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Impressionism
Welcome to Impressionism! At this stop on Leon’s Music History Train, we learn about how composers painted sound pictures with their music.
Impressionism – Late 19th and Early 20th Century
Impressionism was a musical movement that grew out of the Romantic era. While Romantic composers often used music to express strong emotions and tell stories, Impressionist composers focused more on creating moods and atmospheres. This music complemented French art of the time, including paintings by artists like Monet, as well as French Symbolist poetry, which used suggestive and symbolic language to create moods and images. Impressionist composers experimented with instrumentation, scales, and harmony to create moods, atmospheres, and audio pictures.
How Did Impressionist Composers Create These Musical Colors?
Impressionist composers relied on a variety of instruments to create soundscapes.
Piano
The piano was an important instrument in Impressionism. Composers often used different scales to create exotic sounds. One scale they used was called the whole-tone scale.
Woodwinds
Impressionist composers used woodwinds to add delicate colors and unusual sounds to their music. Some composers drew inspiration from musical traditions across Asia.
Harp
The harp was a good instrument for creating soft moods. Its wide range and mellow tone created a mysterious and mesmerizing sound.
Strings: Violins, Cellos, Violas, and Basses
Impressionist composers used string instruments to create atmosphere. They experimented with tremolo and muted strings to produce different timbres and musical effects.
Brass
Composers experimented with brass instruments to create distinctive musical colors. They used mutes and combined brass instruments in unexpected ways to produce unusual sounds.
Percussion
Rather than always emphasizing a steady beat, composers used cymbals, tambourines, and other percussion instruments to create special effects, moods, and atmospheres.
Famous Impressionist Composers
- Claude Debussy
- Maurice Ravel
- Franz Liszt
- Lili Boulanger
The Whole Tone Scale
Claude Monet
The Lives and Important Works of Impressionist Composers
Click on the names below to learn more about Impressionist composers.
Maurice Ravel was a French pianist, composer, and conductor. He studied at the Paris Conservatory and studied composition under Gabriel Fauré. Ravel was known for being difficult to teach composition to and was expelled in 1895 for having won nothing. He was readmitted to the conservatory in 1897 and studied composition, but having won no prizes again, was expelled in 1900. Still, Ravel was insistent on studying with Fauré and tried to attend Faure’s classes until 1903.
In 1897, Ravel conducted his first performance of the Shéhérazade overture. It was met with mixed boos and applause, and one critic even said his piece was “a jolting debut: a clumsy plagiarism of the Russian School.”
In 1899, Ravel composed his first well-known piece, “Pavane for a Dead Princess.” Even though many people in his early career criticized him, he only seemed to care about what he thought about his own music. He was a perfectionist and worked hard on every composition.
In 1900, he entered the coveted Prix de Rome contest. He lost a total a five times, but never gave up on composing and is now one of the great composers we talk about today. In fact, Ravel was disqualified his fifth time entering the Prix de Rome and it caused a huge scandal.
Both Ravel and Debussy didn’t think of themselves as impressionists. Ravel liked to stick to traditional forms, but he was a very talented orchestrator. Ravel created beautiful orchestral textures, and created a distinctive sound that is still admired today. He’s a good example of someone who kept trying, even though he failed, and eventually succeeded.
Achille Claude Debussy was an important French composer of Impressionist music. Debussy was a very talented child. Debussy grew up in a modest household and entered the Paris Conservatoire at age ten. Later, Franz Liszt’s visits and performances at the Villa Medici inspired Debussy. His primary instrument was the piano, but he soon found his talent in composition. He studied at the Conservatoire of Paris for eleven years. The faculty disapproved of his compositional technique because it did not adhere to traditional rules. But in 1884, Debussy won the Prix de Rome, a very prestigious compositional award. The winning composition was his cantata L’enfant Prodigue.
After winning the Prix de Rome, he moved to the Villa Medici to continue his studies. Debussy found the music there boring but was inspired by Franz Liszt, who would sometimes visit and perform at the Villa Medici. After many years of study, Debussy completed his only opera, Pelleas et Melisande, and finally achieved international fame.
