Who is Erik Satie? Biography

(Erik Satie, full name Eric Alfred Leslie Satie) is an extravagant French composer and pianist, one of the reformers of European music of the 1st quarter of the 20th century. His piano pieces influenced many modern composers. Erik Satie is the forerunner and founder of such musical movements as impressionism, primitivism, constructivism, neoclassicism and minimalism. It was Satie who invented the genre of “furniture music”, which does not need to be listened to specifically, an unobtrusive melody that sounds in a store or at an exhibition.

Erik Satie was born on May 17, 1866 in the Norman city of Honfleur (department of Calvados). From the age of four to six, when his mother died, Eric lived with his family in Paris. In 1879 and 1885, Satie twice entered the Paris Conservatory without completing his studies.

In 1888, Satie wrote the work “Three Gymnopédies” (Trois gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, Gymnopédie No. 2, Gymnopédie No. 3) for solo piano, which was based on the free use of sequences of non-chords (a similar technique had already been found in S. Franck and E. Chabrier. Satie was the first to introduce sequences of chords built in fourths, using this technique for the first time in 1891 in the composition “The Son of the Stars” (Le fils des étoiles). This kind of innovation was immediately used by almost all French composers. These techniques became characteristic of French modern music.In 1892, Erik Satie developed his own system of composition, the essence of which was that for each piece Satie composed several - often no more than five or six - short passages, after which he simply docked these elements to each other With the help of this system, Satie composed the first plays of a new type.

Erik Satie is eccentric and emotional, at the same time withdrawn and sarcastic. He lived and worked separately from the musical elite of France, and was practically unknown to the general public almost until his fiftieth birthday. Since 1899, Satie earned his living as an accompaniment in a cabaret, and only in 1911 his work became known to the general public thanks to Maurice Ravel, who organized a series of concerts and introduced him to good publishers, and especially after the scandalous premiere of the ballet “Parade” in 1916, staged at music by Satie.

Erik Satie died on July 1, 1925, his death went almost unnoticed, and only in the 50s of the 20th century his work again became relevant. Today, Erik Satie is one of the most frequently performed piano composers of the 20th century.

Satie's system and his early work had a strong influence on the young man. He became one of the pioneers of the idea of ​​the prepared piano and significantly influenced the work of John Cage. Under his direct influence, such famous composers as the famous French group of composers “Les Six” were also formed. The work of Satie and the association of composers, which existed for just over a year, had a strong influence on. For a decade, one of Satie's brightest followers was Igor Stravinsky.

Having invented in 1916 the avant-garde genre of background “furniture music”, which does not need to be specifically listened to, Erik Satie was also the discoverer and forerunner of minimalism. His haunting melodies, repeated hundreds of times without the slightest change or break, sounding in a store or in a salon while receiving guests, were ahead of their time by a good half century.

And minimalism. It was Satie who invented the genre of “furniture music”, which does not need to be listened to specifically, an unobtrusive melody that sounds in a store or at an exhibition.

Biography

“The performance struck me with its freshness and true originality. “Parade” just confirmed to me to what extent I was right when I so highly valued the merits of Satie and the role he played in French music by contrasting the vague aesthetics of the dying impressionism with his powerful and expressive language, devoid of any or pretentiousness and embellishment.”

In addition to Parade, Erik Satie is the author of four more ballet scores: Uspud (1892), The Beautiful Hysterical Woman (1920), The Adventures of Mercury (1924) and The Performance Is Canceled (1924). Also (after the author’s death) many of his piano and orchestral works were often used for staging one-act ballets and ballet numbers.

Under his direct influence, such famous composers as Claude Debussy (who was his close friend for more than twenty years), Maurice Ravel, the famous French group “Six”, in which Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric and Arthur Honegger are best known, were formed . The work of this group (it lasted just over a year), as well as Satie himself, had a noticeable influence on Dmitri Shostakovich, who heard Satie’s works after his death, in 1925, during the tour of the French “Six” in Petrograd-Leningrad. In his ballet “Bolt,” the influence of Satie’s musical style from the times of the ballets “Parade” and “The Beautiful Hysterical Woman” is noticeable.

Some of Satie's works made an extremely strong impression on Igor Stravinsky. In particular, this applies to the ballet “Parade” (), the score of which he asked the author for almost a whole year, and the symphonic drama “Socrates” (). It was these two works that left the most visible mark on Stravinsky's work: the first in his constructivist period, and the second in the neoclassical works of the late 1920s. Heavily influenced by Satie, he moved from the impressionism (and fauvism) of the Russian period to an almost skeletal style of music, simplifying his writing style. This can be seen in the works of the Parisian period - “The Story of a Soldier” and the opera “The Maura”. But even thirty years later, this event continued to be remembered as nothing other than an amazing fact in the history of French music:

- (Jean Cocteau, "for the anniversary concert of the Six in the year")

Having invented the avant-garde genre of “background” (or “furniture”) industrial music in 2016, which does not need to be listened to specifically, Erik Satie was also the discoverer and forerunner of minimalism. His haunting melodies, repeated hundreds of times without the slightest change or break, sounding in a store or in a salon while receiving guests, were ahead of their time by a good half century.

