Thursday, October 21, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Satie as precursor: the only "precursor" discussion Satie was involved in during his lifetime was whether or not he was a precursor of Claude Debussy, but many would follow. Over the years Satie would be described as a precursor of movements and styles as varied as Impressionism, neo-classicism, Dada, Surrealism, atonalism, minimalism, conceptual art, the Theatre of the Absurd, muzak, ambient music, multimedia art, etc., and as taking the first steps towards techniques such as prepared piano and music-to-film synchronisation. Further, Satie became one of the first musicians to perform a cameo appearance — he was in a 1924 film by René Clair (see: a sample of the film (rm format) and the Entr'acte article).
All by himself Satie appears to have been the precursor to half of the avant-garde movements of the 20th century. Many of these "precursorisms" are possibly based on quite superficial resemblances only, while, on the other hand, he undeniably inspired and influenced many later artists, and their ideas. According to Milhaud, Satie had "prophesied the major movements in classical music to appear over the next fifty years within his own body of work." There is a website exploring that theory in detail: Erik Satie's Crystal Ball
Satie as humorist: many would be surprised to know how many of Satie's seemingly humorous compositions were at heart taken very seriously by him. When he forbade commentaries written in his partitions to be read aloud, he probably saw this himself as a means to safeguard the seriousness of his intentions. When, at the first public performance of Socrate, there was laughter, he felt hurt. Many other examples of his serious attitude can be found, but there's no doubt that Satie was a witty person, certainly not without many humorous idiosyncrasies.
Satie and compositions in three parts: although many of his compositions (e.g., most of the pre-war piano pieces) were indeed in three parts, there is no general rule in this respect. After his death, publishers would force more of them into an artificial three-part structure; Satie had actually already made a joke of such proceedings with his seven-part Trois Morceaux en forme de poire, which is French for "Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear."
Satie and (lack of) money: although Satie certainly knew periods of dire poverty, and was perhaps a little uncontrollable in his spending, in long periods of his life he had few worries in this sense. Although maybe not having much money in his pockets, he was (certainly from the second decade of the new century) often invited to expensive restaurants and to all sort of events, and was given financial help, by all sorts of people.
Satie as an opponent of other musical styles. The musical styles Satie opposed were allegedly numerous: Wagnerism, Romanticism (Saint-Saëns, Franck, etc.), Impressionism (Debussy and Ravel), Expressionism (later Ravel), Slavism (Stravinsky), post-Wagnerism (Schoenberg), cabaret music, etc. Apart from some animosities on the personal level (which can be seen as symptomatic of most adherents of avant-garde movements of those days), Satie's ideas on other music of his time generally had more subtlety; for example, about César Franck he could not be brought to write critically, but would avoid the issue with jokes ("Franck's music shows surprisingly much Franckism; Some even say César Frank was lazy, which is not a commendable property in a hard working man"). Perhaps the same can be said as above regarding "Satie as precursor": there is much empty discussion — for example, the debate with Debussy appears to have been over whether or not Satie was a precursor of Impressionism, which would not have made much sense if he had been opposed to Impressionism as such.
Satie and boredom. Satie often consciously disregarded the conception of development found in the German tradition (Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms). Satie's compositions tend to be very short; a typical movement of a Satie composition takes less than two minutes to play, and compositions with more than five movements are exceptional. Even his larger-scale works conforming to the genres known in his time would be two to five times shorter than the usual duration of such compositions (Socrate, a secular oratorio — or "symphonic drama" — lasting about half an hour, is the longest). In general, Satie thought it to be a great fault for a composer to bore his audience in any way. There are eight of his compositions that use repetition as a compositional technique, more than doubling the total duration:
Vexations: with 840 repetitions of the musical motif (and many more of the melody of the bass), this is definitely the longest single-movement work with a defined number of repetitions (note that, without the repetitions, the actual music takes less than two minutes to play). No explanation by Satie survives regarding the exceptional length of the piece. If excluding the Tango mentioned in the next point, performing the Vexations takes longer than all his other music played in sequence.
For Le Tango ("The Tango"), a rather catchy tune from Sports et divertissements, Satie indicates in the score perpétuel (i.e. something like a perpetuum mobile, which in French is "mouvement perpétuel"). There is little indication how Satie understood this "perpetual", apart that at the premiere, at least assisted by Satie, there was obviously nothing repeated ad infinitum, taken literally. When performed for a recording there is seldom more than one repeat of this part of the composition, making it one of the shortest tangos ever, something like a Minute Tango.
Five pieces of furniture music, which were intended as "background" music with no number of repeats specified. The circumstances in which such music was performed by Satie himself indicate, however, that the total playing times would be intended to be the usual 'intermission' time of a stage production (see Entr'acte). While the public was not expected to be silent, these compositions can hardly be seen as an experiment in boredom.
His music for the film Entr'acte has ten repeat zones in order to synchronise with the twenty-minute film (which has a very varied plot, so not much boredom is to be found there either).
Satie and sexuality: much has been said[by whom?] about Satie's sexuality. In fact, apart from the short-lived, and highly "idealised", Valadon period, Satie's behaviour appeared more or less asexual: he tended to be dismissive when the topic of sexuality came up.
Erik Satie piano works - Daniel Varsano - Philippe Entremont
This CD is the finest recording that I've heard of these Satie pieces (and I've heard various versions of these pieces recorded by other pianists who mess up the rhythm and expression of the pieces). A truly amazing and soothing music. 17 pieces of art which takes you somewhere distant and beautiful. which blows you away...
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