Chapter 49. Mythical Impressions: Program Music at the End of the Nineteenth Century

The most important French Impressionist composer was...

Claude Debussy

Which of the following are true of Impressionism?

Correct Answer(s) It was rebuffed by the academic salons of Paris. It was initially a term denoting scorn of the new style. It developed in parallel with the Symbolist movement in poetry.

Impressionist composers often made use of a strongly accented meter.

False

Which French painter is credited with starting the Impressionistic movement with his painting Impression: Sunrise?

Monet

Which genre describes the Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun"?

Symphonic poem

Match each instrumental and vocal timbre that was heard at the 1889 Exhibition to the example it describes.

Tabuh Kenilu Sawik (Indonesia) metallophones Story of the Red Lantern (China) nasal operatic voice In a Mountain Path (China) chordophones, both bowed and struck Los Jilicatas (Peru) folklike aerophones

Debussy was influenced by the non ----- scales and instruments he encountered at the ----- World Exhibition of 1889

Western, Paris

The program of Debussy's Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" concerns which?

mythological faun in a dream-like state

Debussy's Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" draws its program from a Symbolist -----

poem

Match the meter description to the piece it describes.

Avaz of Bayate Esfahan (Iran) rhapsodic, free meter Gankino horo (Bulgaria) dancelike, shifting meter Gota (Ghana) polymetric(multiple simultaneous patterns)

Which French Symbolist poets were highly influenced by Edgar Allan Poe, a poet from the United States, and which were not?

Correct Answer(s) Paul Verlaine Stéphane Mallarmé

Which of the following are characteristics of Impressionist music?

Correct Answer(s) unresolved dissonances rich orchestral color modal scales

Programmatic forms were not used by the Impressionists.

False

We can hear the profound changes in musical style between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries using several different genres. Listen to the three examples below and then match the musical trait to the work it describes.

In a Mountain Path (China) pentatonic (five-note) scale Avaz of Bayate Esfahan (Iran) six-note scale with microtonal inflections Gota (Ghana) tritonic (three-note) scale

These two examples are by composers who heard world and traditional music at the Exhibition and were influenced by these new-to-them sounds. Match the Debussy and Ravel work with the traits that fit each.

Ravel: Boléro snare drum evokesSpanish dancer's castanets regular triple meter Debussy: Jeux de vagues, from La mer evocative of waves in the sea floating movement with vague meter

Impressionist composers explored the whole-tone scale.

True

Impressionist composers used various non-Western scale patterns in their works.

True

The Paris World Exposition of 1889 provided French composers the opportunity to hear various musical ensembles from around the world.

True