Erik Satie – A Quirky Innovator

Erik Satie Most Famous Works

Our post Erik Satie Most Famous Works will take you through his life and works.

Born in 1866, Erik Satie, although not the most famous composer, was definitely one who led an extremely interesting life. Here, you will gain an insight into Satie’s weird and wonderful life.

 

Erik Satie Most Famous Works

 

Satie was most commonly known as a French composer who represented the first definite break with 19th-century French Romanticism. He stepped out of the norm to compose more experimental pieces, such as Trois Gnossiennes in 1890 which didn’t have bar lines or key signatures notated in the score.

Satie set the tone for experimentation within a new century of music. The next generation of composers was able to grasp new understandings of tonality and emotion, even as academic trends in composition gravitated toward serialism and theory. Satie also sometimes used unusual instruments such as sirens and typewriters within his pieces which were unheard of before he introduced them. This is where Satie’s importance lay: his original ideas influenced many people. His chromatic and minimalist approach was innovative. He may not have been the “best composer”, but surely was happy to create something well in a simple way. Erik Satie Most Famous Works.

 

His First Contact With Music

Satie’s mother died when he was young, and so he was sent back to his birthplace to live with his father’s parents. However, when his grandma drowned, he was sent back to Paris again where his father taught him music. His father’s new wife was a pianist, and in 1879 sent Eric to have piano lessons at the Paris Conservatoire. Erik hated it there and was labelled as “lazy and unmotivated”, although was still credited as a gifted pianist in his report cards, even when his piano professor at the Conservatoire described Erik’s piano technique negatively, using words like “insignificant and laborious” and “worthless”.

After more than two years at the conservatoire, he got sent home. However, during his dismissal, he still managed to take his biannual examinations to enter the intermediate class. He then re-entered the conservatoire after passing the examination at the end of 1885. His teachers’ remained biased towards his efforts and he was unable to make a good impression, so he had to leave and join the military.

Working in the army was definitely something that did not interest Erik Satie, in fact, he hated it so much that he deliberately infected himself with bronchitis so that he could be discharged earlier! Luckily for him, this plan worked and after a few months, he was sent back home.

 

First Published Works & Some Hilarious Facts

Afterwards, he decided to get his own place in Paris and get a job playing the piano in Cafes. He would walk 10km to and from his job each day and stop off at different cafes along the way to have a few drinks.

Satie had some unique “traditions”, which included his outfit involving a bowler hat and wing collar. He also always carried a rolled-up umbrella with him and if it was raining, he kept his umbrella underneath his coat so that it would remain dry. As well as this, he would carry a hammer in case anyone attacked him, as he was known to owe people money.

These weren’t Satie’s only quirks, he also admitted to only having a diet that consisted of white foods: eggs, sugar, grated bones, the fat of dead animals; veal, salt, coconut, chicken cooked in white water; fruit mould, rice, turnips; camphorated sausage, dough, cheese (white), cotton salad, and certain fish (skinless).

During this time and regarding his musical career, Satie composed some humorous piano pieces that ended up getting published, meaning he had enough income to leave his cafe job. Satie wrote and was involved in dance, theatre and cabaret for most of his life: many of his compositions reflected this, although he did love to try out new ideas within his music.

He would sometimes compose in a late-Romantic style with chromatic harmonies but then was able to switch it up and write in more modern styles, often using very simple ideas.

He even wrote a piece called Vexations (1893) which consisted of a single bass phrase to be accompanied with chords notated above it repeated 840 times in immediate succession; it can be assumed that this piece was written for the keyboard instruments, but the score is not necessarily clear.

 

Erik Satie – Vexations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKKxt4KacRo

 

Erik Satie Most Famous Works

He was always more interested in beautiful melodic lines over-complicated rhythms. Let’s see now Erik Satie Most Famous Works:

His Gymnopédies are still extremely popular because of this and his three Gnossiennes (1890) carry an Oriental atmosphere. Satie wrote some very strange markings in his music. Spud (later became the “Theatre of the Absurd”) included text that was all written in lower-case letters which was the first time this had ever been done.

There were also pieces with humorous titles such as Nightingale With toothache. Erik Satie was always unpredictable and this is what made him well known.

 

Erik Satie – Gymnopédies & Gnossiennes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pyhBJzuixM&t=15s

Ravel and Debussy’s concerts helped make Satie become more popular and even made him famous in Paris. His earlier works began to be published, so he started to enjoy some economic stability. However, many conservative French critics did not appreciate him or his music.

With time, Satie’s popularity grew and a new generation of musicians began to appreciate and look up to him, many of whom hailed him as the predecessor to Debussy, although the public seemed to prefer his works before his Scholar days. This situation made him happy, but he was still uncomfortable that his present works were being neglected, so he began to look for young, fresh, artists who could appreciate his present works. He met Jean Cocteau (1915) and started working with him on Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream‘ together, which was a huge success.

 

Erik Satie – Cing Grimaces pour le “Songe d’une nuit d’été”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA-xmjmASnw

It is known that Satie drank a lot of alcohol, it has been said that he may have had an unhealthy relationship with the substance and later became ill. He suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and died in 1925. After his death, he had been defined as a ‘bad composer’ which, as a result, led to him almost being forgotten. It wasn’t until the 1960s when John Cage became interested in his music that he began to regain his popularity.

After he died, his friends entered his flat and were shocked to discover that Satie had lived in a filthy, abandoned room and hadn’t admitted a single visitor in 27 years. There was such a mess that they had to throw away cartloads of rubbish before they could get to papers and manuscripts.

Now, Maisons Satie, as a museum, is dedicated to his life and work and shows the dingy apartment which was once covered in hoarded umbrellas and newspapers. There were also two grand pianos placed one on top of the other, the upper instrument used as storage for letters and parcels.

There was never anything ordinary about Erik Satie, he always liked to test the boundaries but maybe that is why we remember who he was today.

One of the most famous songs he ever wrote is the one named: Je Te Veux.

As mentioned above, he used to compose for cafes and bars, and this is one of the main proofs in which the composer wrote for piano and voice with such intense lyrics and powerful melody. We share with you this beautiful performance of this famous song, arranged and played on the piano by Maestro Juan Rezzuto, accompanying the baritone L. O’Donnell.

Erik Satie – Je Te Veux

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKHCgFis5Ts

This live presentation was organised by WKMT Overseas Concerts Series, with the invaluable support of Markson’s piano shop – London and Mondoñedo Council.

 

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