Bibliography

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Notes

1. Compiled by M. Gerard and R. Chalus. Ravel in the mirror of his letters. - L.: Music, 1988. - P. 222.
2. Erik Satie, Yuri Khanon. Faces of Russia, 2010. - P. 189. - 682 p. - ISBN 978-5-87417-338-8.
3. Anne Rey. Satie. - second. - Paris: Solfeges Seuil, 1995. - P. 81. - 192 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-02-023487-4.
4. Filenko G. French music of the first half of the 20th century. - L.: Music, 1983. - P. 69.
5. Stravinsky I.F. Chronicle of my life. - L.: Music, 1963. - P. 148.
6. Anne Rey. Satie. - second. - Paris: Solfeges Seuil, 1995. - P. 144. - 192 p. - 25,000 copies. - ISBN 2-02-023487-4.
7. Ornella Volta. Erik Satie. - second. - Paris: Hazan, 1997. - P. 159. - 200 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-85025-564-5.
8. Eric Satie. Correspondance presque complete. - Paris: Fayard / Imec, 2000. - T. 1. - P. 1132. - 1260 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-213-60674-9.
9. Erik Satie, Yuri Khanon."Memories in hindsight." - St. Petersburg. : Center for Secondary Music & Faces of Russia, 2010. - pp. 517-519. - 682 s. - ISBN 978-5-87417-338-8.
10. Erik Satie, Yuri Khanon."Memories in hindsight." - St. Petersburg. : Center for Secondary Music & Faces of Russia, 2010. - P. 570. - 682 p. - ISBN 978-5-87417-338-8.
11. Eric Satie. Correspondance presque complete. - Paris: Fayard / Imec, 2000. - T. 1. - P. 560. - 1260 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-213-60674-9.
12. Stravynsky Igor."Chroniques de ma vie". - Paris.: Denoël & Gonthier, 1935. - pp. 83-84.
13. Mary E. Davis, Reaktion Books, 2007. ISBN 1861893213.
14. Poulenc Fr. Entretiens avec Claude Rostand. P., . R.31.
15. Eric Satie. Correspondance presque complete. - Paris: Fayard / Imec, 2000. - T. 1. - P. 491, 1133. - 1260 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-213-60674-9.
16. Jean Cocteau."Rooster and Harlequin." - M.: “Prest”, 2000. - P. 79. - 224 p. - 500 copies.
17. . Retrieved January 13, 2011. .

see also

	Erik Satie in Wikiquote
	in Wikisource
	Erik Satie on Wikimedia Commons

Links

• Erik Satie: sheet music of works on the International Music Score Library Project
• Yuri Khanon:
• Yuri Khanon.
• + audio & MIDI.

