The Gymnopédies ( French pronunciation: [ʒim.nɔ.pe.di] ), or Trois Gymnopédies , are three piano compositions written by French composer and pianist Erik Satie . He completed the whole set by 2 April 1898, but they were at first published individually: the first and the third in 1888, the second in 1895.
22-467: The work's unusual title comes from the French form of gymnopaedia , the ancient Greek word for an annual festival where young men danced naked – or perhaps simply unarmed. The source of the title has been a subject of debate. Satie and his friend Alexis Roland-Manuel maintained that he adopted it after reading Gustave Flaubert 's novel Salammbô , while others see a poem by J. P. Contamine de Latour as
44-453: A 100% approval rating based on reviews from 159 critics, with a weighted average score of 8.40/10; the website's critical consensus states: "James Marsh's doc about artist Phililppe Petit's artful caper brings you every ounce of suspense that can be wrung from a man on a (suspended) wire". On Metacritic , the film has a weighted average score of 89 out of 100 based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Man on Wire won
66-575: A New Yorker, he saw the film as a gift to the city after the 9/11 attacks and hoped to hear people say after seeing the film that they would always think of Petit and his performance when recalling the World Trade Center 's twin towers. Responding to a question about why the towers' destruction in the 2001 attacks is not mentioned in the film, Marsh explained that Petit's act was "incredibly beautiful" and it "would be unfair and wrong to infect his story with any mention, discussion or imagery of
88-487: A bursting stream Trickled in gusts of gold on the shiny flagstone Where the amber atoms in the fire gleaming Mingled their sarabande with the gymnopaedia. However, it remains uncertain whether the poem was composed before the music. Satie may have picked up the term from a dictionary such as Dominique Mondo's Dictionnaire de Musique , where gymnopédie is defined as a "nude dance, accompanied by song, which youthful Spartan maidens danced on specific occasions", following
110-667: A portion of Gymnopedie No. 1 on his album Out to Sea . In 2021, violinist Fenella Humphreys released an arrangement of Gymnopédie No.1 for violin. Stephan Koncz, cellist in the Berlin Philharmonic and the Made in Berlin quartet, wrote a string quartet pieces called A New Satiesfaction based on Gymnopédie No.1 , which was recorded by the quartet for their first violinist Ray Chen 's album The Golden Age . Gymnopaedia Too Many Requests If you report this error to
132-499: A similar definition from Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's Dictionnaire de Musique . In November 1888, the third Gymnopédie was published. The second Gymnopédie did not appear until 1895, and its impending publication was announced in several editions of the Chat Noir and Auberge du Clou magazines. As a whole, the three pieces were published in 1898. Pierre Puvis de Chavannes ' symbolist paintings may have been an inspiration for
154-619: A version for jazz vocalist and flute entitled "Drifting, Dreaming (Gymnopédie No.1)," with lyrics by Don Read. In 1980, Gary Numan produced a track called " Trois Gymnopedies (First Movement)", which appeared on the B-side of the single " We Are Glass ". A sample of Gymnopédie No. 1 is featured in the 2001 Janet Jackson single " Someone to Call My Lover ", peaking at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 . Gymnopédies have been heard in numerous movies and television shows. Examples include
176-525: The Gymnopédies are regarded as an important precursor to modern ambient music . The first and second Gymnopédies were arranged by Dick Halligan for the group Blood, Sweat & Tears under the title "Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie" on the group's eponymous album , released in 1968. The recording received a Grammy Award the following year for Best Contemporary Instrumental Performance. In 1980, Dame Cleo Laine and Sir James Galway released
198-845: The Standard Life Audience Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival . In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film , the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary , and the award for Best Documentary Film from the Australian Film Critics Association . At the 81st Academy Awards , the film won the award for Best Documentary Feature . The film appeared on many American critics' top ten lists of
220-982: The Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the World Cinema: Documentary competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival ; it is the sixth film to pick up both top awards at Sundance, and the first from outside the US. It also won the Special Jury Award and the Audience Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival , the International Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival , and
242-527: The Towers being destroyed." The film opened theatrically in the United States on 29 August 2008, earning $ 51,392 its first weekend and ranking 37th at the domestic box office. By the end of its run on 5 March 2009, the film grossed $ 2,962,242 in the United States and Canada and $ 2,296,327 internationally, for a worldwide total of $ 5,258,569. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes , Man on Wire has
