Who are the most important figures of impressionistic music?
Germany dominated music until almost the end of the Romantic Era, and music had become enormously heavy. The composers took themselves very seriously, and the general tone was humourless and rather pompous, I feel. Wagner and some of the Programmatic Music writers are typical of the sepulchral, earnest, self-important writing that I refer to. (Some of their best Music, however, was truly wonderful!) The appearance of the French writers brought in a far less heavy style of Music. The title ‘Impressionist’ was the idea of a music journalist, and, in some ways, it is a rather silly title. (Debussy, the most revered ‘Impressionist’, frequently disavowed the title) E. Satie, a prankster who wrote delicious music, can sometimes be dubbed an ‘Impressionist’. Dukas, though much more programmatic than the acknowledged great ‘Impressionists’, sometimes deserved the appellation. Many of the French writers of the late 19-early 20th centuries were, from time to time, ‘Impressionistic’. The leading