Excerpt characterizing Satie, Eric

The only significance of the Berezina crossing is that this crossing obviously and undoubtedly proved the falsity of all plans for cutting off and the justice of the only possible course of action demanded by both Kutuzov and all the troops (mass) - only following the enemy. The crowd of Frenchmen fled with an ever-increasing force of speed, with all their energy directed towards achieving their goal. She ran like a wounded animal, and she could not get in the way. This was proven not so much by the construction of the crossing as by the traffic on the bridges. When the bridges were broken, unarmed soldiers, Moscow residents, women and children who were in the French convoy - all, under the influence of the force of inertia, did not give up, but ran forward into the boats, into the frozen water.
This aspiration was reasonable. The situation of both those fleeing and those pursuing was equally bad. Remaining with his own, each in distress hoped for the help of a comrade, for a certain place he occupied among his own. Having given himself over to the Russians, he was in the same position of distress, but he was on a lower level in terms of satisfying the needs of life. The French did not need to have correct information that half of the prisoners, with whom they did not know what to do, despite all the Russians’ desire to save them, died from cold and hunger; they felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate Russian commanders and hunters of the French, the French in Russian service could not do anything for the prisoners. The French were destroyed by the disaster in which the Russian army was located. It was impossible to take away bread and clothing from hungry, necessary soldiers in order to give it to the French who were not harmful, not hated, not guilty, but simply unnecessary. Some did; but this was only an exception.
Behind was certain death; there was hope ahead. The ships were burned; there was no other salvation but a collective flight, and all the forces of the French were directed towards this collective flight.
The further the French fled, the more pitiful their remnants were, especially after the Berezina, on which, as a result of the St. Petersburg plan, special hopes were pinned, the more the passions of the Russian commanders flared up, blaming each other and especially Kutuzov. Believing that the failure of the Berezinsky Petersburg plan would be attributed to him, dissatisfaction with him, contempt for him and ridicule of him were expressed more and more strongly. Teasing and contempt, of course, were expressed in a respectful form, in a form in which Kutuzov could not even ask what and for what he was accused. They didn't talk to him seriously; reporting to him and asking his permission, they pretended to perform a sad ritual, and behind his back they winked and tried to deceive him at every step.
All these people, precisely because they could not understand him, recognized that there was no point in talking to the old man; that he would never understand the full depth of their plans; that he would answer with his phrases (it seemed to them that these were just phrases) about the golden bridge, that you cannot come abroad with a crowd of vagabonds, etc. They had already heard all this from him. And everything he said: for example, that we had to wait for food, that people were without boots, it was all so simple, and everything they offered was so complex and clever that it was obvious to them that he was stupid and old, but they were not powerful, brilliant commanders.
Especially after the joining of the armies of the brilliant admiral and the hero of St. Petersburg, Wittgenstein, this mood and staff gossip reached its highest limits. Kutuzov saw this and, sighing, just shrugged his shoulders. Only once, after the Berezina, he became angry and wrote the following letter to Bennigsen, who reported separately to the sovereign:
“Due to your painful seizures, please, Your Excellency, upon receipt of this, go to Kaluga, where you await further orders and assignments from His Imperial Majesty.”
But after Bennigsen was sent away, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich came to the army, making the beginning of the campaign and being removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now the Grand Duke, having arrived at the army, informed Kutuzov about the displeasure of the sovereign emperor for the weak successes of our troops and for the slowness of movement. The Emperor himself intended to arrive at the army the other day.
An old man, as experienced in court affairs as in military matters, that Kutuzov, who in August of the same year was chosen commander-in-chief against the will of the sovereign, the one who removed the heir and the Grand Duke from the army, the one who, with his power, in opposition the will of the sovereign, ordered the abandonment of Moscow, this Kutuzov now immediately realized that his time was over, that his role had been played and that he no longer had this imaginary power. And he understood this not just from court relationships. On the one hand, he saw that military affairs, the one in which he played his role, was over, and he felt that his calling had been fulfilled. On the other hand, at the same time he began to feel physical fatigue in his old body and the need for physical rest.
On November 29, Kutuzov entered Vilna - his good Vilna, as he said. Kutuzov was governor of Vilna twice during his service. In the rich, surviving Vilna, in addition to the comforts of life that he had been deprived of for so long, Kutuzov found old friends and memories. And he, suddenly turning away from all military and state concerns, plunged into a smooth, familiar life as much as he was given peace by the passions seething around him, as if everything that was happening now and was about to happen in the historical world did not concern him at all.
Chichagov, one of the most passionate cutters and overturners, Chichagov, who first wanted to make a diversion to Greece, and then to Warsaw, but did not want to go where he was ordered, Chichagov, known for his courage in speaking to the sovereign, Chichagov, who considered Kutuzov benefited himself, because when he was sent in the 11th year to conclude peace with Turkey in addition to Kutuzov, he, making sure that peace had already been concluded, admitted to the sovereign that the merit of concluding peace belonged to Kutuzov; This Chichagov was the first to meet Kutuzov in Vilna at the castle where Kutuzov was supposed to stay. Chichagov in a naval uniform, with a dirk, holding his cap under his arm, gave Kutuzov his drill report and the keys to the city. That contemptuously respectful attitude of the youth towards the old man who had lost his mind was expressed to the highest degree in the entire address of Chichagov, who already knew the charges brought against Kutuzov.
While talking with Chichagov, Kutuzov, among other things, told him that the carriages with dishes captured from him in Borisov were intact and would be returned to him.
- C"est pour me dire que je n"ai pas sur quoi manger... Je puis au contraire vous fournir de tout dans le cas meme ou vous voudriez donner des diners, [You want to tell me that I have nothing to eat. On the contrary, I can serve you all, even if you wanted to give dinners.] - Chichagov said, flushing, with every word he wanted to prove that he was right and therefore assumed that Kutuzov was preoccupied with this very thing. Kutuzov smiled his thin, penetrating smile and, shrugging his shoulders, answered: “Ce n"est que pour vous dire ce que je vous dis. [I want to say only what I say.]
In Vilna, Kutuzov, contrary to the will of the sovereign, stopped most of the troops. Kutuzov, as his close associates said, had become unusually depressed and physically weakened during his stay in Vilna. He was reluctant to deal with the affairs of the army, leaving everything to his generals and, while waiting for the sovereign, indulged in an absent-minded life.
Having left St. Petersburg with his retinue - Count Tolstoy, Prince Volkonsky, Arakcheev and others, on December 7, the sovereign arrived in Vilna on December 11 and drove straight up to the castle in a road sleigh. At the castle, despite the severe frost, stood about a hundred generals and staff officers in full dress uniform and an honor guard from the Semenovsky regiment.
The courier, who galloped up to the castle in a sweaty troika, ahead of the sovereign, shouted: “He’s coming!” Konovnitsyn rushed into the hallway to report to Kutuzov, who was waiting in a small Swiss room.
A minute later, the thick, large figure of an old man, in full dress uniform, with all the regalia covering his chest, and his belly pulled up by a scarf, pumping, came out onto the porch. Kutuzov put his hat on the front, picked up his gloves and sideways, stepping with difficulty down the steps, stepped down and took in his hand the report prepared for submission to the sovereign.
Running, whispering, the troika still desperately flying by, and all eyes turned to the jumping sleigh, in which the figures of the sovereign and Volkonsky were already visible.
All this, out of a fifty-year habit, had a physically disturbing effect on the old general; He hurriedly felt himself with concern, straightened his hat, and at that moment the sovereign, emerging from the sleigh, raised his eyes to him, cheered up and stretched out, submitted a report and began to speak in his measured, ingratiating voice.
The Emperor glanced quickly at Kutuzov from head to toe, frowned for a moment, but immediately, overcoming himself, walked up and, spreading his arms, hugged the old general. Again, according to the old, familiar impression and in relation to his sincere thoughts, this hug, as usual, had an effect on Kutuzov: he sobbed.
The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semenovsky guard and, shaking the old man’s hand again, went with him to the castle.
Left alone with the field marshal, the sovereign expressed his displeasure to him for the slowness of the pursuit, for the mistakes in Krasnoye and on the Berezina, and conveyed his thoughts about the future campaign abroad. Kutuzov made no objections or comments. The same submissive and meaningless expression with which, seven years ago, he listened to the orders of the sovereign on the Field of Austerlitz, was now established on his face.
When Kutuzov left the office and walked down the hall with his heavy, diving gait, head down, someone’s voice stopped him.
“Your Grace,” someone said.
Kutuzov raised his head and looked for a long time into the eyes of Count Tolstoy, who stood in front of him with some small thing on a silver platter. Kutuzov did not seem to understand what they wanted from him.
Suddenly he seemed to remember: a barely noticeable smile flashed on his plump face, and he, bending low, respectfully, took the object lying on the platter. This was George 1st degree.

The next day the field marshal had dinner and a ball, which the sovereign honored with his presence. Kutuzov was awarded George 1st degree; the sovereign showed him the highest honors; but the sovereign’s displeasure against the field marshal was known to everyone. Decency was observed, and the sovereign showed the first example of this; but everyone knew that the old man was guilty and no good. When, at the ball, Kutuzov, according to Catherine’s old habit, upon the Emperor’s entrance into the ballroom, ordered the taken banners to be laid down at his feet, the Emperor frowned unpleasantly and uttered words in which some heard: “old comedian.”
The sovereign's displeasure against Kutuzov intensified in Vilna, especially because Kutuzov obviously did not want or could not understand the significance of the upcoming campaign.
When the next morning the sovereign said to the officers gathered at his place: “You saved more than just Russia; you saved Europe,” everyone already understood that the war was not over.
Only Kutuzov did not want to understand this and openly expressed his opinion that a new war could not improve the situation and increase the glory of Russia, but could only worsen its position and reduce the highest degree of glory on which, in his opinion, Russia now stood. He tried to prove to the sovereign the impossibility of recruiting new troops; spoke about the difficult situation of the population, the possibility of failure, etc.
In such a mood, the field marshal, naturally, seemed to be only a hindrance and a brake on the upcoming war.
To avoid clashes with the old man, a way out was found by itself, which consisted in, as at Austerlitz and as at the beginning of the campaign under Barclay, to remove from under the commander-in-chief, without disturbing him, without announcing to him that the ground of power on which he stood , and transfer it to the sovereign himself.
For this purpose, the headquarters was gradually reorganized, and all the significant strength of Kutuzov’s headquarters was destroyed and transferred to the sovereign. Tol, Konovnitsyn, Ermolov - received other appointments. Everyone said loudly that the field marshal had become very weak and was upset about his health.
He had to be in poor health in order to transfer his place to the one who took his place. And indeed, his health was poor.
Just as naturally, and simply, and gradually, Kutuzov came from Turkey to the treasury chamber of St. Petersburg to collect the militia and then into the army, precisely when he was needed, just as naturally, gradually and simply now, when Kutuzov’s role was played, to take his place a new, needed figure appeared.
The war of 1812, in addition to its national significance dear to the Russian heart, should have had another – European one.
The movement of peoples from West to East was to be followed by the movement of peoples from East to West, and for this new war a new figure was needed, with different properties and views than Kutuzov, driven by different motives.
Alexander the First was as necessary for the movement of peoples from east to west and for the restoration of the borders of peoples as Kutuzov was necessary for the salvation and glory of Russia.
Kutuzov did not understand what Europe, balance, Napoleon meant. He couldn't understand it. The representative of the Russian people, after the enemy was destroyed, Russia was liberated and placed at the highest level of its glory, the Russian person, as a Russian, had nothing more to do. The representative of the people's war had no choice but death. And he died.

Pierre, as most often happens, felt the full weight of the physical deprivations and stresses experienced in captivity only when these stresses and deprivations ended. After his release from captivity, he came to Orel and on the third day of his arrival, while he was going to Kyiv, he fell ill and lay sick in Orel for three months; As the doctors said, he suffered from bilious fever. Despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him and gave him medicine to drink, he still recovered.
Everything that happened to Pierre from the time of his liberation until his illness left almost no impression on him. He remembered only grey, gloomy, sometimes rainy, sometimes snowy weather, internal physical melancholy, pain in his legs, in his side; remembered the general impression of misfortune and suffering of people; he remembered the curiosity that disturbed him from the officers and generals who questioned him, his efforts to find a carriage and horses, and, most importantly, he remembered his inability to think and feel at that time. On the day of his release, he saw the corpse of Petya Rostov. On the same day, he learned that Prince Andrei had been alive for more than a month after the Battle of Borodino and had only recently died in Yaroslavl, in the Rostov house. And on the same day, Denisov, who reported this news to Pierre, between conversations mentioned Helen’s death, suggesting that Pierre had known this for a long time. All this seemed strange to Pierre at the time. He felt that he could not understand the meaning of all this news. He was only in a hurry then, as quickly as possible, to leave these places where people were killing each other, to some quiet refuge and there to come to his senses, rest and think about all the strange and new things that he had learned during this time. But as soon as he arrived in Orel, he fell ill. Waking up from his illness, Pierre saw around him his two people who had arrived from Moscow - Terenty and Vaska, and the eldest princess, who, living in Yelets, on Pierre's estate, and having learned about his release and illness, came to him to walk behind him.
During his recovery, Pierre only gradually unaccustomed himself to the impressions of the last months that had become familiar to him and got used to the fact that no one would drive him anywhere tomorrow, that no one would take his warm bed away, and that he would probably have lunch, tea, and dinner. But in his dreams, for a long time he saw himself in the same conditions of captivity. Pierre also gradually understood the news that he learned after his release from captivity: the death of Prince Andrei, the death of his wife, the destruction of the French.
A joyful feeling of freedom - that complete, inalienable, inherent freedom of man, the consciousness of which he first experienced at his first rest stop, when leaving Moscow, filled Pierre's soul during his recovery. He was surprised that this internal freedom, independent of external circumstances, now seemed to be abundantly, luxuriously furnished with external freedom. He was alone in a strange city, without acquaintances. Nobody demanded anything from him; they didn't send him anywhere. He had everything he wanted; The thought of his wife that had always tormented him before was no longer there, since she no longer existed.
- Oh, how good! How nice! - he said to himself when they brought him a cleanly set table with fragrant broth, or when he lay down on a soft, clean bed at night, or when he remembered that his wife and the French were no more. - Oh, how good, how nice! - And out of old habit, he asked himself: well, then what? What will i do? And immediately he answered himself: nothing. I will live. Oh, how nice!
The very thing that tormented him before, what he was constantly looking for, the purpose of life, now did not exist for him. It was no coincidence that this sought-after goal of life did not exist for him at the present moment, but he felt that it did not and could not exist. And it was this lack of purpose that gave him that complete, joyful consciousness of freedom, which at that time constituted his happiness.

