Maurice Ravel : Miroirs (1904 – 1906)
Claude Debussy : Images I (1905)
Isaac Albéniz : Iberia III (1905 – 1908)
1905 Impressions
The 1rst years of the 20th century formed a period of rupture which overwhelmed the elds of thought and art. The increased speed of transport, with the possibility of changing the mental mapping of the world, allowed an opening towards sources of inspiration coming from far away (Asia, America, the Middle East, Oceania…). This Copernican revolution applied to every aspect of creativity and in ltrated the language of music, enhancing it through an undeniable harmonic regeneration. The development of means of recording and replaying music, as well as the impressions linked to the contemporary pictorial movement (that of the Impressionists) brought forth a profusion of images where composers found a source of inspiration without, however, bowing down to the power of the performance. This is how, around 1905, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and Isaac Albéniz entered into correspondence (in the symbolic Baudelairean sense of the word) and responded to one another while disregarding any notion of hierarchy or the features of their own musical language.
