Impressionism

Impressionism

The relatively short-lived period known as Impressionism (ranging approximately from the eighth decade of the nineteenth century through the second decade of the twentieth century), though concentrated heavily in France, found practitioners, supporters, and admirers in Europe and the United States. In France the movement found a welcome home in the worlds of painting (e.g., Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Pissarro), literature (e.g., Mallarmé, Baudelaire, and Verlaine), and music (e.g., Fauré, Debussy, Dukas, andRavel). This essay discusses the careers of six composers active in the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who incorporated Impressionistic elements in their music: Frederick Delius, Edward MacDowell, Arthur Farwell, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Charles Griffes, and George Whitfield Chadwick