Erik Satie (1866 -1925) Bio and Chronology

Erik Satie is one of the most interesting yet misunderstood composers of the twentieth century. Generally, historians acknowledge his revolutionary ideas, but discount his repertory. However, there is evidence that through the small amount of compositions he wrote, Satie made a tremendous impact upon the evolution of contemporary music in France.

Born May 17, 1866 in Honfleur, a seacoast town in France, during his early childhood Satie was raised by his grandparents. His uncle, Adrien, an eccentric ship's broker, strongly influenced Satie to despise conventionality. His first piano teacher, Vinot, introduced young Satie to plainsong and Gregorian chants.

When twelve years old, Satie was sent to live with his father (a publisher) and stepmother in Paris. Satie disliked his stepmother, who was a piano teacher. She attempted to cultivate his talent by dragging him to concerts (which Satie found agonizingly boring) and by enrolling him in the Paris Conservatoire in 1879. Satie felt stifled by the rigid, uncreative atmosphere of the conservatory and failed to make "any impression except that of a quite insignificant pupil.”

To escape the conservatory, Satie enlisted in the military. Soon weary of the regimentation, Satie purposely went outside on a freezing winter night and contracted a serious illness in order to be discharged. While recuperating, he read about an occult organization called the Rose + Croix, founded in medieval times.

During the 1890's, Satie's fascination for the middle ages became apparent as he continued in depth studies of Gregorian Plainsong, medieval literature. and joined the Rosicrucian Order in Paris, becoming its official composer.

Satie found his niche, so to speak, as a cabaret pianist in Montmartre. He performed popular cafe music, amused patrons by his humorous, non-sensical wit, and drank excessively. Singers would "lock him up during the day" so the accompanist would be sober for evening performances.

The combination of cabaret music and mystical medieval harmonies create original effects in Satie's compositions, often written at sidewalk cafes, along with newspaper articles defying traditional nineteenth century music. Because Satie was not a good pianist, he usually asked artist friends to play his compositions.

As the pianist of Auberge de Glau (a tavern), Satie met Claude DeBussy in 1891.   In the course of their first conversation, Satie remarked that Frenchmen should be freed from Wagnerian omnipresence in music, and should create their own school -- "without sauerkraut, if possible.” For thirty years, Satie and DeBussy experienced a stormy relationship. As DeBussy gained recognition as the leader of the "harmonic revolution of 1900-1923,” Satie's resentment was aroused. He developed an intense aversion to the vagueness of Impressionism.

In 1898, Satie settled in a room over a pub located in Arcueil, an impoverished factory town. At first, townspeople considered him to be an odd character. Satie never allowed visitors to his flat. Every evening, neighbors saw the "velvet gentleman" pour water into a pitcher at a public fountain. This reference was made because Satie wore only grey corduroy suits. His uniform also included a hammer for protection and assorted treasured umbrellas. Satie would walk from one end of Paris to the other, always bowler-hatted, with a huge pipe sticking out of his pocket.

Despite his unworldly, hermit-like nature, the townspeople soon discovered that Satie had a genuine humanitarian conscience. He supported the Radical Socialists, wrote for the Arcueil newspaper, organized concerts, and entertained groups of children. The town celebrated Satie with a Good Citizen's Award.

The people of Arcueil and the majority of Parisians were not aware of the far-reaching genius of Satie as a contemporary composer.

Satie’s most well-known compositions share a distinctive mystical quality. Perhaps the reason behind Satie's obsession with the figure three, found in Three Sarabandes, Gymnopedies, and Gnossiennes, is connected with his Rosicrucian studies. Satie diverts from the mystical pieces of the 1890's to music with humorous titles in the 1900's.

Satie interspersed absurd and funny 'directions' to the pianist throughout his musical compositions. Such unexpected quips, including to play "like a nightingale with a toothache" are scattered in the scores, however they are not meant to be read aloud. It is thought that Satie, while exploring new techniques in music, was afraid of being ridiculed by critics. He simply threw them off the track before they could tear apart his compositions.

Because of the funny comments, many music critics consider Satie to be nothing more than a musical humorist. This is unfortunate since Satie's music anticipates the contemporary dimensions of music to come.

The angular melodic lines, unexpected wide leaps, and fragmented, asymmetrical phrases in Satie's compositions exemplify contemporary trends. With medieval harmonies, cluster chords (built in clusters of 2nds), and successive harmonies of the tri-tone and perfect fourth, Satie deviates from the Wagnerian norm. Polyphonic and contrapuntal techniques are typically found in his works after 1908.

Satie studied counterpoint intensively for three years (1905-1908) at the Schola Cantorum. Following his studies, Satie composed Apercus Desagreables, a chorale and fugue for piano duet. Ravel denounced the superfluous details of Satie's new contrapuntal style, and, in 1911, organized a concert of Satie's earlier works (including the Sarabandes and Gymnopedies).

With this recognition, Satie reasserted his original (pre-schola) philosophy -- that music should be impersonal, enjoyed for its own sake (as in the music halls); freed from extra-musical sentiments, it should be practical and simple.

