• Transition from 19th century romanticism
• Liked to play with instrumental color

“impressionist in music with a touch of exoticism”

• Drew from other cultures (Spain, Indonesia), after being influences by the world fare “Exposition Universalle”
• Influenced by the russian 5
• Symbolist
• He uses chord streams (passages of chords that slide into progressions of whole tones)
• Prefers short lyric forms
• Uses orchestras, but uses the elements discretely
• He was exposed to gamelan music (ensemble of gongs, drums, lute, suling (bamboo flute), celempung (harp), zither, uses pelog (7-tone scale) and slendro (5-tone scale) and colotomic structure (use of specific instruments to mark off time intercals))in a world fare and drew from that music (ex. big gongs) in his pedaling, layering the texture, polyphonic textures, sonorities, different types of scales and ostinatos
• “La soiree dans grenade” -> habanera (like carmen, it’s spanish), he borrowed it from a score of Ravel, it has a “moorish” (arab) quality
• “Prelude to the afternoon of a faun” -> ABA, the poem describes a muthical faun, it has a lot of free repetition, very open form, chromatic pentatonic scales, some reference to whole tone scale, it doesn’t commit to any tone
  “Estampes” -> Opening: “Pagodes” ->pentatonic scale: B, C#, D#, F#, G#, anhemitonic B+ scale, stratification from superimposed ostinato patterns, from gamelan music, the bass noted capture the resonaance of the gong by holding the pedal throughout (as if the piano doesn’t have hammers)
  “Nocturnes” -> “Nuages (Clouds)” -> ABA, movement without direction (like programme), the english horn plays similar to octatonic scale, chord streams, there are also pentatonic scales