Classical Music / Composer's Datebook: May 17
Brief biography of Eric Satie, French composer, occult founder, and mentor of 'Les Six' group of French composers.
French composer Eric Satie is mostly famous for his piano pieces such as Trois Gymnopedies (Three ‘Naked Feet’, 1888) for piano. He was mentor to the prominent group of young French composers called "Les Six."
Living a highly unconventional life, eccentric and a recluse, his way of life is echoed in his sad and comic works. Yet his music is never dull. His aesthetic of ironic simplicity, as in the Messe des pauvres (Poor People’s Mass), acted as a nationalist antidote to the perceived excesses of German Romanticism.
Early Life
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925) was born in Honfleur, Normandy, a French composer of Scottish descent, with a French father and Scottish mother.
Aged 13, he moved to Paris and studied at the Conservatory and came into contact with intellectual circles through his friendship with the impressionist composer Claude Debussy. Previous to this he lived precariously by playing piano at cafes and cabarets. 'The Allegro' is a brief piano piece by Erik Satie. dated September 9, 1884, when Satie was 18. It is his earliest known composition. Starting with this first composition, he signed his name as Erik Satie.
The Religious Cult Founder
After composing Gymnopedies, he joined a religious-occult sect, later founding an order of his own, himself as high priest. His wry sense of humour were often revealed in bizarre titles of his works including Trois morceaux en forme de poire (Three Pieces in a shape of a Pear, 1903), The Dreamy Fish, and Trois embryons desseches (Three dried-up embryos).
The Composer in Prominent French Circles
In 1915 he started composing music for ballet Parade, commissioned from Diaghilev, in collaboration with Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. At the same time he mentored the “Les Six” group of six young French composers, who, under his influence and Cocteau had achieved notoriety through their advanced ideas) and promoted the concept of musique d’ameublement (furniture music), anticipating the impact of radio. His Parade also radically included background sounds of typewriter and sirens, and invented a new style of film music, for Rene Clair’s Entr’acte (Interval, 1924).
Later Compositions
His later works, between 1918 until 1924, included Socrate for voices and instruments, two operettas, and two ballets, Mercure and Relache. He died from cirrhosis of the liver, after years of heavy drinking. Despite his radical ideas in musical content and style, Satie’s creative innovations had a great influence in musical history.
List of Major Works by Satie
Trois gymnopedies for piano, 1888
Trois gnossiennes for piano, 1890
Danses gothiques for piano, 1893
Messe des pouvres, a Latin Mass with psalms for voices and organ/piano, 1895
Jack-in-the-box, ballet, 1899
Trois morceaux en forme de poire, 1903
The Dreamy Fish, 1905
Trois embryons desseches (Three Dried-up Embryos), 1913
Parade, ballet, 1917
Socrate for voices and instruments, 1918
Trois petites pieces montees, 1920
Musique d'amueblement (Furniture Music), 1920
Mercure, ballet, 1924
Relache, ballet, 1924
Video Credit:
Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No.3. YouTube, uploaded by DistantMirrors. Accessed May 17, 2016.
Image Credit:
Eric Satie. commons wikipedia / Public Domain.
Resources:
The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, edited by Stanley Sadie, Macmillan (1994)
The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham (2002)
Dictionary of the Arts, Gramercy Books (1999)
(c) May 2009. Updated May 17, 2016. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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