And minimalism. It was Sati who came up with the genre of “furnishing music”, which does not need to be specially listened to, an unobtrusive melody that sounds in a store or at an exhibition.
“The performance struck me with its freshness and genuine originality. “Parade” just confirmed to me to what extent I was right when I put such a high value on the merits of Satie and the role that he played in French music by contrasting the vague aesthetics of impressionism surviving its age with its powerful and expressive language, devoid of any or pretentiousness and embellishment.
In addition to "Parade", Erik Satie is the author of four more ballet scores: "Uspud" (1892), "The Beautiful Hysterical Woman" (1920), "The Adventures of Mercury" (1924) and "The Performance Is Canceled" (1924). Also (already after the death of the author) many of his piano and orchestral works were often used for staging one-act ballets and ballet numbers.
Under his direct influence, such famous composers as Claude Debussy (who was his close friend for more than twenty years), Maurice Ravel, the famous French group "Six", in which Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric and Arthur Honegger are best known . The work of this group (it lasted a little over a year), as well as Satie himself, had a noticeable influence on Dmitry Shostakovich, who heard Satie's works after his death, in 1925, during a tour of the French "Six" in Petrograd-Leningrad. In his ballet "Bolt" the influence of the musical style of Sati from the time of the ballet "Parade" and "Beautiful hysterical" is noticeable.
Some of Satie's works made an extremely strong impression on Igor Stravinsky. In particular, this applies to the ballet Parade (), the score of which he asked the author for almost a year, and the symphonic drama Socrates (). It was these two compositions that left the most noticeable mark on Stravinsky's work: the first in his constructivist period, and the second in the neoclassical works of the late 1920s. Having been greatly influenced by Satie, he moved from the impressionism (and fauvism) of the Russian period to an almost skeletal style of music, simplifying the writing style. This can be seen in the works of the Parisian period - "The Story of a Soldier" and the opera "Mavra". But even thirty years later, this event continued to be remembered only as an amazing fact in the history of French music:
- (Jean Cocteau, "for the anniversary concert of the Six in the year")
Having come up with an avant-garde genre of “background” (or “furnishing”) industrial music that you don’t need to listen to specially, Eric Satie was also a pioneer and forerunner of minimalism. His obsessive melodies, repeated hundreds of times without the slightest change or interruption, sounding in a store or in a salon while receiving guests, were ahead of their time by a good half century.
Bibliography
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Notes
- Compiled by M. Gerard and R. Chalu. Ravel in the mirror of his letters. - L .: Music, 1988. - S. 222.
- Eric Satie, Yuri Khanon. Faces of Russia, 2010. - S. 189. - 682 p. - ISBN 978-5-87417-338-8.
- Anne Rey. satie. - second. - Paris: Solfeges Seuil, 1995. - S. 81. - 192 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-02-023487-4.
- Filenko G. French music of the first half of the 20th century. - L .: Music, 1983. - S. 69.
- Stravinsky I.F. Chronicle of my life. - L .: Music, 1963. - S. 148.
- Anne Rey. satie. - second. - Paris: Solfeges Seuil, 1995. - S. 144. - 192 p. - 25,000 copies. - ISBN 2-02-023487-4.
- Ornella Volta. Erik Satie. - second. - Paris: Hazan, 1997. - S. 159. - 200 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-85025-564-5.
- Eric Satie. Correspondance presque complete. - Paris: Fayard / Imec, 2000. - T. 1. - S. 1132. - 1260 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-213-60674-9.
- Eric Satie, Yuri Khanon."Memories in hindsight". - St. Petersburg. : Center for Middle Music & Faces of Russia, 2010. - pp. 517-519. - 682 p. - ISBN 978-5-87417-338-8.
- Eric Satie, Yuri Khanon."Memories in hindsight". - St. Petersburg. : Center for Middle Music & Faces of Russia, 2010. - S. 570. - 682 p. - ISBN 978-5-87417-338-8.
- Eric Satie. Correspondance presque complete. - Paris: Fayard / Imec, 2000. - T. 1. - S. 560. - 1260 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-213-60674-9.
- Stravynsky Igor."Chroniques de ma vie". - Paris.: Denoël & Gonthier, 1935. - S. 83-84.
- Mary E. Davis, Reaktion Books, 2007. ISBN 1861893213.
- Poulenc Fr. Entretiens avec Claude Rostand. P., . R.31.
- Eric Satie. Correspondance presque complete. - Paris: Fayard / Imec, 2000. - Vol. 1. - S. 491, 1133. - 1260 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 2-213-60674-9.
- Jean Cocteau."Rooster and Harlequin". - M .: "Prest", 2000. - S. 79. - 224 p. - 500 copies.
- . Retrieved January 13, 2011. .
see also
Eric Satie at Wikiquote in Wikisource Eric Satie at Wikimedia Commons Links
- Eric Satie: sheet music of works at the International Music Score Library Project
- Yuri Khanon:
- Yuri Khanon.
- + audio & MIDI.
