Six gnossiennes by erik satie biography

A revision prior to publication in is not unlikely; the 2nd Gnossienne may even have been composed in that year it has "April " as date on the manuscript. The piano solo versions of the first three Gnossiennes are without time signatures or bar lines, which is known as free time. These Gnossiennes were first published in Le Figaro musical No.

The first grouped publication, numbered as known henceforth, followed in By this time Satie had indicated as composition date for all three. The first Gnossienne was dedicated to Alexis Roland-Manuel in the reprint. The facsimile print of the 2nd Gnossienne contained a dedication to Antoine de La Rochefoucauldnot repeated in the print. By the time of the second publication of the first set of three GnossiennesSatie had for some time disassociated himself from the Rosicrucian movement.

A sketch containing only two incomplete bars, dated aroundshows Satie beginning to orchestrate the 3rd Gnossienne. The first and third Gnossiennes share similar chordal structures, rhythms, and thematic references. The Gnossiennes Nos. None of these appear to have been numbered, nor even titled as "Gnossienne" by Satie himself. The sequence of these three Gnossiennes in the publication by Robert Caby does not correspond with the chronological order of composition.

It is extremely unlikely that Satie would have seen these compositions as three members of a single set. A facsimile of the four manuscript pages of this composition can be seen on this page of Nicolas Fogwall's website. Section B, usually considered a very inspired section, uses semiquavers to contrast the minor melody of Section A.

His harmony is often characterised by unresolved chords, he sometimes dispensed with bar-linesas in his Gnossiennesand his melodies are generally simple and often reflect his love of old church music. He gave some of his later works absurd titles, such as Veritables Preludes flasques pour un chien "True Flabby Preludes for a Dog ",Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois "Sketches and Exasperations of a Big Wooden Man", and Sonatine bureaucratique "Bureaucratic Sonatina", Most of his works are brief, and the majority are for solo piano.

Satie never married, and his home for most of his adult life was a single small room, first in Montmartre and, from to his death, in Arcueila suburb of Paris. He adopted various images over the years, including a period in quasi-priestly dress, another in which he always wore identically coloured velvet suits, and is known for his last persona, in neat bourgeois costume, with bowler hatwing collar, and umbrella.

He was a lifelong heavy drinker, and died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of The children were baptised in the Anglican church. After the Franco-Prussian War Alfred Satie sold his business and the family moved to Paris, where he eventually set up as a music publisher. The boys were rebaptised as Roman Catholics and educated at a local boarding school, where Satie excelled in history and Latin but nothing else.

Vinot stimulated Satie's love of old church music, and in particular Gregorian chant. In Satie's grandmother died, [ n 2 ] and the two boys returned to Paris to be informally educated by their father.

Six gnossiennes by erik satie biography

The following year Decombes called him "the laziest student in the Conservatoire". In Satie wrote his first known composition, a short Allegro for piano, written while on holiday in Honfleur. He signed himself "Erik" on this and subsequent compositions, though continuing to use "Eric" on other documents until He made little progress: Mathias described his playing as "Insignificant and laborious" and Satie himself "Worthless.

Three months just to learn the piece. Cannot sight-read properly". He spent much time in Notre-Dame de Paris contemplating the stained glass windows and in the National Library examining obscure medieval manuscripts. Keen to leave the Conservatoire, Satie volunteered for military service, and joined the 33rd Infantry Regiment in November Inat the age of 21, Satie moved from his father's residence to lodgings in the 9th arrondissement.

By this time he had started what was to be an enduring friendship with the romantic poet Contamine de Latourwhose verse he set in some of his early compositions, which Satie senior published. The Chat Noir was known as the "temple de la 'convention farfelue'" — the temple of zany convention, [ 21 ] and as the biographer Robert Orledge puts it, Satie, "free from his restrictive upbringing … enthusiastically embraced the reckless bohemian lifestyle and created for himself a new persona as a long-haired man-about-town in frock coat and top hat".

This was the first of several personas that Satie invented for himself over the years. He earned a modest living as pianist and conductor at the Chat Noir, before falling out with the proprietor and moving to become second pianist at the nearby Auberge du Clou. There he became a close friend of Claude Debussywho proved a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition.

From his " Abbatiale " in the rue Cortot, he published scathing attacks on his artistic enemies. In Satie had what is believed to be his only love affair, a five-month liaison with the painter Suzanne Valadon. After their first night together, he proposed marriage. The two did not marry, but Valadon moved to a room next to Satie's at the rue Cortot.

Satie became obsessed with her, calling her his Biqui and writing impassioned notes about "her whole being, lovely eyes, gentle hands, and tiny feet". After five months she moved away, leaving him devastated. During this period he re-established contact with his brother Conrad for numerous practical and financial matters, disclosing some of his inner feelings in the process.

