabin, who started as a romantic (and in a way, he always was) and also moved further and furher away from traditional tonality and form. A few of his earlier pieces even sound a bit Debussyan (although I'm not sure he actually knew his music).


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Let me share some of my views. Untrained, not a musician, all that. I don't think the Impressionism tag is so bad. I feel that Debussy is not a Romantic, indeed an early Modernist, like Mahlerian said. And also, I feel the same about the Impressionism movement in the visual arts. I once watched a TV show where a supposedly art-savvy character described the Impressionist style as being "so romantic", and felt disgusted. It's not! It's like this: Classical art (in general, music, painting, all) gives a System; that System produces Beauty and Harmony, here, in this world. Romantic art is anti-Classical: it says, we cannot reach Beauty and Harmony here in this world, we can only yearn for them. And Modernist art is anti-Romantic: it says, we don't have to yearn for utopias (or suffer for the absence of Beauty & Harmony), we have to seize the day, take the moment, accept the world for what it is, even if it is chaotic. Think Baudelaire... Then and afterwards, the "instant" can take on semi-mystical overtones, for example, it can re-surface old archetypes and cyclic myths... then we're already at Jung, Symbolists and post-Impressionists, and we can also see why some people call (late) Wagner an early Modernist. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Debussy. He is an early Modernist all right, like his countrymen Renoir and Monet... also, all of them stood against German art, which was thoroughly Romantic. So, I see no problem calling Debussy an Impressionist, it's not the worst label you could think of.

p.s. of course art doesn't rigidly follow such a simplistic course of events from Classical to Modern, this is just a very rough outline.


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