Excerpt characterizing Satie, Eric
The only significance of the Berezinsky crossing lies in the fact that this crossing obviously and undoubtedly proved the falsity of all plans for cutting off and the validity of the only possible course of action required by both Kutuzov and all the troops (mass) - only following the enemy. The crowd of Frenchmen ran with an ever-increasing force of speed, with all their energy directed towards the goal. She ran like a wounded animal, and it was impossible for her to stand on the road. This was proved not so much by the arrangement of the crossing as by the movement on the bridges. When the bridges were broken through, unarmed soldiers, Muscovites, women with children, who were in the French convoy - everything, under the influence of inertia, did not give up, but ran forward into the boats, into the frozen water.
This endeavor was reasonable. The position of both the fleeing and the pursuing was equally bad. Staying with his own, each in distress hoped for the help of a comrade, for a certain place he occupied among his own. Having given himself over to the Russians, he was in the same position of distress, but he was placed on a lower level in the section of satisfying the needs of life. The French did not need to have correct information that half of the prisoners, with whom they did not know what to do, despite all the desire of the Russians to save them, were dying of cold and hunger; they felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate Russian commanders and hunters of the French, the French in the Russian service could not do anything for the prisoners. The French were ruined by the disaster in which the Russian army was. It was impossible to take away bread and clothes from hungry, necessary soldiers, in order to give them not to harmful, not hated, not guilty, but simply unnecessary Frenchmen. Some did; but that was the only exception.
Behind was certain death; there was hope ahead. The ships were burned; there was no other salvation but a collective flight, and all the forces of the French were directed to this collective flight.
The farther the French fled, the more miserable were their remnants, especially after the Berezina, on which, as a result of the St. Petersburg plan, special hopes were placed, the more the passions of the Russian commanders flared up, blaming each other and especially Kutuzov. Believing that the failure of the Berezinsky Petersburg plan would be attributed to him, dissatisfaction with him, contempt for him and teasing him were expressed more and more strongly. Joking and contempt, of course, was expressed in a respectful form, in a form in which Kutuzov could not even ask what and for what he was accused. He was not spoken seriously; reporting to him and asking his permission, they pretended to perform a sad ceremony, and behind his back they winked and tried to deceive him at every step.
All these people, precisely because they could not understand him, it was recognized that there was nothing to talk about with the old man; that he would never understand the full depth of their plans; that he would answer his phrases (it seemed to them that these were only phrases) about the golden bridge, that it was impossible to come abroad with a crowd of vagabonds, etc. They had already heard all this from him. And everything he said: for example, that you have to wait for provisions, that people are without boots, it was all so simple, and everything they offered was so complicated and clever that it was obvious to them that he was stupid and old, but they were not powerful, brilliant commanders.
Especially after the unification of the armies of the brilliant admiral and the hero of St. Petersburg Wittgenstein, this mood and staff gossip reached its highest limits. Kutuzov saw this and, sighing, shrugged his shoulders. Only once, after the Berezina, did he get angry and write to Bennigsen, who delivered the following letter to the sovereign separately:
“Due to your painful seizures, if you please, Your Excellency, upon receipt of this, go to Kaluga, where you await further command and appointment from His Imperial Majesty.”
But after Benigsen's departure, the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich came to the army, who made the beginning of the campaign and was removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now the Grand Duke, having arrived at the army, informed Kutuzov about the displeasure of the Emperor for the weak successes of our troops and for the slowness of movement. The Sovereign Emperor himself intended to come to the army the other day.
An old man, just as experienced in court affairs as in military affairs, that Kutuzov, who in August of that year was chosen commander-in-chief against the will of the sovereign, the one who removed the heir and the Grand Duke from the army, the one who, by his power, in opposition to the will of the sovereign, ordered the abandonment of Moscow, this Kutuzov now immediately realized that his time was over, that his role had been played and that he no longer had this imaginary power. And it was not just from court relations that he realized this. On the one hand, he saw that the military business, the one in which he played his role, was over, and he felt that his calling had been fulfilled. On the other hand, at the same time he began to feel physical weariness in his old body and the need for physical rest.
On November 29, Kutuzov entered Vilna - his good Vilna, as he said. Twice in his service, Kutuzov was governor in Vilna. In the rich surviving Vilna, in addition to the comforts of life, which he had been deprived of for so long, Kutuzov found old friends and memories. And he, suddenly turning away from all military and government concerns, plunged into an even, familiar life as much as he was given rest by the passions that boiled around him, as if everything that was happening now and about to happen in the historical world did not concern him at all.
Chichagov, one of the most passionate cut-offers and overturners, Chichagov, who wanted to first make a diversion to Greece, and then to Warsaw, but did not want to go where he was ordered, Chichagov, known for his bold speech with the sovereign, Chichagov, who considered Kutuzov blessed by himself, because when he was sent in the 11th year to conclude peace with Turkey, in addition to Kutuzov, he, convinced that peace had already been concluded, admitted to the sovereign that the merit of making peace belongs to Kutuzov; this Chichagov was the first to meet Kutuzov in Vilna at the castle where Kutuzov was supposed to stay. Chichagov in a naval uniform, with a dagger, holding his cap under his arm, gave Kutuzov a drill report and the keys to the city. That contemptuous respectful attitude of young people towards the old man who had gone out of his mind was expressed to the highest degree in the entire appeal of Chichagov, who already knew the accusations leveled against Kutuzov.
Speaking with Chichagov, Kutuzov, among other things, told him that the carriages with dishes he had recaptured from him in Borisov were intact and would be returned to him.
