Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are two leading figures in impressionism, though Debussy rejected this label (he mentioned in his letter that "imbeciles call ' impressionism ', a term employed with the utmost inaccuracy '') and Ravel displayed discomfort with it, at one point claiming that it could not be adequately applied to music at all. Debussy 's impressionist works typically "evoke a mood, feeling, atmosphere, or scene '' by creating musical images through characteristic motifs, harmony, exotic scales (e.g., whole - tone and pentatonic scales), instrumental timbre, large unresolved chords (e.g., 9ths, 11ths, 13ths), parallel motion, ambiguous tonality, extreme chromaticism, heavy use of the piano pedals, and other elements. Some impressionist composers, Debussy and Ravel in particular, are also labeled as symbolist composers. One trait shared with both aesthetic trends is "a sense of detached observation: rather than expressing deeply felt emotion or telling a story, '' as in symbolist poetry, the normal syntax is usually disrupted and individual images that carry the work 's meaning are evoked.
who was the leading composer of impressionist music
Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel