Composers › Erik Satie
Erik Satie
The eccentric of Montmartre: with a few slow, simple chords he wrote some of the most hypnotic melodies ever.
Life
He was born in Honfleur, in Normandy. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but his teachers thought him not very gifted and he left.
He earned his living as a pianist in the cabarets of Montmartre, such as the famous Chat Noir, and in 1888 published the three Gymnopédies, followed by the Gnossiennes.
A friend of Debussy, Ravel and the avant-garde painters, he influenced young French composers with his bare, ironic music. He died in 1925 after a poor and lonely life in Arcueil, just outside Paris.
Portrait: Henri Manuel (1920), public domain, from Wikimedia Commons.
Curiosities
- In the Gnossiennes he left out the bar lines and wrote odd directions instead of technical ones, such as “from the tip of the thought”.
- He always dressed the same way: he was nicknamed “the Velvet Gentleman” for his identical velvet suits.
- After his death, his friends found in his room two pianos stacked one on top of the other and dozens of umbrellas.
At the piano
- Total calm: keep the tempo slow and steady from beginning to end.
- In the left hand the bass and the chord alternate like a pendulum: play them light and even.
- The melody is simple: let it sing without adding effects.
Pieces to learn 3 pieces
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