- C "est pour me dire que je n" ai pas sur quoi manger ... Je puis au contraire vous fournir de tout dans le cas meme ou vous voudriez donner des diners, [You want to tell me that I have nothing to eat. On the contrary, I can serve you all, even if you wanted to give dinners.] - flaring up, said Chichagov, who wanted to prove his case with every word and therefore assumed that Kutuzov was also preoccupied with this. Kutuzov smiled with his thin, penetrating smile and, shrugging his shoulders, answered: - Ce n "est que pour vous dire ce que je vous dis. [I only want to say what I say.]
In Vilna, Kutuzov, contrary to the will of the sovereign, stopped most of the troops. Kutuzov, as his close associates said, unusually sank and physically weakened during his stay in Vilna. He reluctantly took care of the affairs of the army, leaving everything to his generals and, while waiting for the sovereign, indulged in a dispersed life.
Having left with his retinue - Count Tolstoy, Prince Volkonsky, Arakcheev and others, on December 7 from Petersburg, the sovereign arrived in Vilna on December 11 and drove straight to the castle in a road sleigh. At the castle, despite the severe frost, there were about a hundred generals and staff officers in full dress uniform and an honor guard of the Semenovsky regiment.
The courier, who galloped to the castle on a sweaty troika, ahead of the sovereign, shouted: "He's on his way!" Konovnitsyn rushed into the hall to report to Kutuzov, who was waiting in a small Swiss room.
A minute later, a fat, large figure of an old man, in full dress uniform, with all the regalia covering his chest, and his belly pulled up by a scarf, swaying, came out onto the porch. Kutuzov put on his hat along the front, took gloves in his hands and sideways, stepping with difficulty down the steps, stepped down from them and took in his hand the report prepared for submission to the sovereign.
Running, whispering, the troika still desperately flying by, and all eyes were fixed on the jumping sleigh, in which the figures of the sovereign and Volkonsky were already visible.
All this, according to fifty years of habit, had a physically unsettling effect on the old general; he anxiously hurriedly felt himself, straightened his hat, and at that moment, as the sovereign, getting out of the sleigh, raised his eyes to him, cheered up and stretched out, filed a report and began to speak in his measured, ingratiating voice.
The emperor glanced at Kutuzov from head to toe, frowned for a moment, but immediately, overcoming himself, came up and, spreading his arms, hugged the old general. Again, according to the old, familiar impression and in relation to his sincere thoughts, this embrace, as usual, had an effect on Kutuzov: he sobbed.
The sovereign greeted the officers, with the Semyonovsky guard, and, shaking the old man's hand once more, went with him to the castle.
Left alone with the field marshal, the emperor expressed his displeasure at the slowness of the pursuit, for the mistakes in Krasnoye and on the Berezina, and told him his thoughts on the future campaign abroad. Kutuzov did not make any objections or comments. The same submissive and senseless expression with which, seven years ago, he listened to the orders of the sovereign on the field of Austerlitz, was now established on his face.
When Kutuzov left the office and with his heavy, diving gait, head down, walked down the hall, someone's voice stopped him.
“Your Grace,” someone said.
Kutuzov raised his head and looked for a long time into the eyes of Count Tolstoy, who, with some small thing on a silver platter, stood in front of him. Kutuzov did not seem to understand what they wanted from him.
Suddenly, he seemed to remember: a barely perceptible smile flickered on his plump face, and he, bending low, respectfully, took the object lying on the dish. It was George 1st degree.The next day, the field marshal had a dinner and a ball, which the sovereign honored with his presence. Kutuzov was granted George 1st degree; the sovereign gave him the highest honors; but the sovereign's displeasure against the field marshal was known to everyone. Decency was observed, and the sovereign showed the first example of this; but everyone knew that the old man was to blame and good for nothing. When at the ball Kutuzov, according to the old Catherine's habit, at the entrance of the sovereign into the ballroom, ordered the taken banners to be thrown down at his feet, the sovereign grimaced unpleasantly and uttered words in which some heard: "the old comedian."
The displeasure of the sovereign against Kutuzov intensified in Vilna, especially because Kutuzov, obviously, did not want or could not understand the significance of the upcoming campaign.
When the next day in the morning the sovereign said to the officers gathered at his place: “You saved more than one Russia; you saved Europe,” everyone already understood then that the war was not over.
Only Kutuzov did not want to understand this and openly expressed his opinion that a new war could not improve the position and increase the glory of Russia, but could only worsen its position and reduce the highest degree of glory on which, in his opinion, Russia now stood. He tried to prove to the sovereign the impossibility of recruiting new troops; talked about the plight of the population, about the possibility of failure, etc.
In such a mood, the field marshal, naturally, seemed only an obstacle and a brake on the upcoming war.
To avoid clashes with the old man, a way out was found by itself, consisting in, as in Austerlitz and as at the beginning of the Barclay campaign, to take out from under the commander-in-chief, without disturbing him, without announcing to him that the ground of power on which he stood , and transfer it to the sovereign himself.
To this end, the headquarters was gradually reorganized, and all the essential strength of Kutuzov's headquarters was destroyed and transferred to the sovereign. Toll, Konovnitsyn, Yermolov received other appointments. Everyone said loudly that the field marshal had become very weak and upset with his health.
He had to be in poor health in order to hand over his place to the one who interceded for him. Indeed, his health was poor.
