Impressionism is a movement of Western Classical Music that originated in late 19th to early 20th century France as a reaction to Romanticism. It was used to describe composers such as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Like the Impressionist art movement, Impressionism in music took a greater focus on depicting different strokes of atmosphere and mood rather than fixed and specific concepts. Impressionism furthered the expressive use of dissonance of the Romanticism to a different level. Although the climaxes of the Romantic Period were far less emphasised, Impressionism further exploited progressions and scales that were atypical in modern western music such as pentatonic, modal and (in particular) the whole tone scale to develop ambiguous harmonies that emitted a dreamy and otherworldly sound, with dissonance more often sounding skittish and playful rather than aggressive and sinister.

Impressionism was normally composed for small chamber ensembles or piano, with the melodic registers of instruments being fully exploited. Solo instruments were usually more expressive than virtuosic using a wide array of articulation and ornamentation with orchestral parts often moving in parallel motion. The pulse was normally hazed and difficult to follow due to rhythmic parts being sparse with unpredictable time signature and tempo changes further adding to the dreamlike atmospheres.

Although by the 1920s Impressionism began to drop from popularity with the deaths of Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, the influence of Impressionism on modern music was evident. From the ambiguous folk-like melodies of Ralph Vaughan Williams, to members of the Jazz-inspired "Les Six" such as Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud and to this day Debussy's "Clair de Lune" is a worldwide renowned composition, which is often a mainstream representative of Debussy's sound.

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