Erik Satie is considered one of the most amazing and controversial composers in the history of music. The composer's biography is replete with facts when he could shock his friends and admirers, first fiercely defending one statement, and then refuting it in his theoretical works. In the 90s of the nineteenth century, Erik Satie met Carl Debussy and denied following the creative developments of Richard Wagner - he advocated supporting the newly hatched impressionism in music, because this was the beginning of the reincarnation of the national art of France. Later, composer Erik Satie had an active skirmish with imitators of the impressionism style. In contrast to ephemerality and elegance, he emphasized the clarity, sharpness and certainty of linear notation.

Early years

Erik Satie was born in 1866. His father worked as a port broker. From an early age, young Eric was drawn to music and showed remarkable abilities, but since no one close to him was involved in music, these attempts were ignored. Only at the age of 12, when the family decided to change their place of residence to Paris, Eric received the honor of constant music studies. At the age of eighteen, Erik Satie entered the conservatory in Paris. He studied a complex of theoretical subjects, among which was harmony. He also studied piano. Studying at the conservatory did not satisfy the future genius. He quits his studies and joins the army as a volunteer.

A year later, Eric returns to Paris. He works part-time in small cafes as a tapper. It was in one of these establishments in Montmartre that a fateful meeting took place with Carl Debussy, who was impressed and intrigued by the unusual choice of harmonies in the seemingly simple improvisations of the young musician. Debussy even decided to create an orchestration for Satie's piano cycle, Gymnopédie. The musicians became friends. Their opinions meant so much to each other that Satie was able to steer Debussy away from his youthful infatuation with the music of Wagner.

Moving to Arkay

At the end of the nineteenth century, Satie left Paris for the suburb of Arceuil. He rented an inexpensive room above a small cafe and stopped letting anyone in there. Even close friends could not come there. Because of this, Sati received the nickname “The Hermit of Arkay.” He lived completely alone, did not see the need for meetings with publishers, and did not take large and profitable orders from theaters. Periodically, he appeared in the fashionable circles of Paris, presenting fresh musical work. And after that the whole city discussed it, repeating Satie’s jokes, his words and witticisms about the musical celebrities of that time and about art in general.

Sati meets the twentieth century while studying. From 1905 to 1908, when he was 39 years old, Erik Satie studied at the Schola cantorum. He studied composition and counterpoint with A. Roussel and O. Serier. Erik Satie's early music dates from the late nineteenth century, 80-90s. This is the "Poor People's Mass" for choir and organ, the piano cycle "Cold Pieces" and the well-known "Gymnopedia".

Collaboration with Cocteau. Ballet "Parade"

Already in the 20s, Satie published collections of pieces for piano, which had a strange structure and an unusual title: “In Horse's Clothing”, “Three Pieces in the Shape of Embryos”, “Automatic Descriptions”. At the same time, he wrote several expressive, extremely melodic songs in a waltz rhythm, which the public liked. In 1915, Satie had a fateful meeting with Jean Cocteau, playwright, poet and music critic. He received an offer to create a ballet together with Picasso for the famous Diaghilev troupe. In 1917, their brainchild - the ballet "Parade" - was published.

Intentional, emphasized primitivism and deliberate contempt for the euphony of music, the addition of alien sounds to the score, such as a typewriter, car sirens and other things, was the reason for loud condemnation of the public and attacks from critics, which, however, did not stop the composer and his associates. The music of the ballet "Parade" had a music hall response, and the motives were reminiscent of the melodies that were sung in the streets.

Drama "Socrates"

In 1918, Satie wrote a radically different work. The symphonic drama with singing "Socrates", the text for which was the original dialogues by Plato, is restrained, crystal clear and even strict. There are no frills and no playing for the audience. This is the antipode of "Parade", although only a year passed between their writing. After finishing Socrates, Erik Satie promoted the idea of ​​furnishing, accompanying music that would serve as a background to everyday activities.

last years of life

Satie met the end of his life while living in the same suburb of Paris. He did not meet with his own people, including the Six. Erik Satie gathered around himself a new circle of composers. Now they called themselves the "Arkey School". It included Clique-Pleyel, Sauguet, Jacob, as well as the conductor Desormières. The musicians discussed new art of a democratic nature. Almost no one knew about Sati's death. It wasn't covered, it wasn't talked about. The genius left unnoticed. Only in the mid-twentieth century did people again become interested in his art, his music and philosophy.

, Pianist

Erik Satie(fr. , full name Eric Alfred Leslie Satie, fr. ; May 17, 1866, Honfleur, France - July 1, 1925, Paris, France) - an extravagant French composer and pianist, one of the reformers of European music of the 1st quarter of the 20th century.

