Erik Satie

Erik Satie ( full name Alfred Éric Leslie Satie, born May 17, 1866 in Honfleur ( Calvados), † July 1, 1925 in Paris), influenced as a composer of the early 20th century, the new music.

Life

Erik Satie was the oldest of four children of insurance agents Jules -Alfred Satie (1842-1903) and his wife Jane Leslie Anton (1838-1872) from Scottish family who took care of bilingualism and Anglican rite of baptism. When Erik was four years old, the family moved to Paris, where in addition to the Agency a translation agency and later a small music publishing were operated. After the death of the youngest sister, Diane (1871 ) and the mother's death a year later, the six -year-old Erik came along with his younger brother Conrad back to Honfleur to the parents of the father. The grandmother made ​​it a condition that the children would again baptized Catholic, resulting in the contact with the organist and choir director of the church Saint- Léonard, Gustave Vinot, revealed at the Satie in 1874 received his first music lessons. Here he learned next to the Gregorian chant also the joy of everyday music know that Vinot for local festivities composed, which two influences on the later Satie's music scene are called.

In Satie's twelfth birthday ( 1878), the grandmother drowned while bathing and the father took his two sons back to himself to Paris. A little later he married his second wife ten years older Eugénie Barnetche, concert pianist, composer and ambitious music teacher, who noticed Erik's talent and in 1879 at the Paris Conservatoire filed for him, that they had completed itself. When Satie but mentioned lack of motivation and increasing frustration after two and a half years for discontinuation of studies.

In 1884 he began to compose. As the first piece applies Allegro, which is preserved in a fragment. The early works were published in the publishing of the Father, where the chansons, who wrote the parents appeared. A part of his work published Satie self-published. In the following years were in part the compositions ogive (1886 ), three Sarabandes (1887 ) and the well-known piano pieces Gymnopédies (1888 ), but also the music Trois Sonneries de la Rose Croix for a founded by Joséphin Péladan secret society of the Rosicrucians, the next Claude Debussy and Satie other artists also belonged for several years.

Satie left home the end of 1887, after he had made ​​a voluntary military service, and moved to Montmartre. In December he got a job as a pianist at the cabaret Le Chat Noir. This was born out of necessity step towards light entertainment offered him welcome opportunities for musical experiments.

After a disappointing love affair with the painter Suzanne Valadon, who was already the mother of a son ( Maurice Utrillo ), was one of his most famous songs: Je te veux, which today is part of the repertoire of well-known singers. In 1898 he moved to the small town of Arcueil near Paris. In his fortieth year (1905 ) he took up studying music (composition and counterpoint ) again, this time at the Schola Cantorum with Vincent d' Indy and Albert Roussel. In addition, Satie his life for the visual arts, which inspired him to private studies and led to lifelong friendships and cooperation with representatives of the then avant-garde, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Léonide Massine, Man Ray, and especially Jean Cocteau interested.

Getting fame from 1911 he owes his fellow musicians Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, the pieces played by him. Debussy, with whom he friendship and rivalry, orchestrated two of his Gymnopédies. The attention of the Parisian musical world won Satie in 1917 with the premiere of his ballet Parade, which was created in collaboration with Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso and Diaghilev troupe. See the article in Parade.

Satie's life was accompanied by money worries and the milieu borne hazards of an entertainer in cafés and cabarets. Satie died in 1925 from the effects of years of alcohol abuse.

Work and impact

Already in the first compositions of the young self-taught are the essential features of his later music included. In addition to the deviation from the major-minor system including simplicity and clarity. With the other elements, brevity and simplicity, it can be considered a pioneer of minimalist music.

Satie's musical ideas go further, however. True to his belief that the composer does not have the right to the listener the time to steal, he developed his idea of the background music. He calls Musique d' ameublement - " Furniture Music ". Music should be like table, chair or curtain in the room. He rejects virtuosity and refinement and composed after a type of modular system. This goes also be saying: " Everyone will tell you that I 'm not a musician. That's right. "

Quite in contrast to Satie's musical sparseness are the imaginative, sometimes enigmatic, sometimes absurd, often extensive playing instructions. Instead of the usual Italian standards moderato, largo, allegro, etc. It states: " like a nightingale with a toothache " or " open the head ", "You bury the sound in your stomach ", " almost invisible " or " very Christian ". Similarly, the title betray his droll sense of humor: unsavory chant, Floppy Prelude for a dog, cruelty, Bureaucratic Sonatina, Three Pieces in the form of a pear.

