Musical Impresionsim and Futurism

 

Shared by Elba Rodríguez:

The painting "Impression: soleil levant", by Claude Monet illustrates very well one of the main desires of this artistic movement: the transmission of emotions and sensations.

https://www.wikiart.org/en/claude-monet/impression-sunrise

First of all, students have to say what their feelings are about, how the painting technique is, the colours employed... 

I will introduce the musical Impressionism throught this painting. Students will listen to La Mer by Claude Debussy. Both in the painting and in the hearing, water as a common element.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOCucJw7iT8

                  

Then we are going to compare this painting by Umberto Boccioni: "Dynamism of a cyclist". 

                  https://www.wikiart.org/es/umberto-boccioni/dinamismo-de-un-ciclista-1913

Futurism: After the students talk about the painting, we  will listen to The Serenata per Intonarrumori by Luigi Russolo.  We willl inferit the importance of the movement, and stress the change of society and daily life (speedy, busy, noisy, more machines,... ).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GpN5FHO60c

After listening to it we will compare both paintings:

 "The most colourful is...", "The more blue", "The one that makes me feel the more...", "The second one transmits to me... but the other one...". 

Then students are going to reflect how the first picture could sound and then the other. We may play some improvisations with Orff instruments. The Orff instruments are small percussion instruments (xylophones, chimes, triangle, metallophone, Chinese box...).

Finally, they have to guess what auditions are from the two styles (Impressionism and Futurism). At the end, students must research what are the main characteristics of these two different styles.