How naturally, and simply, and gradually Kutuzov appeared from Turkey to the state chamber of St. a new, needed figure appeared.
The war of 1812, in addition to its national significance dear to the Russian heart, was supposed to have another - European.
The movement of peoples from west to east was to be followed by the movement of peoples from east to west, and for this new war a new figure was needed, having other properties and views than Kutuzov, driven by other motives.
Alexander the First was as necessary for the movement of peoples from east to west and for the restoration of the borders of peoples as Kutuzov was necessary for the salvation and glory of Russia.
Kutuzov did not understand what Europe, equilibrium, Napoleon meant. He couldn't understand it. The representative of the Russian people, after the enemy was destroyed, Russia was liberated and placed on the highest level of its glory, the Russian person, as a Russian, had nothing more to do. The representative of the people's war had no choice but death. And he died.Pierre, as is most often the case, felt the brunt of the physical hardships and stresses experienced in captivity only when these stresses and hardships were over. After his release from captivity, he arrived in Orel, and on the third day of his arrival, while he was going to Kyiv, he fell ill and lay ill in Orel for three months; he became, as the doctors said, bilious fever. Despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him and gave him medicines to drink, he still recovered.
Everything that happened to Pierre from the time of his release to his illness left almost no impression on him. He remembered only gray, gloomy, sometimes rainy, sometimes snowy weather, inner physical anguish, pain in his legs, in his side; remembered the general impression of the misfortunes and sufferings of people; he remembered the curiosity of the officers and generals who questioned him, which disturbed him, his efforts to find a carriage and horses, and, most importantly, he remembered his inability to think and feel at that time. On the day of his release, he saw the corpse of Petya Rostov. On the same day, he learned that Prince Andrei had been alive for more than a month after the Battle of Borodino and had only recently died in Yaroslavl, in the Rostovs' house. And on the same day, Denisov, who reported this news to Pierre, mentioned the death of Helen between conversations, suggesting that Pierre had known this for a long time. All this only seemed strange to Pierre at the time. He felt that he could not understand the meaning of all this news. He was then in a hurry only to leave these places where people were killing each other as soon as possible, to some quiet refuge and there to come to his senses, rest and think over all the strange and new that he had learned during this time. But as soon as he arrived in Orel, he fell ill. Waking up from his illness, Pierre saw around him his two people who had come from Moscow - Terenty and Vaska, and the elder princess, who, living in Yelets, on Pierre's estate, and learning about his release and illness, came to him to walk behind him.
During his recovery, Pierre only gradually weaned from the impressions that had become habitual to him of the last months and got used to the fact that no one would drive him anywhere tomorrow, that no one would take away his warm bed, and that he would probably have lunch, and tea, and supper. But in a dream he saw himself for a long time in the same conditions of captivity. Just as little by little, Pierre understood the news that he learned after his release from captivity: the death of Prince Andrei, the death of his wife, the destruction of the French.
A joyful feeling of freedom - that complete, inalienable freedom inherent in a person, the consciousness of which he first experienced at the first halt, when leaving Moscow, filled Pierre's soul during his recovery. He was surprised that this inner freedom, independent of external circumstances, was now, as it were, surrounded with excess, with luxury, by external freedom. He was alone in a strange city, without acquaintances. Nobody demanded anything from him; they didn't send him anywhere. Everything he wanted he had; The thought of his wife, which had always tormented him before, was no more, since she was no more.
- Oh, how good! How nice! he said to himself when a cleanly laid table with fragrant broth was moved to him, or when he lay down at night on a soft, clean bed, or when he remembered that his wife and the French were no more. - Oh, how good, how nice! - And out of old habit, he asked himself the question: well, then what? What will i do? And at once he answered himself: nothing. I will live. Ah, how nice!
The very thing that he had tormented before, what he was constantly looking for, the purpose of life, now did not exist for him. It was no coincidence that this desired goal of life now did not exist for him only at the present moment, but he felt that it did not exist and could not exist. And this lack of purpose gave him that full, joyful consciousness of freedom, which at that time constituted his happiness.
, Pianist
Eric Satie(fr. , full name Eric Alfred Leslie Satie, fr. ; May 17, 1866, Honfleur, France - July 1, 1925, Paris, France) - an extravagant French composer and pianist, one of the reformers of European music in the 1st quarter of the 20th century.
His piano pieces influenced many Art Nouveau composers. Erik Satie is the forerunner and founder of such musical movements as impressionism, primitivism, constructivism, neoclassicism and minimalism. It was Sati who came up with the genre of “furniture music”, which does not need to be specially listened to, an unobtrusive melody that sounds in a store or at an exhibition.
Satie was born on May 17, 1866 in the Norman town of Honfleur (Department of Calvados). When he was four years old, the family moved to Paris. Then, in 1872, after the death of their mother, the children were again sent to Honfleur.
In 1879, Satie entered the Paris Conservatory, but after two and a half years of not very successful studies, he was expelled. In 1885 he again entered the conservatory, and again did not finish it.
Why attack God? Perhaps he is as unhappy as we are.
