the music that dare speak its name

I know next to nothing about music that is generically referred to as 'classical'. But I do know what I like and have often wondered, in the times when I've been playing ABC Classic FM, what certain kinds of music that seemed quite similar, might be called. My own term was 'music of the sunny uplands', because this is often what images it called to mind. It's not the kind of name that's useful though when trying to describe it to friends. I knew that it dated from late in the 19th century through about midway in the 20th. I knew that Debussy and Vaughn Williams were two composers who seemed to write in this style. There were others too whose names I could never quite catch.

I had that 'doh' experience last night when thinking about it again and then I drew the obvious conclusion, one that, if I had really had my thinking cap on, I could have guessed at years ago. Impressionism. I know quite a lot about the painterly form of impressionism - it had just never occurred to me that the same movement was happening in music.

So while the shoe doesn't exactly fit (some composers denied that they were impressionists), I do have a way of thinking about the music of people like Debussy, Williams, Ravel, Delius, Satie and many others. Though why I didn't make that connection before astonishes me.