Erik Satie: an assemblage of portraits.
That is why I acquired a taste for misanthropy; why I nurtured hypochondria; why I became the most (leaden-like) miserable of men. It distressed people to look at me — even through hall-marked gold eye-glasses. Oh yes.
And all this happened to me because of Music. That art has done me more harm than good, really: it has made me quarrel with people of quality, most honorable, more-than- distinguished, terribly genteel people.
Let us pass on. I shall come back to this subject later.
[Wherein all words from Erik Satie, himself, are unattributed except by the sans serif font. All illustrations from the beautiful book, Strange Mr. Satie, written by M. T. Anderson and illustrated by Petra Mathers. The rest is mostly unsourced because if you care enough, you can source them yourself—or contribute to the childcare funds for unsalaried mothers and sad aardvarks.]
1.
A strange voluble little man in his fifties came over to me and led me to one of my paintings. Strange, because he seemed out of place in this gathering of younger men. With a little white beard, an old-fashioned pince-nez, black bowler hat, black overcoat and umbrella, he looked like an undertaker or an employee of some conservative bank. I was tired with the preparations of the opening, the gallery had no heat, I shivered and said in English that I was cold. He replied in English, took my arm, and led me out of the gallery to a corner café, where he ordered hot grogs. Introducing himself as Erik Satie, he relapsed into French, which I informed him I did not understand. With a twinkle in his eye he said it did not matter. We had a couple of additional grogs; I began to feel warm and lightheaded. Leaving the café, we passed a shop where various household utensils were spread out in front. I picked up a flatiron, the kind used on coal stoves, asked Satie to come inside with me, where, with his help, I acquired a box of tacks and a tube of glue. Back at the gallery I glued a row of tacks to the smooth surface of the iron, titled it, The Gift, and added it to the exhibition. This was my first Dada object in France.
- MAN RAY
I took to my room and let small things evolve slowly.
“El Bohemio, Poet of Montmartre (Potrait of Erik Satie)” by Ramon Casas i Carbo
2.
In the Sarabandes of 1887 he foreshadowed the lines on which modem harmony was going to be developed by Debussy and other great twentieth-century composers; the nostalgic Gymnopédies, written at the same period, but entirely without reference to either Wagner or Franck, point the way to that return to the old French traditions and generally modal style which were exemplified later in the works of Debussy and Ravel; ... in the heyday of Impressionism, about 1912, came the Préludes Flasques, which in their linear austerity heralded the 'neo-classic' vogue which was to dominate Western music during the nineteen-twenties.... Parade (1917) was certainly the precursor of a good deal of the 'mechanistic' music which was a feature of the post-First World War years right up to 1939; while the Piège de Méduse, composed in 1913, anticipated Dada by some three years just as surely as the Heures séculaires et instantanées of 1914, especially taken in conjunction with their accompanying text, can now be seen to be of purely Surrealist inspiration. Socrate, on the other hand, has a quality of timelessness which is no less remarkable. And, of course — perhaps the most significant pointer of all — we must never forget that while the young Debussy was still working on Wagnerian lines on a libretto of Catulle Mendès (Rodrigue et Chimène), Erik Satie was already planning his Princesse Maleine, only, as he confided to Debussy, 'did not know how to obtain Maeterlinck's permission'. Soon afterwards it was Debussy who had obtained Maeterlinck's permission, and had started to write Pelléas and Mélisande. . . .
- ROLLO H. MYERS
Am I French? ... Of course I am .... How do you think a man of my age could not be French? . . . You amaze me ..
uspud, clad in homespun garments, prostrates himself before the crucifix; for a long time he prays and weeps. when he raises his head, christ unfastens his right arm from the cross, blesses uspud and disappears. the holy spirit penetrates uspud. procession of male and female saints: saint cleopheme spits his teeth into his hand; saint micanar bears his eyes on a platter; the blessed marcomir has his legs burnt to a cinder; saint induciomare's body is pierced with arrows; saint chassebaigre, confessor, in violet robes; saint lumore with a sword; saint gebu with red-hot irons; saint glunde with a wheel; saint krenou with a sheep; saint japuis, with doves escaping from a cleft in his forehead; saint umbeuse spinning wool; the blessed melou the lame; saint vequin the flayed; saint purine the unshod; saint plan, preaching friar; saint lenu with a hatchet. their voices summon uspud to martyrdom. he is penetrated by an unquenchable thirst for suffering.