Sati Erik
In 1888, Satie wrote the Three Hymnopedias (fr. ) for piano solo, which was based on the free use of non-chord progressions. A similar technique has already been encountered by S. Frank and E. Chabrier. Satie was the first to introduce chord progressions built in fourths; this technique first appeared in his work "The Son of the Stars" (Le fils des étoiles, 1891). Such innovations were immediately used by almost all French composers. These techniques have become characteristic of French modern music. In 1892, Satie developed his own system of composition, the essence of which was that for each piece he composed several - often no more than five or six - short passages, after which he simply docked these elements to each other.
Sati was eccentric, he wrote his compositions in red ink, and liked to play pranks on his friends. He gave his works such titles as "Three pieces in the form of pears" or "Dried embryos". In his play Annoyance, a small musical theme must be repeated 840 times. Erik Satie was an emotional person and although he used the melodies of Camille Saint-Saens for his "Music as a Furnishing", he sincerely hated him. His words have even become a kind of calling card:
In 1899, Satie began working as a pianist at the Black Cat cabaret, which was his only source of income.
Sati was practically unknown to the general public until his fiftieth birthday; a sarcastic, bilious, reserved person, he lived and worked separately from the musical beau monde of France. His work became known to the general public thanks to Maurice Ravel, who organized a series of concerts in 1911 and introduced him to good publishers.
But the general Parisian public recognized Sati only six years later - thanks to Diaghilev's Russian Seasons, where at the premiere of Sati's ballet "Parade" (choreography by L. Massine, scenery and costumes by Picasso) there was a big scandal, accompanied by a fight in the auditorium and shouts of "Down with the Russians! Russian Boches! Fame came to Sati after this scandalous incident. The premiere of "Parade" took place on May 18, 1917 at the Chatelet Theater under the direction of Ernest Ansermet, performed by the Russian Ballet Company with the participation of ballet dancers Lidia Lopukhova, Leonid Myasin, Voitsekhovsky, Zverev and others.
Erik Satie met Igor Stravinsky as early as 1910 (by the way, the famous photograph taken by Stravinsky as a photographer visiting Claude Debussy, where you can see all three of them, is also dated to this year) and experienced a strong personal and creative sympathy for him. However, closer and more regular communication between Stravinsky and Satie did not occur until after the premiere of the Parade and the end of the First World War. Peru Eric Satie owns two large articles on Stravinsky (1922), published at the same time in France and the United States, as well as about a dozen letters, the end of one of which (dated September 15, 1923) is especially often cited in literature dedicated to both composers. Already at the very end of the letter, saying goodbye to Stravinsky, Sati signed with his usual irony and smile, this time with a kind one, which happened to him not so often: “You, I adore you: aren’t you the same Great Stravinsky? And this is me - none other than little Eric Satie ". In turn, both the poisonous character and the original, "unlike" music of Erik Satie aroused the constant admiration of "Prince Igor", although neither close friendship nor any permanent relationship arose between them. Ten years after Sati's death, Stravinsky wrote about him in the Chronicle of my life: “I liked Sati at first sight. A subtle thing, he was all filled with slyness and clever anger.
In addition to "Parade", Erik Satie is the author of four more ballet scores: "Uspud" (1892), "The Beautiful Hysterical Woman" (1920), "The Adventures of Mercury" (1924) and "Show Canceled" (1924). Also (already after the death of the author) many of his piano and orchestral works were often used for staging one-act ballets and ballet numbers.
Eric Satie died of cirrhosis of the liver as a result of excessive drinking on July 1, 1925 in the working-class suburb of Arceuil near Paris. His death passed almost unnoticed, and only in the 50s of the 20th century did his work begin to return to active space. Today, Erik Satie is one of the most frequently performed piano composers of the 20th century.
Satie's early work influenced the young Ravel. He was a senior friend of the short-lived friendly association of composers of the Six. It did not have any common ideas or even aesthetics, but everyone was united by a common interest, expressed in the rejection of everything vague and the desire for clarity and simplicity - just what was in the works of Sati. He was one of the pioneers of the prepared piano idea and significantly influenced the work of John Cage.
Under his direct influence, such famous composers as Claude Debussy (who was his friend for more than twenty years), Maurice Ravel, the famous French group "Six" were formed, in which Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric and Arthur Honegger are best known. The work of this group (it lasted a little over a year), as well as Sati himself, had a strong influence on Dmitri Shostakovich. Shostakovich heard Satie's works after his death, in 1925, during a tour of the French "Six" in Petrograd. In his ballet "Bolt" you can see the influence of Satie's music.
Some of Satie's works made an extremely strong impression on Igor Stravinsky. In particular, this applies to the ballet "Parade" (1917), the score of which he asked the author for almost a whole year, and the symphonic drama "Socrates" (1918). It was these two compositions that left the most noticeable mark on Stravinsky's work: the first in his constructivist period, and the second in the neoclassical works of the late 1920s. Having been greatly influenced by Satie, he moved from the impressionism (and fauvism) of the Russian period to an almost skeletal style of music, simplifying the writing style. This can be seen in the works of the Parisian period - "The Story of a Soldier" and the opera "Mavra". But even thirty years later, this event continued to be remembered only as an amazing fact in the history of French music.
One of the most amazing and controversial composers in the history of music is Eric Satie. The composer's biography is replete with facts when he could shock his friends and admirers, first fiercely defending one statement, and then refuting it in his theoretical works. In the 90s of the nineteenth century, Eric Satie met Carl Debussy and denied following the creative developments of Richard Wagner - he advocated support for the emerging impressionism in music, because this was the beginning of the reincarnation of the national art of France. Later, the composer Eric Satie waged an active skirmish with imitators of the Impressionist style. In contrast to ephemerality and elegance, he put the clarity, sharpness and certainty of linear notation.
