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"For we desire above all—nuance,
Not color but half-shades!
Ah! nuance alone unites
Dream with dream and flute with horn."
—PAUL VERLAINE

Key Points

  • Impressionism was a French movement developed by painters who tried to capture their "first impression" of a subject through varied treatments of light and color.
  • The literary response to Impressionism was Symbolism, in which writings are suggestive of images and ideas rather than literally descriptive.
  • Impressionism in music is characterized by exotic scales (chromatic, whole tone), unresolved dissonances, parallel chords, rich orchestral color, and free rhythm, all generally cast in small-scale programmatic forms.
  • The most important French Impressionist composer was Claude Debussy. His orchestral work, Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun," was inspired by a Symbolist poem.
  • Debussy, along with other late Romantic composers, was highly influenced by new sounds of non-Western and traditional music styles heard at the Paris World Exhibition of 1889.

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