Anyone with an interest in early 20th century music will no doubt have noticed that 2025 is the 100th anniversary the death of French composer Erik Satie….
But first….
Have you booked for Madeleine and the London Chamber Ensemble on May 18th?
Haydn’s charming Bird Quartet and Charles Wood’s aptly named Highgate Quartet. More details and to book here.
So back to Satie…
Erik Satie was a somewhat baffling but influential figure in turn of the century French music. Despatched by his step mother to the Paris Conservatoire in 1879, Satie did not enjoy the experience, was expelled for his ‘unsatisfactory performance’ and volunteered for military service – which he found no more to his liking. Having engineered his discharge he moved to Montmatre where he joined fellow Bohemians, earned his keep in piano bars and nightclubs, became a close friend of Debussy (‘a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition’), and composed a number of works mainly for piano, of which his Gymnopédies and the more experimental Gnossiennes are the best known.
In 1893 Satie had a five month affair with the the painter Suzanne Vladon. This seems to have been his only romantic liaison and when she left he was devastated. Not long after he moved out of Montmatre into a single room in a suburb of Paris where he lived alone until his death in in 1925, continuing to earn a living as a cabaret pianist.
With age (and possibly thanks to the significant amounts of alcohol he consumed all his life) Satie became increasingly rancorous – by 1917 he had even fallen out with his old friend Debussy. However his innovative approach to composition – ‘directing a new generation of French composers away from Wagner‐influenced impressionism towards a leaner, more epigrammatic style’ (Oxford Dictionary of Music) gained him successive groups of followers including Poulenc, Milhaud, Honegger and Tailleferre. Fifty years later he is seen as an important influence on minimalist composers such as Philip Glass, John Adams and John Cage.
His best known works today remain the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes and the score for the ballet Parade, premiered in 1917 by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso, choreography by Léonide Massine. For a lot more on Satie see his extensive Wikipedia entry.
Furniture music
‘Furniture music’ was Satie’s concept of what today we might think of as background music – ‘a music which is like furniture; a music which will be part of the noises of the environment, will take them into consideration….not dominating them, not imposing itself. It would fill up those heavy silences that sometimes fall between friends dining together.’ Essential to the concept was a short composition around which the player could endlessly ad lib with subtle variations. (See Tom Phelan’s article in Far Out.)
Such in essence is his piano marathon Vexations – 840 repetitions of a one page piano score. Although it was neither printed nor played during Satie’s lifetime, it has had a number of airings since, the latest being last week at the South Bank where pianist Igor Levit, directed by conceptual artist Marina Abramović, got through all 840 repetitions in 13 hours.
Frustratingly I did not really log into this until yesterday as you were able to book in for single hour slots if you were not up for the full 13 hours. But alas too late. However, there is more about the project here on the South Bank site – and you can get just a flavour of it in an 11 minute clip on You Tube!
Repetition….
Whether any of the minimalist composers ever actually came across Vexations, repetition (with minimal variations) is the hallmark of much of their work, especially that of Philip Glass.
Apartment House at the Wigmore Hall
A Satie/Glass concert by the experimental group Apartment House at the Wigmore Hall on Monday featured three of Philip Glass’ repetitive pieces, Music in Similar Motion, Music in Contrary Motion and Music in Eight Parts.
Both of the ‘motion’ pieces were repetitive, mesmeric and really quite exciting. However, those of us who are not fully paid up Glass fans struggled with his Music In Eight Parts – a relentless half hour of keyboard chords which did ‘expand harmonically’ and with a ‘slowly increasing density of texture’ – but so minimally as to scarcely be picked up by the jaded ear.
(Be it noted that amongst the Apartment House players, and thus displaying their huge musical versatility, were Gordon MacKay and Bridget Carey of the London Chamber Ensemble who will be playing Haydn and Woods for us on May 18th. And those of you who came to our wonderful Debussy concert in March will remember that Bridget was also a crucial member of our harp, flute and viola trio.)
Much more enjoyable was Satie’s Socrate, a life of Socrates originally scored for four female voice and a piano, re-arranged first by John Cage and then by Apartment House themselves. Satie had wanted the work to sound ‘white’ with ‘lucid lines and a fragile transparency’ – especially enjoyable when contrasted with Glass’ pounding rythms.
Silas and Satie
Even more enjoyable was a piano recital on Sunday evening in the St Pancras Clock Tower – by Argentinian pianist Silas Bassa – a repeat of his performance at the Wigmore Hall the previous evening.
Silas, who lives in Paris, says he ‘has always been captivated and fascinated by Satie’s timeless and mysterious sounds’. So this programme combined excerpts from Satie’s Gymnopedie, Gnossiennes and Next thoughts with two of Glass’ Etudes and Metamorphosis 2 and half a dozen of Silas’ own pieces.
The Glass was driving, gripping, exciting – and blessedly short. The Satie was delightful and Silas’ own pieces melded beautifully with both. (If you want to hear Silas play, check in to his site here.)
And all in the ever extraordinary St Pancras clock tower….. A perfect way to spend a Sunday evening.
For future happenings in at Hampstead Lane and elsewhere – see our Upcoming Events page.
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