Eric Satie was born in 1866. His father worked as a port broker. From an early age, young Eric was drawn to music and showed remarkable abilities, but since none of his relatives were involved in music, these attempts were ignored. Only at the age of 12, when the family decided to change their place of residence to Paris, Eric was honored with constant music lessons. At the age of eighteen, Erik Satie entered the conservatory in Paris. He studied a complex of theoretical subjects, among which was harmony. He also took piano lessons. Studying at the conservatory did not satisfy the future genius. He quits classes and joins the army as a volunteer.
A year later, Eric returns to Paris. He works in small cafes as a pianist. In one of these establishments in Montmartre, a fateful meeting took place with Carl Debussy, who was impressed and intrigued by the unusual choice of harmonies in the seemingly simple improvisations of the young musician. Debussy even decided to create an orchestration for Satie's piano cycle, the Gymnopedia. The musicians became friends. Their opinion meant so much to each other that Satie was able to lead Debussy away from his youthful fascination with Wagner's music.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Satie leaves Paris for the suburb of Arcay. He rented an inexpensive room above a small cafe and stopped letting anyone in there. Even close friends could not come there. Because of this, Sati received the nickname "Arkey hermit". He lived completely alone, did not see the need to meet with publishers, did not take large and profitable orders from theaters. Periodically, he appeared in the fashionable circles of Paris, presenting a fresh musical work. And then the whole city discussed it, repeated Sati's jokes, his words and witticisms about musical celebrities of that time and about art in general.
Sati meets the twentieth century by learning. From 1905 to 1908, when he was 39 years old, Eric Satie studied at the Schola cantorum. He studied composition and counterpoint with A. Roussel and O. Serrier. Erik Satie's early music dates from the late nineteenth century, 80s-90s. These are the "Mass of the Poor" for choir and organ, the piano cycle "Cold Pieces" and the well-known "Gymnopedias".
Already in the 1920s, Satie published collections of pieces for pianoforte, which have a strange structure and an unusual name: "In a horse's skin", "Three pieces in the form of embryos", "Automatic descriptions". At the same time, he wrote several expressive, extremely melodic songs in the waltz rhythm, which appealed to the public. In 1915, Satie had a fateful acquaintance with Jean Cocteau, playwright, poet and music critic. He received a proposal to create, together with Picasso, a ballet for the famous Diaghilev troupe. In 1917, their brainchild - the ballet "Parade" - was published.
Intentional, emphasized primitivism and deliberate contempt for the euphony of music, the addition of alien sounds to the score, such as a typewriter, car sirens and other things, caused loud condemnation of the public and attacks from critics, which, however, did not stop the composer and his associates. The music of the ballet "Parade" had a music hall response, and the motives resembled melodies that were sung in the streets.
In 1918, Satie writes a radically different work. The symphonic drama with singing "Socrates", the text for which was the original dialogues of the authorship of Plato, is restrained, crystal clear and even strict. There are no frills and games for the public. This is the antipode of "Parade", although only a year has passed between their writing. At the end of Socrates, Eric Satie promoted the idea of furnishing, accompanying music that would serve as a backdrop to everyday affairs.
He met the end of his Sati while living in the same suburb of Paris. He did not meet with his own people, including the Six. Eric Satie gathered around him a new circle of composers. Now they called themselves the "Arkey school". It included Cliquet-Pleyel, Sauguet, Jacob, as well as the conductor Desormières. The musicians discussed the new art of a democratic nature. Almost no one knew about Sati's death. It wasn't covered, it wasn't talked about. The genius left unnoticed. It was not until the middle of the twentieth century that interest in his art, his music and philosophy began again.
eccentric French composer and pianist
Eric Satie
Eric Satie(French Erik Satie, full name Eric-Alfred-Leslie Satie, fr. Érik Alfred Leslie Satie; May 17, 1866, Honfleur - July 1, 1925, Paris) - an eccentric French composer and pianist, one of the reformers of European music in the first quarter of the 20th century.
His piano pieces have influenced many modern composers, from Claude Debussy, the French Six, to John Cage. Erik Satie is the forerunner and founder of such musical movements as impressionism, primitivism, constructivism, neoclassicism and minimalism. In the late 1910s, Satie came up with the genre of "furnishing music", which does not need to be specially listened to, an unobtrusive melody that constantly sounds in a store or at an exhibition.
Satie was born on May 17, 1866 in the Norman town of Honfleur (Department of Calvados). When he was four years old, the family moved to Paris. Then, in 1872, after the death of their mother, the children were again sent to Honfleur.
In 1879, Satie entered the Paris Conservatory, but after two and a half years of not very successful studies, he was expelled. In 1885 he again entered the conservatory, and again did not finish it.
In 1888, Satie wrote Trois gymnopédies (Three Gymnopédies) for piano solo, which was based on the free use of non-chord progressions. A similar technique has already been encountered by S. Frank and E. Chabrier. Satie was the first to introduce chord progressions built in fourths; this technique first appeared in his work "The Son of the Stars" (Le fils des étoiles, 1891). Such innovations were immediately used by almost all French composers. These techniques have become characteristic of French modern music. In 1892, Satie developed his own system of composition, the essence of which was that for each piece he composed several - often no more than five or six - short passages, after which he simply docked these elements to each other.