On the sheet music to torture ( Vexations ), a slow piece of music by two minutes, he wrote a note that is also indicative of his relationship to the dimension of time. He said: " To play this motif eight hundred forty times, it will be good to prepare for it, in the deepest silence, by serious immobility. " Background music as " Art in Time" virtually without beginning, without end. The first public performance of Vexations in literally taken 840 version was in 1963 in New York at the instigation of John Cage and lasted about 18 hours. Participation ten pianists, including Cage were themselves

As Satie's masterpiece that works without ironic or cynical or additions without alienation can, the symphonic drama Socrate apply. For three Plato dialogues after translation of Victor Cousin, he composed the music. He called the piece " a humble homage, a work of piety ", and was surprised to experience while working on the composition of an unprecedented exhilaration.

Satie's theses of simplicity and clarity were collected in 1917 by Guillaume Apollinaire in his manifesto Esprit nouveau to central demands for French literature. More recognition in the final years learned Satie by the young composer of Les Six, which included Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud, and named after Satie's residence group École d' Arcueil, to which Henri Sauget counted. Who had no musical idols - - Despite its proximity to Dadaism and Surrealism to the impending Satie preserved its uniqueness in the music world.

The French composer Robert Caby, the Satie met a year before his death, became his main executor and saved among others, the Vexations from oblivion.

Satie's music has been used in over 100 films. The first film in which he also had a brief appearance, was Entr'acte by René Clair from the year 1924.

Works (selection)

Orchestral works

  • Parade ( 1917), ballet.
  • Socrate (1918 ), symphonic drama for voice and orchestra
  • Les Aventures de Mercure ( 1924), ballet.
  • Relâche (1924 ), Ballet, is: Cinéma (1924 ), film music.

Choral music

  • Mass of pauvres (1895 ) for choir and organ.

Chamber Music

  • Choses vues à droite et à gauche - sans lunettes (1912 ) for violin and piano.

Chansons

  • Je te veux (1897 ), Valse Chantee.
  • Tendrement (1902 ), Valse Chantee.
  • La diva de l' empire (1904 ), Chanson.

Piano for 2 hands

  • 3 Sarabandes (1887 ).
  • 3 Gymnopédies ( 1888).
  • 6 Gnossiennes ( 1890).
  • Sonneries de la Rose crois (1892 ).
  • Pièces froides pour piano (1893 ).
  • Descriptions Automatiques (1913).
  • Heures Séculaires et Instantanées (1914 ).
  • Sports et divertissements (1914 ).
  • Les Trois Valses distinguées you Précieux dégouté (1914 ).
  • Avant- dernières pensées (1915 ).
  • Bureaucratique Sonatine (1917 ).
  • 5 Nocturnes (1919).

Discography (selection)

  • Erik Satie: Words & Music, Audio book read by Dietmar Mues and musically accompanied by Steffen Schleiermacher feat.Deutsches Film Orchestra Babelsberg, hoerbuchedition words & music, 2010, ISBN 978-3-9813027-1-4.
  • Erik Satie, Oeuvres pour Piano, Aldo Ciccolini, piano: EMI 0,724,357,533,522th
  • Erik Satie, sport & entertainment ( texts and songs ), John Cernota, piano / Constanze Brüning, singing: Jaro 4239-2 media.
  • Erik Satie, Piano Music & Melodies, de Leeuw, piano / Marjanne Kweksilber, singing: Philips 002,894,757,706th
  • Erik Satie, Works for Orchestra, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, conductor Michel Plasson: EMI CDC7494712.
  • Erik Satie, Eric Satie & Darius Milhaud ( Orchestral Works ), London Festival Players and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Bernard Herrmann, London / Decca 443897-2.
  • Erik Satie, Sketches of Satie, John and Steve Hackett (flute and guitar), Camino RecordsCAMCD 20, 2000.
  • Several composers of the late 19th century, French choral music with two organs, including the Mass of Pauvres by Erik Satie. Munich Madrigal Choir, Franz Brandl (Director ), Elisabeth Sperer (organ), Winfried Engelhardt (organ), FSM FCD 97 735, 1988.
Schola Cantorum de Paris Ballets Russes Henri Sauguet Integrated Authority File
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