Erik Satie was a French composer and pianist who was known for being eccentric and made beautiful music that was very simplistic for his time. He is not considered an impressionist composer but he influenced many composers such as Ravel and Debussy. He was the first person to create a version of “elevator music” that was meant to be played in the background and ignored. He called it “furniture music.”
He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but never received his diploma. He wrote Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes while working in a café-cabaret as a pianist. Later, he attended the Schola Cantorum. He influenced many musicians with his simple, yet memorable melodies and harmonic style.
Satie’s Quirky Habits
Erik Satie might be one of the most eccentric composers to learn about. For a period of time, he only ate white food. He made his own unique religion that he was the only member of. He went through a phase of wearing colored velvet suits. After that, he would be seen only in a bowler hat with an umbrella. After Satie’s death, people found two stacked pianos, the upper one filled with papers. They also found over 100 umbrellas!
Characteristics of Impressionism
Mood
Impressionist music tends to be mellow and create atmospheres and feelings.
Harmony
Composers explored static harmonies, extended chords, and parallel motion to create colorful musical textures.
Timbre
Impressionist music uses the timbre of each instrument to create musical colors.
Length
Works by Impressionist composers tend to be short, one-movement pieces.
Form
Impressionist composers often moved beyond traditional classical forms. They allowed mood, atmosphere, and musical color to guide their compositions.
Melody
Some Impressionist melodies move gently between pitches rather than following a strong, predictable direction. Composers also explored whole-tone, modal, and pentatonic scales to create distinctive sounds.
Style
The style of Impressionism is very lyrical and has a close connection with the art of that time and nature.
Critical Thinking Questions
- Listen to “Clair de Lune” by Claude Debussy and imagine a scene. Write down or discuss with the class what you imagined.
- How does Impressionist music differ from Romantic Era music?
- Has Impressionism influenced the music of today? How?
Hands-on Music History Activities
Paint what you hear — Impressionism listening
Grades: K–5 Time: 5 minutes
Materials: Teacher-selected excerpt; crayons and paper
Objective: Draw colors, lines or shapes inspired by a heard sound.
How to teach it
- Play a short teacher-selected Impressionist excerpt and model listening for texture, register, dynamics or instrumental color.
- Invite students to select a crayon color or trace a shape in the air that matches their impression.
- Play the excerpt again as they draw a few lines or shapes on ordinary paper.
- Ask volunteers which audible detail led to a color or shape, emphasizing that responses can differ.
Assessment: Connects one drawing choice to an audible feature.
Floating or marching? Listening movement
Grades: K–5 Time: 6 minutes
Materials: Speakers; teacher-selected clips
Objective: Move gently to show the difference without treating all Impressionist music as identical.
How to teach it
- Model the difference between a clearly accented classroom march pulse and flowing, less sharply accented movement.
- Play a short Impressionist excerpt and let students choose a quiet floating or gliding gesture.
- Contrast it with a separate march example, and ask students to change gestures.
- Discuss what they actually heard in the rhythm and accents; avoid claiming all Impressionist music lacks a steady beat.
Assessment: Responds differently to two audible musical examples.
Paint the soundscape
Grades: 2–5 Time: 12 minutes
Materials: Paper; crayons; licensed listening example
Objective: Draw a sound picture and name one audible clue.
How to teach it
- Choose and preview a short Impressionist excerpt; supply paper and crayons.
- Play it once while students listen without drawing and describe its sound colors, textures or movement.
- Play it again while students create an abstract image from lines, shapes and colors.
- Invite each student to label one choice with a music clue (for example soft dynamics, rippling motion or high register).
- Let students share different interpretations; do not assess artistic skill or require a literal scene.
Assessment: Connects an art choice to a heard musical detail.
Mood-word exit ticket
Grades: 2–5 Time: 4 minutes
Materials: Discussion
Objective: Select a mood word with a reason.
How to teach it
- Play 20–30 seconds from the Impressionist excerpt heard in class.
- Ask students to select two mood or sound words, such as floating, shimmering, calm, tense or busy.
- Have students justify one word using a specific musical sound; younger students can point to picture choices.
- Collect a spoken or written response as an exit ticket.
Assessment: Explains a timbre or texture observation.