Sati was eccentric, he wrote his compositions in red ink and liked to play pranks on his friends. He gave his works such titles as "Three pieces in the form of pears" or "Dried embryos". In his play Annoyance, a small musical theme must be repeated 840 times. Eric Satie was an emotional person and, although he used the melodies of Camille Saint-Saens for his "Music as a Furnishing", he sincerely hated him. His words have even become a kind of calling card:
It is foolish to defend Wagner just because Saint-Saens is attacking him, you need to shout: Down with Wagner along with Saint-Saens!
In 1899, Satie began working as a pianist at the Black Cat cabaret, which was his only source of income.
When you work as a pianist or accompanist in a cafe-chantan, many people consider it their duty to bring a glass or two of whiskey to the pianist, but for some reason no one wants to treat even a sandwich.
Eric Satie, self-portrait
Sati was practically unknown to the general public until his fiftieth birthday; a sarcastic, bilious, reserved person, he lived and worked separately from the musical beau monde of France. His work became known to the general public thanks to Maurice Ravel, who organized a series of concerts in 1911 and introduced him to good publishers.
“In short, at the very beginning of 1911, Maurice Ravel (as he always said, very much “owes me a lot”) made a double public injection - both by me and me at the same time. Several concerts at once, performances in the orchestra, in the salon, in the piano, plus publishers, conductors, donkeys ... and again - the obsessive lack of money, how tired I am of this rotten word! Applause and shouts of "encore!" had a strong, but bad effect on me. It’s a sinful thing, having yearned for them over the past years, I didn’t even immediately understand that they can’t be taken too seriously ... and at my own expense.Eric Satie, Yuri Khanon. "Memories in hindsight"
In 1917, Satie, commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, wrote the ballet Parade for his Russian Seasons (libretto by Jean Cocteau, choreography by Leonid Myasin, design by Pablo Picasso; Ernest Ansermet conducted the orchestra). During the premiere, which took place on May 18, 1917 at the Chatelet Theater, a scandal erupted in the theater: the audience demanded to lower the curtain, shouted “Down with the Russians! Russian Boches!”, a fight broke out in the auditorium. Irritated by the reception given to the performance not only by the audience, but also by the press, Satie sent one of the critics, Jean Pueg, an insulting letter - for which on November 27, 1917 he was sentenced by the tribunal to eight days in prison and 800 francs of a fine (thanks to the intervention of Mizia Sert, the Minister of the Interior Jules Pams on March 13, 1918 gave him a "respite" from punishment).
At the same time, the score of "Parade" was highly appreciated by Igor Stravinsky:
“The performance struck me with its freshness and genuine originality. “Parade” just confirmed to me to what extent I was right when I put such a high value on the merits of Satie and the role that he played in French music by contrasting the vague aesthetics of impressionism that is surviving its age with its powerful and expressive language, devoid of any or pretentiousness and embellishment.Igor Stravinsky. Chronicle of my life
Eric Satie met Igor Stravinsky back in 1910 (the same year is the famous photograph taken by Stravinsky visiting Claude Debussy, in which you can see all three) and experienced a strong personal and creative sympathy for him. However, closer and more regular communication between Stravinsky and Satie happened only after the premiere of "Parade" and the end of the First World War. Peru Eric Satie owns two large articles about Stravinsky (1922), published at the same time in France and the USA, as well as about a dozen letters, the end of one of which (dated September 15, 1923) is especially often cited in the literature dedicated to both composers. Already at the very end of the letter, saying goodbye to Stravinsky, Sati signed with his usual irony and smile, this time - kind, which happened to him not so often: “You, I adore you: aren’t you the same Great Stravinsky? And this is me - none other than little Eric Satie".In turn, both the poisonous character and the original, "unlike" music of Erik Satie aroused the constant admiration of "Prince Igor", although neither close friendship nor any kind of permanent relationship arose between them. Ten years after Sati's death, Stravinsky wrote about him in the Chronicle of my life: “I liked Sati at first sight. A subtle thing, he was all filled with slyness and clever anger.
In addition to "Parade", Erik Satie is the author of four more ballet scores: "Uspud" (1892), "The Beautiful Hysterical Woman" (1920), "The Adventures of Mercury" (1924) and "Show Canceled" (1924). Also (already after the death of the author) many of his piano and orchestral works were often used for staging one-act ballets and ballet numbers.
Eric Satie died of cirrhosis of the liver as a result of excessive drinking (especially absinthe) on July 1, 1925 in the working-class suburb of Arceuil near Paris. His death passed almost unnoticed, and only in the 50s of the 20th century did his work begin to return to active space. Today, Erik Satie is one of the most frequently performed piano composers of the 20th century.
Ramon Casas El Bohemio, Poet of Montmartre, 1891, the painting depicts Eric Satie.
Satie's early work influenced the young Ravel. He was a senior friend of the short-lived friendly association of composers of the Six. It did not have any common ideas or even aesthetics, but everyone was united by a common interest, expressed in the rejection of everything vague and the desire for clarity and simplicity - just what was in the works of Sati.
