Composer Profile - Activefolio

The Twentieth Century 121
Though form is present in the music, Debussy sought to “break the bonds”
of music being tied to strict formal structure. The emphasis in this piece is on
sensuous beauty for its own sake, not strict adherence to structure in order to
satisfy someone’s academic requirement.
During Debussy’s life and long after his death, Impressionism had a great influence
on the harmonic language that composers used in their music. Even non-Impressionists
conceded the obvious beauty of the melodic and harmonic innovations of
Debussy, Ravel, and others. A renewed interest in alternate scales and chordal relationships
influenced seemingly unrelated musical genres, especially jazz. Maurice Ravel (1875–
1937), a jazz lover himself, employed some jazz idioms in several works. Likewise, many
jazz musicians (especially bandleader Stan Kenton) were enamored with the fresh harmonies
used by Impressionists, and particularly Ravel’s ingenious orchestrations. Ravel’s
ballet Daphnis and Chloe, composed in 1912, is an orchestration masterpiece. His tremendous
skill at combining different instruments to create a huge range of orchestral
colors inspired and instructed many later composers. His familiar tone poem Bolero
(1927) employs the saxophone, an instrument that Ravel was eager to embrace before
most other composers.
The Impressionists were not all from France. The Spanish composer Manuel de
Falla (1876–1946) used many Impressionistic traits in his works for orchestra. His ballet
The Three Cornered Hat (1919) employs many of the chordal innovations of Debussy, as
well as the muted structures common to Impressionism. In Italy, Ottorino Respighi
(1879–1936) was perhaps best known for his three tone poems dedicated to Rome. The
Fountains of Rome (1917), The Pines of Rome (1924), and Feste Romane (1929), each
are masterpieces of Impressionistic construction and orchestration. In England, many
of the early twentieth century composers from that country tried their hands at Impressionistic
effects in their music. Gustav Holst’s The Planets, though classified as a Neo-
Romantic work, actually is Impressionistic in spirit and tone color. Ralph Vaughan
Williams’ Symphony #2 (“London”) captures the English spirit in a uniquely Impressionistic
manner. Most loyal to the Impressionists, however, was Frederick Delius (1862–
1934). He was a true disciple of the Debussy school, and for a time, lived in France.
Orchestral works of Delius, including Brigg Fair (1907), and On Hearing the first Cuckoo
in Spring (1912) are true Impressionistic works in the best tradition of Debussy and
Ravel.
Expressionism
After World War I in Germany, a movement started that was to have a permanent influence
upon all musicians. Though the style never gained great commercial popularity,
Expressionism nevertheless opened many doors for composers who were striving to
create new sounds, different from the traditional harmonic practices. The principal architect
of the style, Arnold Schoenberg, developed the twelve-tone system, sometimes
referred to as serial technique. Briefly, serial technique stems from a desire to eliminate
tonality entirely, by treating all tones of the chromatic scale equally. To insure this,
Schoenberg’s method involved creating a tone row comprised of all twelve notes of the
chromatic scale. The order of pitches in the tone row is completely up to the composer,
but once established, all music in the composition must follow the tone row. No pitch in
the row could be repeated out of sequence until all twelve pitches had been played. In
this way, no one pitch would become dominant and begin to take on the function of a
tonal center. Once the tone row was composed, Schoenberg suggested many permutations
of the row that could be used.