His piano pieces influenced many modern composers. Erik Satie is the forerunner and founder of such musical movements as impressionism, primitivism, constructivism, neoclassicism and minimalism. It was Satie who invented the genre of “furniture music”, which does not need to be listened to specifically, an unobtrusive melody that sounds in a store or at an exhibition.

Satie was born on May 17, 1866 in the Norman city of Honfleur (department of Calvados). When he was four years old, the family moved to Paris. Then, in 1872, after the death of their mother, the children were sent back to Honfleur.

In 1879, Satie entered the Paris Conservatory, but after two and a half years of not very successful studies, he was expelled. In 1885 he again entered the conservatory, and again did not graduate.

Why attack God? Perhaps he is as unhappy as we are.

Sati Eric

In 1888, Satie wrote the work “Three Gymnopedies” (fr. ) for solo piano, which was based on the free use of non-chord sequences. A similar technique has already been used by S. Frank and E. Chabrier. Satie was the first to introduce sequences of chords built in fourths; this technique first appeared in his work “The Son of the Stars” (Le fils des étoiles, 1891). This kind of innovation was immediately used by almost all French composers. These techniques became characteristic of French modern music. In 1892, Satie developed his own system of composition, the essence of which was that for each play he composed several - often no more than five or six - short passages, after which he simply docked these elements to each other.

Satie was eccentric, he wrote his essays in red ink, and loved to play pranks on his friends. He gave his works titles such as “Three Pieces in the Shape of Pears” or “Dried Embryos.” In his play "Vexation", a small musical theme must be repeated 840 times. Erik Satie was an emotional person and, although he used the melodies of Camille Saint-Saëns for his “Music as Furnishings,” he sincerely hated him. His words even became a kind of calling card:

In 1899, Satie began working part-time as a pianist at the Black Cat cabaret, which was his only source of income.

Satie was virtually unknown to the general public until his fiftieth birthday; a sarcastic, bilious, reserved person, he lived and worked separately from the musical elite of France. His work became known to the general public thanks to Maurice Ravel, who organized a series of concerts in 1911 and introduced him to good publishers.

But the general Parisian public recognized Satie only six years later - thanks to Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons, where at the premiere of Satie’s ballet “Parade” (choreography by L. Massine, scenery and costumes by Picasso), a big scandal took place, accompanied by a fight in the auditorium and shouts of “Down with the Russians!” Russian Boches! Sati became famous after this scandalous incident. The premiere of “Parade” took place on May 18, 1917 at the Chatelet Theater under the direction of Ernest Ansermet, performed by the Russian Ballet troupe with the participation of ballet dancers Lydia Lopukhova, Leonid Massine, Woitsekhovsky, Zverev and others.

Erik Satie met Igor Stravinsky back in 1910 (by the way, the famous photograph taken by Stravinsky as a photographer visiting Claude Debussy, where all three can be seen, is also dated this year) and experienced a strong personal and creative sympathy for him. However, closer and more regular communication between Stravinsky and Satie occurred only after the premiere of Parade and the end of the First World War. Erik Satie is the author of two large articles on Stravinsky (1922), published at the same time in France and the USA, as well as about a dozen letters, the end of one of which (dated September 15, 1923) is especially often cited in the literature dedicated to both composers. At the very end of the letter, saying goodbye to Stravinsky, Satie signed with his characteristic irony and smile, this time a kind one, which did not happen to him so often: “You, I adore you: aren’t you the same Great Stravinsky? And this is me - none other than little Erik Satie.". In turn, both the poisonous character and the original, “unlike anything” music of Erik Satie aroused the constant admiration of “Prince Igor”, although neither close friendship nor any permanent relationship arose between them. Ten years after Satie’s death, Stravinsky wrote about him in the Chronicle of My Life: “I liked Satie at first sight. A subtle thing, he was all filled with slyness and intelligent anger.”

In addition to Parade, Erik Satie is the author of four more ballet scores: Uspud (1892), The Beautiful Hysterical Woman (1920), The Adventures of Mercury (1924) and The Performance Is Canceled (1924). Also (after the author’s death) many of his piano and orchestral works were often used for staging one-act ballets and ballet numbers.

Erik Satie died of cirrhosis of the liver as a result of excessive alcohol consumption on July 1, 1925 in the working-class suburb of Arceuil near Paris. His death went almost unnoticed, and only in the 50s of the 20th century his work began to return to the active space. Today, Erik Satie is one of the most frequently performed piano composers of the 20th century.

Satie's early work influenced the young Ravel. He was a senior comrade of the short-lived friendly association of composers, the Six. It did not have any common ideas or even aesthetics, but everyone was united by a commonality of interests, expressed in the rejection of everything vague and the desire for clarity and simplicity - exactly what was in Satie’s works. He became one of the pioneers of the idea of ​​the prepared piano and significantly influenced the work of John Cage.

Under his direct influence, such famous composers as Claude Debussy (who was his friend for more than twenty years), Maurice Ravel, the famous French group “Six”, in which Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric and Arthur Honegger are most famous, were formed. The work of this group (it lasted a little over a year), as well as Satie himself, had a strong influence on Dmitri Shostakovich. Shostakovich heard Satie’s works after his death, in 1925, during a tour of the French “Six” in Petrograd. His ballet Bolt shows the influence of Satie's music.

Some of Satie's works made an extremely strong impression on Igor Stravinsky. In particular, this applies to the ballet “Parade” (1917), the score of which he asked the author for almost a whole year, and the symphonic drama “Socrates” (1918). It was these two works that left the most visible mark on Stravinsky's work: the first in his constructivist period, and the second in the neoclassical works of the late 1920s. Heavily influenced by Satie, he moved from the impressionism (and fauvism) of the Russian period to an almost skeletal style of music, simplifying his writing style. This can be seen in the works of the Parisian period - “The Story of a Soldier” and the opera “The Maura”. But even thirty years later, this event continued to be remembered as nothing other than an amazing fact in the history of French music.

