Satie, Gymnopédie 1 & 2

Eric Satie (1866-1925) was technically not a member of the group of composers known as Les six (discussed in last week’s Performance Pick). On the other hand, he was in some ways the group’s founder.

Satie had a generation’s head start on the other six (all born between 1888 and 1899). In the late 1880s, Satie had formed alliances with other artists in the Paris cabaret scene, primarily at Le chat noir whose clientele included Paul Verlaine, Claude Debussy, and Henri di Toulouse-Lautrec. The post-war artistic scene in the Parisian cafes (Les six, Hemingway, Picasso) would continue this pre-war tradition of Satie, Debussy, and Ravel.

With good reason, many would consider Paris the artistic capital of the times.

Satie clearly had his own peculiar ideas about music and tended not to follow trends or fashions. He avoided musical development, the very thing that generates longer forms, the musical life blood of Bach, Beethoven, and virtually all of Western music. And so Satie could write a fugue that contained only the exposition (the initial statement of the subject and answer in each voice). He reportedly said he did not think a composer should demand more time of the audience than necessary.

So maybe it should not surprise us that when Satie formed a group of younger composers known as the Nouveau jeunes immediately after WWI, he would soon withdraw. Jean Cocteau would organize the remaining six members of this group into Les six.

Satie composed three Gymnopédie, all in the form of slow melancholy airs with the descriptions douloureux (painful), triste (sad), and grave (grave). Their simplicity puts them at the opposite end of the spectrum from the late Romantic style that prevailed in Germany and Vienna. They all date from Satie’s early years at Le chat noir.

Exit question: how many of you remember the first of these pieces from a 1968 album by the jazz-rock group Blood, Sweat & Tears?