he tears off his homespun robes and appears clad in the white tunic of neophytes. he prays again. a swarm of demons rise up on all sides. they assume monstrous forms; black dogs with a golden hom on the forehead; fish bodies with the head and wings of birds; giants with bulls' heads, snorting fire through their nostrils. uspud commends his soul to the lord, then gives himself up to the demons, who tear him to pieces in a fury. the christian church appears, radiant with light and escorted by two angels bearing palm leaves and crowns. she takes uspud's soul in her arms and raises him up towards christ, who is resplendent in heaven. end of the third act
3.
Once, after we had played Morceaux en forme de poire (Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear for piano four-hands) , I asked our hero....why he gave such a title Pieces in the Shape of a Pear to this ravishing music. He answered with a twinkle in his eyes:
“You do know that I visited Debussy quite often; I admire him immensely and he seems to think much of whatever talent I may have. Nevertheless, one day when I showed him a piece I had just composed he remarked, ‘Satie, you never had two greater admirers than Ravel and myself; many of your early works had an influence on our writing....You have some kind of genius, or you have genius. From time to time there is in your art a certain lack of form...All I did,” added Satie, “was to write Morceaux en forme de poire. I brought them to Debussy who asked, ‘Why such a title?’ Why? Simply, mon cher ami, because you cannot criticize my Pieces in the shape of a pear. If they are in the form of a pear they cannot be shapeless.
- Conductor VLADIMIR GOLSCH MANN, recalling a conversation with Satie
4.
I love all of Satie's music and the music of Socrate especially.
It seems to me that even though the words he chose are profoundly meaningful and touching that like the delightful and poetic remarks included in his other shorter pieces, all of which in performances Satie himself suppressed, the texts of Socrate may be omitted, bringing about, as I hope to show with this arrangement, an enjoyment of the music itself alone, the beauty of which is so constantly clear and extraordinary.
- JOHN CAGE
5.
Satie was our mascot. The purity of his art, his horror of all concessions, his contempt for money, and his ruthless attitude toward the critics were a marvelous example for us all.
- DARIUS MILHAUD
To whom it may concern: I forbid anyone to read the text aloud during the performance. Ignorance of my instructions will bring my righteous indignation against the audacious culprit. No exceptions will be allowed.
6.
Satie bases everything on structure (the divisibility of a composition into parts, large and small).... It is important with Satie not to be put off by his surface (by turns mystical, cabaretish, Kleeish, Mondrianish; full of mirth, the erotic, the wondrous, all the white emotions, even the heroic, and always tranquility, expressed more often than not by means of cliché-juxtaposition). The basis of his music that no one bothered to imitate was its structure by means of related lengths of time. Think of Satie as interchangeable with Webern (you'll be somewhere near the truth).
- JOHN CAGE
Satie with Claude Debussy in Debussy's home, June 1911, photographed by Igor Stravinsky.
I never attack Debussy. It's only Debussyites that annoy me. THERE IS NO SCHOOL OF SATIE. Satieism could never exist. I would oppose it.
7.
As regards Satie's orchestrations, Satie was not an orchestrator such as, for example, Ravel; yet when he orchestrated in his dance-hall style, as in the late ballets, the orchestrations work with admirable clarity, and with a gift for the proper presentation of the music. The accusation of lack of ability as an orchestrator appears to be based on Satie's attempts to create (in Fils des Étoiles, and especially Uspud) an orchestration based on contrasting blocks of unblended sounds; e.g. Uspud is scored for flutes, harps, and strings, and the three groups hardly ever play together. (Note the crucial presence of the number 3 yet again, indubitably connected with the Trinity.) In addition to this unconventional use of timbre, Satie wrote pitches normally outside the range of some of the instruments. This is not a severe problem as, in the case of Uspud, the flutes were played on a harmonium with a flute stop, and one can imagine or wish for a flute timbre or color without regard to range. Indeed, much of the history of the 20th-century, new-instrument invention concerns just this aspect of extending the instrument ranges so that their unique timbres are not restricted (hence the development of computer generated sound, or Carleen Hutchins' Violin Octet, or on a more populist note, Yamaha's DX7, among many).