A fragment from a critical biography of the eccentric composer Erik Satie, which is being prepared for publication in Russian.

Following the book about John Cage, Ad Marginem and the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art are publishing a biography of Erik Satie, compiled by Mary E. Davis, in the Critical Biographies series.

It presents the eccentric French composer, whom his contemporaries called “the greatest genius” and “a talentless provocateur,” as a man ahead of his time and anticipating modern celebrity culture.

Colta.Ru publishes a preface to this biography translated by Elizaveta Miroshnikova.

“Sati (Erik Alfred Leslie Satie, abbr. Eric). French composer, born in Honfleur (1866-1925), author of three Gymnopedies for piano (1888), the ballet “Parade” (1917) and the oratorio “Socrates” (1918). His deliberately simplistic style is often imbued with humor.”
La Petit Larousse illustré

Erik Satie, the poet of minimalist aesthetics, would have felt sympathy for this staccato biography in Petit Larousse illustré (Little Illustrated Larousse), a dictionary first published in 1856 that has staked its claim as the first French guide to the “evolution of language and the world.”

For those who can read between the lines, the brief description conveys a lot about Sati: the eccentric character already shines through in the manner of writing the name - with a “k”, rather than through the familiar and ordinary “s”; the mention of Honfleur immediately moves the action to a picturesque Norman port town and brings to mind the natives of these places - from the landscape painter Eugene (Emile - error in the original) Boudin to the writer Gustave Flaubert.

The three works listed in the text mark the history of art in Paris - from the cabaret of the fin de siècle era in Montmartre, where Satie presented himself to the public as a “gymnopedist”, to the Chatelet theater, where, at the end of the First World War, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes showed a scandalous production of the ballet “Parade” ”, and to the exquisite salons of the Parisian elite, where, after the end of the war, the premiere of the classicist “symphonic drama” “Socrates” took place.

As for the “deliberately simplified” style and humor, they both stem from the mixture of high art and popular culture, which was characteristic not only of Satie, but of all modernist art. Viewed this way, the Little Illustrated Larousse article is a tantalizing glimpse of man, music, and creativity, all contained in fifty words.

Longer descriptions of Satie's life and work appeared only after 1932, when Pierre-Daniel Templier published the first biography of the composer (Pierre-Daniel Templier. Erik Satie. - Paris, 1932). Templier's advantage was that he belonged to Erik Satie's close circle - his father, Alexandre Templier, was a friend of the composer and a neighbor in the Parisian suburb of Arceuil, and they were both members of the Arceuil cell of the Communist Party.

The biography written by Templier appeared in the series of books “Masters of Ancient and Modern Music”, and Satie immediately found himself in the company of Beethoven, Wagner, Mozart, Debussy and Stravinsky. The book was illustrated with photographs and documents provided by Erik Satie's brother Conrad, and its purpose was to create a more realistic image of the composer, whose death less than ten years had passed and who was praised by some as "the greatest musician in the world" and vilified by others as a mediocre provocateur. (Ibid., p. 100).

Templier's book consists of two parts: the first part contains a detailed biography of Satie, and the second contains a detailed annotated chronological list of works.

Over the next sixteen years, as the composer gradually faded from public memory and his music disappeared from concert halls, this biography was the only source of information about Satie, and even now it is one of the most authoritative studies of the early years of the composer's life and work.

While Satie's star was fading in France, Rollo Myers's first English-language biography, published in 1948, aroused interest in the composer in the United States and Great Britain (Rollo Myers. Erik Satie. - London, 1948). By this time, a number of influential composers and critics had already acted as Satie's lawyers, emphasizing his role as a musical pioneer and original writer.

Virgil Thomson, one of the main advocates, proclaimed Erik Satie "the only representative of twentieth-century aesthetics in the Western world" and argued that Satie -

“the only composer whose works can be enjoyed and appreciated without any knowledge of the history of music” (Virgil Thomson. The Musical Scene. - New York, 1947. p. 118).

John Cage, another diehard admirer, declared Satie "essential" and considered him

“the most significant servant of art” (John Cage. Satie Controversy. In the book John Cage, ed. Richard Kostelanetz. - New York, 1970. P. 90).

But perhaps the most important thing that Cage did was that in his essays, at concerts and in his own writings, he brought Satie to the attention of the post-war American avant-garde and promoted Satie’s aesthetics as a powerful alternative to the more hermetic types of modernism - as an antidote to the mathematically verified approach of Schoenberg, Boulez and Stockhausen.

Surprisingly, the cultural shifts of the 50s and 60s contributed to the rise of Erik Satie's popularity, and his music began to be performed not only in concert halls, but also in less obvious places - jazz clubs and rock festivals.

The mass popularity of Satie's music reached its peak when the rock band Blood, Sweat and Tears arranged two Gymnopedies and released it as the title track on their album of the same name in 1969; the album sold three million copies and received a Grammy Award for Best Album of the Year, and Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie received a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Instrumental Composition.

The groundwork for this crossover was laid by historian Roger Shattuck in his groundbreaking study The Years of Feasting (1958, rev. 1968), where he cemented Erik Satie's position as a modernist icon and fashion figure, placing him alongside Guillaume Apollinaire , Alfred Jarry and Henri Rousseau - the most original representatives of the French avant-garde (Roger Shattuck. The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I. - New York, 1968).