Satie’s originality was based on his implementations of modern-day harmony. Satie was primarily an experimenter. Under the guise of peculiar titles and prose, Satie explored a musical space alien to the listeners of the age. Could his running commentaries belong inseparably to the musical ideas? Maybe Satie wanted to separate music from worldly connotations by taking it to its extreme.  While concentrating upon the captions and analyzing the music, the quips seem so detached from musical meaning it becomes ludicrous to absorb any music literally. Maybe Satie strove to achieve this approach of detaching from strict literal interpretation and of adhering to the limitless capabilities of musical expression.

During World War I, Jean Cocteau asked Satie to join Picasso and himself in creating a ballet for Serge Diaghilev. For the modern ballet Parade, Cocteau wrote the scenario, Picasso designed costumes and sets, and Satie prepared the score -- which included airplane motors and typewriters.

Parade premiered on May 18, 1917. The audience, accustomed to the traditional ballet, was astonished and dismayed by the spectacle. Picasso designed a backdrop picturing clowns and horses. Satie's opening theme is a short chorale and fugue, punctuated by terse, biting chords.    The Managers enter the stage wearing huge cubist cardboard costumes three times a man's normal height. Holding cigars they dance (or rather tapped and stomped) to a brisk, bustling theme -- typical of Satie's mechanistic, linear melodies. In order to attract customers to the circus, the Managers designate certain performers to dance outside the circus gates.

A Chinese Conjuror juggles and dances to a tranquil melody with an ostinato bass, interspersed by mechanical, fugal passages. A manager stomps into the setting and is followed by the Little American Girl, dressed like a little doll, who dances to a ragtime piece and imitates a bicyclist, boxer and Charlie Chaplin. Acrobats enter to a cabaret tune in waltz time with shifting accents. A dancing horse performs a comical dance; however, none of the performers entices any new customers to the circus. The Managers return in a frantic dance to their theme (tutti) and then collapse on the stage.

Parade concludes with Satie's prelude, ending in the undisputed chord of C major, (the only comprehensible note to the audience). Stravinsky was impressed by Satie's work and rated him with Bizet and Chabrier.

Parade opened the door to a theatrical revolution. Its appeal is still fresh and modern. On May 18, 1978, the Joffrey Ballet performed Parade in San Antonio, Texas. Its classic timelessness captured the interest and amusement of the audience. The Parisian audience of 1917 actually rioted during Parade. Critics were outraged. Suddenly, Satie found himself the leader of a new movement. He had become the mentor of a young group of composers known as Les Six.

Satie encouraged the young composers to develop new techniques in music. The musicians gave informal concerts to avante-garde poets, writers, and artist friends. Although "The Six" are often lumped together in the same French school of contemporary thought, they were quite individual in their musical output.

"The links that bound them were purely those of friendships, time, and circumstance… Honegger's models were the German Romantics. Milhaud drew upon southern lyricism. Durey persisted in his attachment to Ravel and DeBussy. Auric and Poulenc alone were whole-hearted in their support of Cocteau's ideas, while Germaine Tailleferre… was ready to adopt whatever seemed to be the prevailing tone.”

A later group of composers, "L'ecole d’Arcueil," were influenced by Satie,

Satie pioneered the idea of background music in a performance featuring three clarinet players located in three different corners of a room with a pianist in the fourth corner, thus producing a stereophonic effect.        The music was to create an atmosphere similar to the way furniture decorates a room, Satie instructed the audience to talk and move about naturally. However, when the music began, people sat down and became silent to listen. Enraged, Satie exclaimed: "Talk! Go on talking! Move about. Whatever you do, don't listen!”

Although this performance failed, Satie's idea of background music as a practical device was realized in the background music for the film Entre'act. Today it is seldom that we go to any public place grocery store, airport, doctor's office -- without hearing some form of "furnishing music."

Socrate, a symphonic drama, perhaps reflects Satie's 'mission' in life -- to encourage the talent of the young and to look ahead. His style and techniques are unpredictable, yet the composer managed to predict the trends of music of the twentieth century. He died in 1925.

Erik Satie, the eccentric, the comedian, the visionary, once said, "L'avenir me donner raison.” Truly, the "future" has supported him.

1866. Born in Honfleur Normandy

1883. Attended Paris Conservatory for one year

1883 - 1890. Early Period. Studied Medieval music, especially the Plainsong. Satie lived in Montmartre (until 1898). He was a ‘regular’ at the Auberge du Clou.

1887. Trois Sarabandes

1888. Trois Gymnopédies

1889-1893. Gnossiennes

1891 - 1895. Satie became the official composer for the sect of Rosicrusianism.

1984. Prelude pour la porte heroique du ciel

1898. Satie left Paris and settled in a flat (he nicknamed ‘Notre Dame de Basses’) in Arcueil

1900. Satie produced cafe songs and music hall pieces:

• Je te veux - a graceful French waltz

• Le Piccadilly - Scott Joplin ragtime Influence

1905 - 1908. Satie entered the Schola Cantorum

1909 - 1914. ‘Humoristic’ stage

• 1912 Veritables Preludes Flasques (for a dog). Three short pieces

• Trois morceaux en forme de Poire “Three Pear shaped pieces, “ in response to critics that there was no form to his compositions

• 1913 Descriptions Automatiques. Three short pieces of parodies on popular songs

1914 - 1924 War and Post War Period

1917. Parade. Satie collaborated with Jean Cocteau and Picasso on a surreal ballet.

1917. Sonatine Bureaucratique

1924. Relache: ballet and film score for Cinema

1925. Satie died July 1, 1925 in Arcueil, France