The letters to Conrad made it clear that he had set aside any religious ideas. From on Satie started making money as a cabaret pianist, adapting over a hundred compositions of popular music for piano or piano and voice, adding some of his own. In his later years Satie would reject all his cabaret music as vile and against his nature, [ 7 ] but for the time being, it was an income.

In October Satie enrolled in Vincent d'Indy 's Schola Cantorum to study classical counterpoint while still continuing his cabaret work. Satie would follow these courses at the Schola, as a respected pupil, for more than five years, receiving a first intermediate diploma in Another summary, of the period prior to the Schola, also appeared in the Trois morceaux en forme de poirewhich was a kind of compilation of the best of what he had written up to Something that becomes clear through these published compilations is that Satie did not so much reject Romanticism and its exponents like Wagnerbut that he rejected certain aspects of it.

From his first composition to his last, he rejected the idea of musical development [ citation needed ]in the strict definition of this term: the intertwining of different themes in a development section of a sonata form. As a result, his contrapuntal and other works were very short; the "new, modern" Fugues do not extend further than the six gnossiennes by erik satie biography of the theme s.

Generally, he would say that he did not think it permitted that a composer take more time from his public than strictly necessary. He also changed his appearance to that of the 'bourgeois functionary' with bowler hat, umbrella, etc. He channelled his medieval interests into a peculiar secret hobby : In a filing cabinet he maintained a collection of imaginary buildings, most of them described as being made out of some kind of metal, which he drew on little cards.

Occasionally, extending the game, he would publish anonymous small announcements in local journals, offering some of these buildings, e. From this point, things started to move very quickly for Satie. His habit of accompanying the scores of his compositions with all kinds of written remarks was now well established so that a few years later he had to insist that these not be read out during performances.

In some ways these compositions were very reminiscent [ according to whom? But the real acceleration in Satie's life did not come so much from the increasing success of his new piano pieces. In fact, it was Ravel who perhaps unwittingly triggered something that was to become a characteristic of Satie's remaining years and part of each progressive movement that manifested itself in Paris over the following years.

These movements succeeded one another rapidly, at a time in which Paris was seen as the artistic capital of the world, and the beginning of the new century appeared to have set many minds on fire. At first Satie was pleased that at least some of his works were receiving public attention, but when he realised that this meant that his more recent work was overlooked or dismissed, he looked for other young artists who related better to his more recent ideas, so as to have better mutual support in creative activity.

Thus young artists such as Roland-Manueland later Georges Auricand Jean Cocteaustarted to receive more of his attention than the "Jeunes". Satie's mother Jane was Scottish and wrote her own pieces for the piano. She died when he was just six. Satie was left with his grandparents in Honfleur by his widowed father. They had Satie re-baptized in the Roman Catholic faith.

His musical ability was already in evidence, and he began lessons with the local organist, a man named Vinot, who introduced him to Gregorian plainsongs, the serenely monophonic religious chants dating back to music of the 13th century. Satie later showed a marked preference for such constructions in his own compositions, and was deeply interested in medieval music for much of his early career.

Inhe moved to Paris with his father, who remarried the following year. Satie disliked his stepmother, another musically gifted individual named Eugenie Barnetsche, who favored the Romantic compositions of Felix Mendelssohn, Frederic Chopin and six gnossiennes by erik satie biography popular composers of the time. It was likely her influence, however, that led Satie to take up study at the rigorous, but conservative Paris Conservatoire.

He was a mediocre student who made up his own piano exercises and was eventually dismissed. The first two pieces Satie wrote for the piano, Valse-Ballet and Fantaisie-Valsewere published in Instead of subtitling them in the usual style using "Opus 1" to indicate the first entry in his catalog, Satie demonstrated his wry sense of humor and used "Op.

Satie was conscripted into the military inbut fell ill with bronchitis and was discharged. During his recuperation he read a great deal by Josephin Peladan, the leader of a mystical artistic society called Rose et Croix, also known as the Rosicrucians. In he met Peladan, and became the society's unofficial composer. The work lasted until around He grew increasingly immersed in medieval music and Gothic art during this period, and a set of four piano pieces, Ogives whose name refers to the rib vaults of Gothic architecture was written during this era and published in Around this same time Satie befriended a Spanish symbolist poet known as Contamine de Latour, who claimed a kinship with Napoleon as well as a right to the French throne.

Satie began setting some of Contamine's mediocre verse to music and his compositions Elgie, Les anges, Les fleurs, Sylvie and Chanson date from this time. With S arabandes in, "Satie now turned his back on the Middle Ages and the organum-like, petrified movement of Ogives and instead wrote music with a kind of solemn dance character, constantly shifting between immobility and movement, between melodic expressivity and vibrant chords," wrote Olof Hjer in the liner notes for a CD of Satie's piano works.

Satie sometimes paid for the publication of his music out of his own pocket.