Remember that people live in a world where the new is almost always considered wrong. Satie's orchestrations were wrong according to convention, and therefore had to be made fit for proper society, somewhat like Eliza being taught to speak. In their attempt to fix him up, people other than Satie attempted to orchestrate some of Satie's early music, using either their own style, or Satie's dance-hall style, with results that are remarkably unsuccessful due to two causes. One of these is that the dance-hall style orchestration only works for certain kinds of music, and is incongruous for others, just as a three-piece suit is somewhat incongruous on a beach. The second reason why most of Satie's music is not amenable to orchestration (Debussy's orchestration of Gymnopédies is lovely, but the work is no longer Satie) is a more interesting question, and I believe the answer is given in a lecture of Satie's (see notes for July 12 and 13), where he states: Today ... impressionistic musicians write — 'their orchestral music' — for piano. In short, Satie comes from a tradition of keyboard composer, as opposed to that of composer for orchestra. There is a long, wonderful, and venerable history of keyboard (virginal, clavichord, and harpsichord) music, that simply does not work orchestrally, and almost does not work when transferred to piano, and this history is far older than that of impressionistic orchestration. The point to be made is that if Satie could create an orchestration absolutely correct for one kind of music, and even more incorrect for another, he may not have known how to orchestrate in the accepted tradition, but he certainly had a sense for what was apposite, which is more than can be said for some of his orchestrators.
- P. Z. , REACTIONARY PROGRAMMER
8.
The topic of space travel was very much in the public consciousness in his day; although the Wright brothers would not make their first powered (and decidedly suborbital) flight until 1903, when Satie was already 37, Jules Verne had published De la terre à la lune (“From the Earth to the Moon”) in 1865, the year before the composer’s birth. We don’t know what — if anything — Erik Satie thought of outer space, whether or not the anxiousness many experienced at the threshold of the 20th century instilled a yearning to be free of earth’s gravity.
At the beginning of my career, I at once classed myself among the photometrographers. My works are purely photometric. Take Revolving Doors or Seguidilla, Le Beau Temps or the Shakespearean Equations, you will notice that no plastic idea entered into the creation of these works. It is scientific thought which dominates. Besides, I take greater pleasure in measuring a color than looking at it. Holding a photometer I work joyfully and surely. What have I not weighed or measured? All Uccello, all Leonardo, etc. It is very strange.
The first time I used a photoscope I examined a pear of medium size. I assure you I have never seen anything more repulsive.
9.
Satie was largely influenced by music not traditionally part of the “canon” of art music – at least not in Satie’s lifetime. His emphasis on popular music and cabaret songs often led to a disconnect with the world of “high art,” as he simultaneously rejected this world through his satire and parodies. In a sense, Satie was the “original” P.D.Q. Bach (the brainchild of Peter Schickele, of J.S. Bach’s 20 children, hilariously, the 21st). Indeed, much of Satie’s legacy comes from his parody works, such as Véritables préludes flasques and Embryons desséchés. His sense of humor reflects the Dadaist spirit and the disillusionment felt by many (particularly artists, musicians, and writers) after the Great War. In these two senses – eclectic influences from outside the traditional canon of Baroque, Classical, and Romantic art music and keen irony – Satie very much connected with the Paris of 1924 and the artistic community there.
I dedicate this chorale to those who already dislike me. And withdraw.
10.
