Debussy–Ravel Parallels in the Mirror of Modern Artistic Trends

The present study is an investigation about the main stylistic and esthetic characteristics of musical impressionism. The controversial presence of impressionism in music (it has only one – or a few – recognized representative, Claude Debussy; possibly Ravel and Respighi) determined us to examine the esthetic specifics of the modern tendencies in the mirror of the esthetic-stylistic sense of the concepts of way of depicting, tendency and style. The specificity of the system structure and configuration of the esthetic values reflected in modern musical creations, appears nuanced in the creation of the two main personalities of modern tendencies: Debussy and Ravel. We defined as the base of comparison the following stylistical-esthetical specifics: doubling, hexaphony, relation solo-texture, ostinato, leading-elements, contrasts etc. Beside the presence of a few stylistical-esthetical similarities between the creation of the two composers, and the other artistic branches (above all pictorial art) we also observed some major differences.

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