The Nouvelle Athènes , or Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes , was a café located at 66 Rue Pigalle in the Place Pigalle in Paris , France . It was the setting for many Impressionist paintings, as a result of being the meeting place for painters, including Matisse , Van Gogh and Degas .
112-465: In 1874, a few artists met at the cafe to plan the first Impressionism painting exhibition. Degas painted L'Absinthe in this place. Another notable denizen was the eccentric composer Erik Satie , who played the piano in the cafe, and was there introduced to a fifteen-year-old Maurice Ravel by Ravel's father. During the 1940s, the café was known as the Sphynx ; it was a striptease club frequented by
224-402: A chivalric esoteric play (two Préludes du Nazaréen ), had a hoax published (announcing the premiere of his non-existent Le bâtard de Tristan , an anti-Wagnerian opera), and broken away from Péladan, starting that autumn with the " Uspud " project, a "Christian Ballet", in collaboration with Latour. He challenged the musical establishment by proposing himself – unsuccessfully – for
336-450: A "symphonic drama". Its composition was interrupted in 1917 by a libel suit brought against him by a music critic, Jean Poueigh, which nearly resulted in a jail sentence for Satie. When Socrate was premiered, Satie called it "a return to classical simplicity with a modern sensibility", and among those who admired the work was Igor Stravinsky , a composer whom Satie regarded with awe. In his later years Satie became known for his prose. He
448-506: A Dog)", 1912), Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois ("Sketches and Exasperations of a Big Wooden Man", 1913) and Sonatine bureaucratique ("Bureaucratic Sonata", 1917). In his neat, calligraphic hand, Satie would write extensive instructions for his performers, and although his words appear at first sight to be humorous and deliberately nonsensical, Nichols and Griffiths comment, "a sensitive pianist can make much of injunctions such as 'arm yourself with clairvoyance' and 'with
560-435: A Dog)", 1912), Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois ("Sketches and Exasperations of a Big Wooden Man", 1913) and Sonatine bureaucratique ("Bureaucratic Sonatina", 1917). Most of his works are brief, and the majority are for solo piano. Exceptions include his "symphonic drama" Socrate (1919) and two late ballets Mercure and Relâche (1924). Satie never married, and his home for most of his adult life
672-521: A June 21 letter to Wieland Mayr, editor of the literary review les feuilles libres : "Believe me, there is no divergence of views between Picasso and me. It's all a 'gimmick' by my old friend, the famous writer Bretuchon [Breton] ( who came to create a disturbance and attract attention by his shabby appearance and deplorable rudeness ). Yes." Picasso kept publicly aloof from the fray, but the Surrealists had gotten his attention. He annotated and saved
784-581: A climax at the Mercure opening. It was known among the Paris cognoscenti that Cocteau personally identified with Mercury and all that the figure stood for. He invariably attended costume balls (including Beaumont's) dressed as the deity, with silver tights, winged helmet and sandals, brandishing Mercury's wand as he darted among the other guests. Furthermore, he had cast himself as Mercutio in his upcoming adaptation of Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet for
896-637: A close friend of Claude Debussy , who proved a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition. Both were bohemians , enjoying the same café society and struggling to survive financially. At the Auberge du Clou Satie first encountered the flamboyant, self-styled "Sâr" Joséphin Péladan , for whose mystic sect, the Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, he was appointed composer. This gave him scope for experiment, and Péladan's salons at
1008-548: A copy of their "Tribute". Novice impresario Beaumont was a poor organizer. Performances by the Soirées de Paris were marked by last-minute cancellations, abrupt changes of program, and on one night, a musicians' strike just as the curtain was about to go up. Reviews were mixed at best (with Massine getting most of the praise) and the enterprise lost money. The season was scheduled to run through June 30, including performances of Mercure on June 26, 27 and 28, but after June 22,
1120-545: A critical backlash against Satie that would reach fever pitch with the premiere of the Dadaist Relâche in December 1924, and was hardly quelled by his death eight months later. The irreverence and perceived flippancy of these last two ballets galvanized his enemies and disillusioned many supporters who had championed him as a serious composer, with long-term negative effects on his posthumous reputation. Diaghilev
1232-464: A diet of exclusively white food (including bones and fruit mould), or to drink boiled wine mixed with fuchsia juice, or to be woken by a servant hourly throughout the night to have his temperature taken; he wrote in praise of Beethoven 's non-existent but "sumptuous" Tenth Symphony, and the family of instruments known as the cephalophones, "which have a compass of thirty octaves and are absolutely unplayable". Satie grouped some of these writings under
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#17327766665851344-590: A feeling for harmony is to have a feeling for tonality… the melody is the Idea, the outline; as much as it is the form and the subject matter of a work. The harmony is an illumination, an exhibition of the object, its reflection. Among his earliest compositions were sets of three Gymnopédies (1888) and his Gnossiennes (1889 onwards) for piano. They evoke the ancient world by what the critics Roger Nichols and Paul Griffiths describe as "pure simplicity, monotonous repetition, and highly original modal harmonies". It
1456-663: A few design sketches and photographs. The curtain was restored in 1998 and is on display at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris. A woven tapestry replica, authorized by the artist in the late 1960s, hangs in the lobby of the 1251 Avenue of the Americas building in Manhattan. In 1980, composer Harrison Birtwistle published his own instrumental arrangement of Mercure , echoing a long-held (and disputed) opinion that Satie lacked skill as an orchestrator . Mercure
1568-469: 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". During their relationship Satie composed the Danses gothiques as
