Experience Norwegian and international Impressionist music in concerts set among Thaulow’s atmospheric landscape paintings.
The concerts are performed by young, award-winning pianists, and the programme explores Impressionist music from both Norway and abroad.
Concert in the Exhibition at Permanenten
10 June – 21 August
Every Wednesday and Friday at 16:00
At the end of the 19th century, a new musical movement emerged. Instead of clear forms and dramatic development, as often found in Romantic music, sound and timbre were given priority. The music does not seek to describe the sea, but rather to suggest the feeling of being by the sea.
In this way, music from this movement shares similarities with Symbolist poetry and Impressionist painting.
Impressionist music is particularly associated with the French composer Claude Debussy, who used whole-tone scales, church modes, and unconventional harmonies to create a sensuous and ambiguous musical expression.
In Norway, too, we find many examples of this musical current. Edvard Grieg composed works in which tone colour and harmonic nuance are central. Similar impulses can be found in the music of Agathe Backer Grøndahl, and later in composers such as Alf Hurum, Geirr Tveitt, Pauline Hall, and David Monrad Johansen.