This group, according to Shattuck, formed the core

“a dynamic milieu known as bohemia, a cultural underground tinged with failure and fraud that, over several decades, crystallized into a conscious avant-garde that brought the arts to a level of astonishing renaissance and perfection” (Preface to the Vintage Edition, in Ibid).

For readers of the time, Satie's status as the progenitor of experimental music - as well as rock music performed by groups styled after the Parisian avant-garde - was unshakable.

At the end of the 20th century, the understanding of Sati as an icon of nonconformism began to weaken somewhat. A large number of specialized musicological studies, in which Satie's manuscripts and sketches were carefully studied, constituted the first comprehensive analysis of the composer's work.

From this analysis emerged the modern recognition of his contribution to art, as well as a new understanding of his meticulous composition technique. The focus shifted from biography to the composing process, and it became clear that Satie was important not only for the avant-garde, but also for figures who were fully integrated into the musical mainstream, such as Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky.

Satie, no longer seen only as a musical eccentric, became part of a long chain of musical history, linking him with Mozart and Rossini, as well as with Cage and Reich. Satie's image has been greatly enhanced by the emergence of works exploring the non-musical aspects of his work, in particular his literary opuses, from the complete edition of his literary works in 1981 to the publication of his "virtually complete" correspondence in 2002.

Satie's original views and unique way of expression fit perfectly into his life and work. Satie was a prolific and original writer; Although most of his works remained unpublished until today, some of his essays and comments were published in specialized music magazines and even in quite popular publications in France and the USA during the composer’s lifetime.

Among them were autobiographical sketches written over the years; Each essay is remarkable in its own way, since you can find a fairly significant amount of information there, despite the almost complete absence of facts and total irony.

The first essay of this kind is entitled “Who Am I” and represents the initial section of the entire series “Notes of a Sclerotic”, which was published in the magazine S.I.M. (magazine of the International Musical Society - Société International de Musique. Translation is given from the Russian edition: Erik Satie. Notes of a mammal. Translation from French, compilation and comments by Valery Kislov. - St. Petersburg, Ivan Limbach Publishing House, 2015) from 1912 to 1914 .

“Anyone will tell you that I am not a musician. This is true. Even at the beginning of my career, I immediately classified myself as a phonometerographer. All my works are pure phonometry... Only scientific thought dominates in them. Besides, I find it more pleasant to measure sound than to listen to it. With a phonometer in hand I work joyfully & confidently. And what did I not weigh and measure! All Beethoven, all Verdi, etc. Very curious" (Ibid., p. 19),

Sati begins.

A year later, in a brief for his publisher, Satie paints a very different picture, declaring himself a “dreamer” and equating his work with that of a group of young poets led by Francis Carcot and Tristan Klingsor. Identifying himself as "the strangest musician of his time", Satie nevertheless declares his importance:

“Myopic from birth, I am farsighted by nature... We must not forget that many “young” composers consider their mentor as a prophet and apostle of the current musical revolution” (Quote translated by the translator).

And even shortly before his death, he writes in the same confusing tone, seasoned with bitterness:

“Life turned out to be so unbearable for me that I decided to retire to my estates and while away my days in an ivory tower - or some kind ( metal) metal. So I became addicted to misanthropy, decided to cultivate hypochondria and became the most ( leaden) the most melancholy of people. It was a pity to look at me - even through a lorgnette made of fine gold. Hmmm. And all this happened to me through the fault of Music” (Translation is given from the Russian edition: Erik Satie. Notes of a mammal. Translation from French, compilation and comments by Valery Kislov. - St. Petersburg, Ivan Limbach Publishing House, 2015. Page 120).

Phonometerographer, dreamer, misanthrope: as is clear from these essays, Satie was fully aware of the power of image and throughout his life he carefully built and cultivated his public image. The ironic pose when describing himself corresponded to the non-standard and periodically changing presentation of himself in society - this process began in his youth and continued until his death.

Such changes in image are documented in photographs, self-portraits and, of course, in the drawings and paintings of his friends who captured Satie: from a fin de siècle sketch by the artist Augustin Grass-Mick, who depicted the composer in the company of such stars as Jeanne Avril and Toulouse. Lautrec, to portraits made in the 1920s by Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Francis Picabia.

As these works testify, Satie was acutely aware of the connection between public image and professional recognition, and throughout his career as a composer he “tailored” his appearance to his artistic goals and objectives.

For example, working in various cabarets in Montmartre in his youth, Satie looked like a real representative of a bohemian, then he began to wear only corduroy suits, and of the same model (he had seven identical corduroy suits); as a composer of pseudo-sacred music, he founded his own church in the 1890s and strutted the streets in a cassock; When Satie had already become a respected figure of the avant-garde, he began to wear a strict three-piece suit - more bourgeois than revolutionary.

In a word, everything clearly indicates that Satie quite consciously conveyed with his appearance both different essences and his art, creating an inextricable connection between personality and vocation.

This biography - another of many - examines the deliberate fusion of public image and artistic vocation (that is, what Erik Satie did throughout his life) as the setting for his creative work.

Against the backdrop of dramatic changes in wardrobe and public image, Satie’s creative legacy takes on new perspectives. When the culture of “stars” and “celebrity”, so natural for us today, was just being born, Erik Satie already clearly understood how valuable and important it is to be unique, and therefore easily recognizable - “to be not like everyone else.” Clothes helped him do this and no doubt played a significant role in the visual representation of the breakthroughs in his art.