Early 20th Century 19001945

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Early 20th Century (1900-1945)

• First World War
• Second World War
• Nuclear bomb
• Electricity, increasingly more common
• Telephones, increasingly more common
• Automobiles, invented
• Train travel common
• Invention of airplane

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Early 20th C

• A time of incredible violence
• 2 world wars
• Rise of dictatorships
• Cold War (U.S. and Russia)

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Early 20th Century

• The arts
• Rapid change
• Radical breaks with tradition
• Distorted figures in visual arts
• Representation of nothing at atll
• Abstract art

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Early 20th Century

• The United States increasingly influenced world
  culture and entertainment
• Nonwestern cultures and thought influenced the
  arts
• New technologies stimulated artists in all areas

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Early 20th Century

• Concerns of African Americans, women, and other
  minorities were more powerfully represented in
  the arts than before

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Early 20th Century
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Claude Debussy

• 1862-1918

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Debussy

• French Impressionist composer
• Transition to 20th Century

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Debussy

• Influences
• Trips to Russia
• Asian music
• Music of Richard Wagner

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Debussy

• Earned small income from teaching piano
• Closely associated with writers
• Mallarme

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Debussys Music

• Evokes fleeting moods and atmosphere
• Title are suggestive
• Reflections in the Water
• Clouds
• Sounds and Perfumes Swirl in the Evening Air

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Impressionist Art

• Impressionist movement in visual art preceded the
  musical movement.

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Debussys Music

• Inspired by literary and pictorial ideas
• Sounds almost improvised
• Stress on
• Tone color
• Atmosphere
• Fluidity
• Treatment of harmony
• Typical of Impressionism

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Debussys Music

• Harmony
• Tall chords
• 5 notes instead of 3 or 4
• Unorthodox treatment
• Unusual then
• Now seem mild and natural

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Debussys Music

• Used unique scales
• Pentatonic
• Whole-tone
• Rhythm
• Vague pulse
• Unaccented

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Debussys Music

• Varied output
• Piano works
• Orchestra works
• Chamber music
• Art Song

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Prelude a LApres-midi dun FaunePrelude to The
Afternoon of a Faun1894
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Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun

• Free illustration of the beautiful poem by
  Stephane Mallarme, The Afternoon of a Faun
• Evokes dreams and erotic fantasies of a pagan
  forest creature
• Half man and half goat

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Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun

• Intoxicated creature plays a solo on his flute
• Tries to remember if he actually carried off two
  beautiful nymphs or only dreamed of doing so

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Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun

• Tone Poem (Symphonic Poem)
• Programmatic, orchestral piece in one movement
• No specific form
• Variety of delicate sounds
• Woodwinds solos
• Harp glissandos

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Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun

• Subtle dynamics
• Rarely does whole orchestra play at the same time
• Never tempted to beat time to subtle rhythms
  (weak beat)
• Main melody heard first by the flute alone
• Throughout the piece, melody repeated with new
  chords and by different instruments