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#1732780560627264-514: The Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center . It is based on Petit's 2002 book, To Reach the Clouds , released in paperback with the title Man on Wire . The title of the film is taken from the police report that led to the arrest (and later release) of Petit, whose performance lasted for almost an hour. The film is crafted like a heist film , presenting rare footage of the preparations for
286-491: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.237 via cp1104 cp1104, Varnish XID 212440768 Upstream caches: cp1104 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:56:00 GMT Man on Wire Man on Wire is a 2008 documentary film directed by James Marsh . The film chronicles Philippe Petit 's 1974 high-wire walk between
308-778: The World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary. In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary . As of 2022, it is one of only six documentary films to ever sweep " The Big Four " critics awards ( LA , NBR , NY , NSFC ) and the only one of those to also win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature . The film's producer, Simon Chinn , first encountered Philippe Petit in April 2005 on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs , after which he decided to try to acquire
330-570: The atmosphere Satie wanted to evoke with his Gymnopédies . These short, atmospheric pieces are written in 4 time, with each sharing a common theme and structure. The melodies of the pieces use deliberate, but mild, dissonances against the harmony, producing a piquant, melancholy effect that matches the performance instructions, which are to play each piece "painfully" ( douloureux ), "sadly" ( triste ), or "gravely" ( grave ). The first few bars of Gymnopédie No. 1 (shown below) consist of an alternating progression of two major seventh chords,
352-507: The best films of 2008. Movie City News found that it appeared on 76 of the 286 different American critics' top ten lists surveyed, which was a tie for the seventh "most mentions" on a top ten list out of all of the films released in 2008. Much of the film's soundtrack is derived from the 2006 album The Composer's Cut Series Vol. II: Nyman/Greenaway Revisited , a collection of works by Michael Nyman for films by British director Peter Greenaway . Joseph Gordon-Levitt starred as Petit in
374-422: The documentary Man on Wire , Wes Anderson 's The Royal Tenenbaums , Community Season 2 Episode 19 "Critical Film Studies" , Woody Allen 's Another Woman , and Louis Malle 's My Dinner With Andre , all of which use Gymnopédie No. 1 in their soundtracks. The 2010 Japanese animated drama film The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya prominently features all three Gymnopédies , and they are included in
396-573: The event and still photographs of the walk, alongside re-enactments (with Paul McGill as the young Petit) and present-day interviews with the participants, including Barry Greenhouse, an insurance executive who served as the inside man. Man on Wire competed in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival , where it won the Grand Jury Prize : World Cinema Documentary and
418-552: The film rights to Petit's book, To Reach the Clouds . After months of discussion, Petit agreed, with the condition that he could actively collaborate in the making of the film. In an interview conducted during the run of Man on Wire at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival , director James Marsh explained that he was drawn to the story, in part, because it immediately struck him as "a heist movie ", though, as Jean François, one of Petit's collaborators, said, "It may have been illegal...but it wasn't wicked or mean." Marsh also said that, as
440-552: The film's soundtrack release as a bonus disc, including Satie's Gnossiennes and his composition " Je te veux ". Mother 3 also features Gymnopédie No. 1 in its soundtrack as Leder's Gymnopedie . In 2007, Wilhelm Kaiser-Lindemann [ de ] arranged the first and the third Gymnopédie for The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic . Jack DeJohnette included a tribute to Gymnopédies in his 2016 album Return . In 2018, Fernando Perdomo included
462-564: The first on the subdominant, G, and the second on the tonic, D. By the end of 1896, Satie's popularity was waning and financial situation deteriorating. Claude Debussy , a friend of Satie's whose popularity was on the rise, helped draw public attention to Satie's work. In February 1897, Debussy orchestrated the third and first Gymnopédies . From the second half of the 20th century on, the Gymnopédies were often erroneously described as part of Satie's body of furniture music , perhaps because of John Cage 's interpretation of them. Collectively,
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#1732780560627484-437: The source of Satie's inspiration, since the first Gymnopédie was published in the magazine La Musique des familles in the summer of 1888 together with an excerpt of Latour's poem Les Antiques , where the term appears. Oblique et coupant l'ombre un torrent éclatant Ruisselait en flots d'or sur la dalle polie Où les atomes d'ambre au feu se miroitant Mêlaient leur sarabande à la gymnopédie Slanting and shadow-cutting
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