Erik Satie

1. Erik Satie Or the telling of a life of SATIrE, or of harmless, witty, phonometrographic insanity. You be the judge. -By Nicole DePolo

2. The Basics -Born in Honfleur, France, on May 17, 1866. -Had first music lesson not long after mother died in 1872, from a local organist. -1878 his father remarried (to a piano teacher) and began publishing compositions by himself, his new wife, and other members of the family… -1879 Satie enters the Paris Conservatoire. Soon kicked out for being ‘untalented’, according to his teachers. -1885 he is readmitted. Another bust. He heads off to the military, but soon leaves by ‘deceptive means’. -1887 he moves to Montmartre, and properly begins his career as a musician… Or, as he would prefer to call himself, a phonometrographer.

3. 1887-1893 -Joins with the artists of Le Chat Noir Café-cabaret -He meets and influences many other artists, including the esteemed Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, & Pablo Picasso. -His first publications come out, including his Gymnopédies, Ogives, and Gnossiennes. -(Later) composed the Upsod ballet, Danses Gothiques, Vexations, and announced an anti-Wagnerian opera, Le Bâtard de Tristan. -1893 Suzanne Valadon. The best 6 months of his life.

4. 1895-1899…continued… -Inherited money in 1895, ran out of money 1896…moved into a cupboard-sized apartment and started talking to his brother again… -1899 Finally started getting some money as a cabaret pianist/arranger/ composer, and got a proper apartment in Acrueil. Compositions include Le Picadilly, Je te veux, and Légende Californienne…which he hated. -He also composed some pieces he didn’t later reject: The Dreamy Fish, and Geneviève de Brabant—which are now considered to share elements with Debussy’s work.

5. 1905-1912 -He enrolled in Vincent d’Indy’s Schola Cantorum (school of songs), to study classical counterpoint. His motivation is unclear, but one can speculate. -He graduated five years later with an intermediate-level diploma. -He composes En Habit de Cheval (“eight years hard work to come to a new, modern fugue“), and Trois Morceaux en forme de Poire, a pastiche of his best up to 1903.

6. 1912-1925(death) -He publishes a series of humorous piano pieces, including Genuine Flabby Preludes (for a dog), Old Sequins and Old Breastplates, Dried up Embryos, and the Clementi spoof: Sonatina Bureaucratique. Furniture music should not be left out. -Collaborated on some pieces, including: Parade and Cinq Grimaces with Jean Cocteau; The Gift with Dadaist Man Ray, his first ‘readymade’ piece; and the ‘instantaneist’ ballet Relâche with Picabia. -Upon his death, his apartment of the last 27 years was finally entered by another…and a sizable collection of ‘lost’ compositions was found, and published, including Vexations, Enfantines, Gnossiennes, Froides, and The Dreamy Fish.

7. Music Stuff You Should Know! -The ‘precursor’ argument/rivalry with Debussy. -Minimalism, and how it ties with the rejection of development -Original forms: Gymnopédies, readymade music, furniture music… -Opposition to: Romanticism, Impressionism, Expressionism, Slavism… Listening Examples http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/samples.html

8. Odds ’n Ends -Liked to write notes on his compositions for the performer, regarding the music…and hated it when performers read them out loud to the audience. -His Acrueil apartment contained a collection of umbrellas, velvet suits, and descriptions and drawings of buildings made of various metals… -Founded his own church, the ‘Metropolitan Church of Art for the Leading Christ’ for which he composed his Grande Messe. -Wrote a wealth of articles and letters that seemed almost designed to infuriate the establishment with their seemingly unconscious irreverence.

9. An example of his serious writing: The True Musician (by Erik Satie): “He grows in wisdom...He is brilliant...He learns to do without and is prepared to make great sacrifices...enormous sacrifices...if I may say...His energy is tremendous...In other words he is prepared for the struggle...and with honesty he shall fight it... The performance of an Art demands complete self-denial......It was not meant as a joke what I just said...about sacrifices...The Music makes heavy demands upon those who want to devote themselves in it...This is what I have wanted you to call your attention to... A true musician must subordinate himself his Art; ...he must place himself above human suffering; ...he must draw courage from within...and only from within.”

10. A frivolous example (I hope): “Cefalophones (by Erik Satie) 2 flutes with keys (F sharp)1 alto overcoat (C)1 duckbill (E)2 stroke clarinets (G flat)1 siphon in C3 keyboard trombones (D flat)1 bass in leather (C)Chromatic tub in H Instruments belonging to the remarkable group cefalophones, with 30 octaves extent, completely unperformable. An amateur in Vienna tried in 1875 to handle the siphone in C; after having jared with a piercing drill, the instrument burst, broke the spine on the executor and scalped him completely. Since then no one has dared to concern oneself with the powerful assets that cefalophones contain and the state has forbidden all schools teaching the instruments.”

11. Sources http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/intro.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Satie