Satie became one of the pioneers of the idea of the prepared piano and significantly influenced the work of John Cage. Cage became interested in Eric Satie during his first trip to Europe, having received notes from the hands of Henri Sauge, and in 1963 he decided to present to the American public the work of Satie "Annoyance" - a short piano piece accompanied by the instruction: "Repeat 840 times." At six o'clock on the evening of September 9, Cage's friend Viola Farber sat down at the piano and began to play Annoyances. At 8:00 p.m., she was replaced at the piano by another friend of Cage's, Robert Wood, picking up where Farber left off. There were eleven performers in total, they replaced each other every two hours. The audience came and went, the New York Times columnist fell asleep in his chair. The premiere ended at 0:40 on September 11, it is considered to be the longest piano concerto in the history of music.
Under the direct influence of Satie, such famous composers as Claude Debussy (who was his close friend for more than twenty years), Maurice Ravel, the famous French group "Six" were formed, in which Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric and Arthur Honegger are best known. . The work of this group (it lasted a little over a year), as well as Satie himself, had a noticeable influence on Dmitri Shostakovich, who heard Satie's works after his death, in 1925, during a tour of the French "Six" in Petrograd-Leningrad. In his ballet "Bolt" the influence of the musical style of Sati from the time of the ballet "Parade" and "Beautiful Hysterical" is noticeable.
Some of Satie's works made an extremely strong impression on Igor Stravinsky. In particular, this applies to the ballet Parade (1917), the score of which he asked the author for almost a year, and the symphonic drama Socrates (1918). It was these two compositions that left the most noticeable mark on Stravinsky's work: the first in his constructivist period, and the second in the neoclassical works of the late 1920s. Having been greatly influenced by Satie, he moved from the impressionism (and fauvism) of the Russian period to an almost skeletal style of music, simplifying the writing style. This can be seen in the works of the Parisian period - "The Story of a Soldier" and the opera "Mavra". But even thirty years later, this event continued to be remembered only as an amazing fact in the history of French music:
“Since the Six felt themselves free from their doctrine and were filled with enthusiastic reverence for those against whom they presented themselves as an aesthetic opponent, then they did not constitute any group. The "Sacred Spring" sprouted like a powerful tree, pushing back our bushes, and we were about to admit defeat, when suddenly Stravinsky soon joined myself to our circle of techniques and inexplicably in his works even the influence of Eric Satie was felt.
- Jean Cocteau, "for the anniversary concert of the Six in 1953"
Having invented in 1916 the avant-garde genre of "background" (or "furnishing") industrial music, which does not need to be specifically listened to, Eric Satie was also the pioneer and forerunner of minimalism. His obsessive melodies, repeated hundreds of times without the slightest change or interruption, sounding in a store or in a salon while receiving guests, were ahead of their time by a good half century.
Eric Satie, self-portrait 1913(from the book "Memories in hindsight")
His piano pieces have influenced many modernist composers, from Claude Debussy, the French Six, to John Cage. Eric Satie is the forerunner and ancestor of such musical movements as impressionism, primitivism, constructivism, neoclassicism and minimalism. In the late 1910s, Satie came up with the genre of " furnishing music", which does not need to be specially listened to, an unobtrusive melody that constantly sounds in a store or at an exhibition.
Satie House and Museum in Honfleur
“The performance struck me with its freshness and genuine originality. “Parade” just confirmed to me to what extent I was right when I put such a high value on the merits of Satie and the role that he played in French music by contrasting the vague aesthetics of impressionism that is surviving its age with its powerful and expressive language, devoid of any or pretentiousness and embellishment.
In addition to the scandalous Parade, Eric Satie is the author of four more ballet scores: Uspud (1892), The Beautiful Hysterical Woman (1920), The Adventures of Mercury (1924) and The Performance Is Canceled (1924). Also (already after the death of the author) many of his piano and orchestral works were often used for staging one-act ballets and ballet numbers, primarily the hymnopedia and the Jack in the Stall suite. :103
Some of Satie's works made an extremely strong impression on Igor Stravinsky. In particular, this applies to the ballet Parade (1917), the score of which he asked the author for almost a year, and the symphonic drama Socrates (). It was these two compositions that left the most noticeable mark on Stravinsky's work: the first in his constructivist period, and the second in the neoclassical works of the late 1920s. Having been greatly influenced by Satie, he moved from the impressionism (and fauvism) of the Russian period to an almost skeletal style of music, simplifying the writing style. This can be seen in the works of the Parisian period - "The Story of a Soldier" and the opera "Mavra". But even thirty years later, this event continued to be remembered only as an amazing fact in the history of French music:
“Since the Six felt themselves free from their doctrine and were filled with enthusiastic reverence for those against whom they presented themselves as an aesthetic opponent, then they did not constitute any group. "The sacred spring" has grown like a powerful tree, pushing back our bushes, and we were about to admit defeat, when suddenly Stravinsky soon joined myself to our circle of techniques and inexplicably in his works even the influence of Eric Satie was felt.
Having invented in the year the avant-garde genre of "background" (or "furnishing") industrial music, which does not need to be specially listened to, Eric Satie was also the pioneer and forerunner of minimalism. His obsessive melodies, repeated hundreds of times without the slightest change or interruption, sounding in a store or in a salon while receiving guests, were ahead of their time by a good half century.