See Metzer’s chapter on “Sampling and Thievery” in Quotation and Cultural Meaning in Twentieth- Century Music, 160-87. The incorporation of recordings into the act of composition is a type of quotation that Satie did not utilize, though it does involve some of the same issues of originality and intellectual property. Sampling differs from Satie’s use of quotation in that it quotes actual sounds from a performance. Here, no internal alteration takes place. Even at their most literal, Satie’s quotations typically change the instrumentation and harmonization—or at the very least, are realized in a performance unrelated to the source.
- BELVA JEAN HARE, dissertation
11.
Can we take seriously Satie’s praise of a forgery? The peculiar analogy between the painting and a perhaps underripe yet visually attractive fruit might suggest a negative answer ... but perhaps, at least before we pause to think too much about that analogy, we might have hoped that we could. After all, could it not be possible that a forger or an anonymous painter might have produced a masterpiece? in which case, might Satie not be mocking those who think that the signature and price-tag are what determine the value of a painting? But our faith in this argument fades as, going through the list of his apocryphal possessions, Satie turns to his favourite:
un faux manuscrit de Beethoven – sublime symphonie apocryphe du maître – acheté pieusement par moi, il y a dix ans, je crois.
- PETER DAYAN
Pablo Picasso’s “Costumes du ball et Parade” for the Parade performance that got disemboweled by the critics.
12.
1924 – Satie’s penultimate year – was nonetheless a rather significant year for performances. In January of that year, the Ballets Russes premiered Gounod’s opéra comique Le Médecin malgré lui in Monte Carlo with Satie’s recitatives, requested of him by Diaghilev. Working again with Picasso and Massine, he premiered the ballet Mercure in June of that year; the work was commissioned by the Comte Etienne de Beaumont, an aspiring impresario.
Just like 1917’s Parade, Mercure provoked scandal at its premiere. And, continuing with the tradition, Relâche, a ballet made with the participation of Francis Picabia and Jean Börlin, also instigated outrage at its premiere in December of 1924. Relâche was also accompanied by a film, Entr’acte, for which Satie composed the first ever synchronized film score.
One factor that made these ballets so difficult to digest – particular at the time – was the modernity and, in a sense, the vulgarity of their music. Satie’s writing often focuses heavily on repetition, and whereas more traditional classical or romantic music seems to have a trajectory – a sense of motion from beginning to end – Satie’s music relies rather on a sort of stasis, where there is no clear movement, neither progression nor regression. Put simply, his music does not doanything; instead, it is. Throw into the mix rather avant-garde designs and costumes courtesy of the “Pica’s” (Picasso and Picabia), the often rather bourgeois sentiment of those attending the ballet, salt to taste – and voilà! We have a fiasco.
- PHILIP CLAUSSEN
13.
At the time of Satie's death in 1925, absolutely nobody except himself had ever entered his room in Arcueil since he had moved there twenty-seven years earlier. What his friends would discover there, after Satie's burial at the Cimetière d'Arcueil, had the allure of the opening of the grave of Tutankhamun; apart from the dust and the cobwebs (which among other things made clear that Satie never composed using his piano), they discovered numerous items:
enormous quantities of umbrellas, some that had apparently never been used by Satie;
the portrait of Satie by Valadon
love-letters and drawings from the Valadon period;
other letters from all periods of his life;
his collection of drawings of medieval buildings (only now did his friends start to see the link between Satie and certain previously anonymous journal adverts regarding 'castles in lead' and the like);
other drawings and texts of autobiographical value;
other memorabilia from all periods of his life, amongst which were the seven velvet suits from the Velvet gentleman period, etc.
But most importantly there were compositions nobody had ever heard of (or which were thought to have been lost) everywhere: behind the piano, in the pockets of the velvet suits, etc. These included the Vexations, Geneviève de Brabant and other unpublished or unfinished stage works, The Dreamy Fish, many Schola Cantorum exercises, an unseen set of 'canine' piano pieces, several other piano works, often without a title (which would be published later as more Gnossiennes, Pièces Froides, Enfantines, Furniture music, etc.).
14.
One could do worse than shoot oneself in the hoof and keep galloping like Satie and his oracular monocle—be a centaur whose ruins are more realistic than one’s life.
- ME to the wall, between edits