1680-503: A highlight of the Soirées' inaugural season. It was decided early on that Mercure would have no plot. The libretto has been variously attributed to Massine or Picasso, but the formal concept was Beaumont's. In a letter to Picasso dated February 21, 1924, Beaumont stated he wanted the ballet to be a series of tableaux vivants on a mythological theme, in a lighthearted manner suitable for a music hall. Beyond those stipulations he said, "I don't want to drag literature into it, nor do I want
1792-483: A local organist, Gustave Vinot, a former pupil of Louis Niedermeyer . Vinot stimulated Satie's love of old church music, and in particular Gregorian chant . In 1878 Satie's grandmother died, and the two boys returned to Paris to be informally educated by their father. Satie did not attend a school, but his father took him to lectures at the Collège de France and engaged a tutor to teach Eric Latin and Greek. Before
1904-570: A means of calming his mind, and Valadon painted his portrait, which she gave him. After five months she moved away, leaving him devastated. He said later that he was left with "nothing but an icy loneliness that fills the head with emptiness and the heart with sadness". In 1895 Satie attempted to change his image once again: this time to that of "the Velvet Gentleman". From the proceeds of a small legacy, he bought seven identical dun -coloured suits. Orledge comments that this change "marked
2016-519: A minute. Synopsis Night. Apollo and Venus make love, while Mercury surrounds them with the Signs of the Zodiac. Mercury becomes jealous of Apollo, kills him by cutting his thread of life , then revives him. Synopsis The Three Graces perform a dance, then remove their pearls to bathe. Mercury steals the pearls and flees, pursued by Cerberus. Synopsis During a feast of Bacchus, Mercury invents
2128-686: A more faithful version at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith on June 22, 1931. Frederick Ashton choreographed and danced Mercury, Tamara Karsavina guest-starred as Venus, and William Chappell portrayed Apollo. Constant Lambert revived Ashton's production for the Camargo Society at the Savoy Theatre in London on June 27, 1932, with Walter Gore and Alicia Markova as Mercury and Venus (renamed Terpsichore). Lambert also conducted
2240-497: A musical iconoclast, and encourager of modernism, Satie was uninterested to the point of antipathy about innovations such as the telephone, the gramophone and the radio. He made no recordings, and as far as is known heard only a single radio broadcast (of Milhaud's music) and made only one telephone call. Although his personal appearance was customarily immaculate, his room at Arcueil was in Orledge's word "squalid", and after his death
2352-661: A new generation of French composers away from post- Wagnerian impressionism towards a sparer, terser style. Among those influenced by him during his lifetime were Maurice Ravel , Claude Debussy , and Francis Poulenc , and he is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as John Cage and John Adams . His harmony is often characterised by unresolved chords, he sometimes dispensed with bar-lines , as in his Gnossiennes , and 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
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#17327766665852464-466: A notable impact on the careers of several of those involved. Beaumont himself continued to dabble in ballet. He wrote the libretto and designed the décor for Massine's popular Offenbach adaptation Gaîté Parisienne (1938). Mercure was Picasso's last major work for the theatre, bringing to a close a momentous period of involvement in the ballet world that had begun with Parade eight years earlier. Always aiming to reinvent himself as an artist, he
2576-559: A personal score to settle with Satie, who had presided over Breton's 1922 mock-trial at the Closerie des Lilas restaurant for attempting to overthrow Tzara as leader of the Dadaists. Georges Auric had become friendly with the Surrealists and exploited Breton's enmity to pressure them into disrupting the performance of Mercure . The ballet had scarcely begun when the Surrealists started chanting "Bravo Picasso! Down with Satie!" from
2688-535: A pianist in café-cabaret in Montmartre , Paris, and began composing works, mostly for solo piano, such as his Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes . He also wrote music for a Rosicrucian sect to which he was briefly attached. After a spell in which he composed little, Satie entered Paris's second music academy, the Schola Cantorum , as a mature student. His studies there were more successful than those at
2800-680: A radical socialist party (he later switched his membership to the Communist Party ), but adopted a thoroughly bourgeois image: the biographer Pierre-Daniel Templier, writes, "With his umbrella and bowler hat , he resembled a quiet school teacher. Although a Bohemian, he looked very dignified, almost ceremonious". Satie earned a living as a cabaret pianist, adapting more than a hundred compositions of popular music for piano or piano and voice, adding some of his own. The most popular of these were Je te veux , text by Henry Pacory; Tendrement , text by Vincent Hyspa; Poudre d'or ,
2912-691: A radio broadcast of Satie's music for Mercure over the BBC on July 13, 1932, and wrote admiringly of it in his book Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline (1934). An adaptation entitled The Home Life of The Gods was produced by the Littlefield Ballet in Philadelphia in December 1936. The choreography was by Lasar Galpern. Since World War II, Mercure has existed primarily as a concert piece. Désormière kept it in his repertoire and there
3024-442: A rival to the conservative Société nationale de musique . Satie was suddenly seen as "the precursor and apostle of the musical revolution now taking place"; he became a focus for young composers. Debussy, having orchestrated the first and third Gymnopédies , conducted them in concert. The publisher Demets asked for new works from Satie, who was finally able to give up his cabaret work and devote himself to composition. Works such as
3136-503: A specific homage to Satie's music in his 1996 Century Rolls . Satie wrote extensively for the press, but unlike his professional colleagues such as Debussy and Dukas he did not write primarily as a music critic. Much of his writing is connected to music tangentially if at all. His biographer Caroline Potter describes him as "an experimental creative writer, a blagueur who provoked, mystified and amused his readers". He wrote jeux d'esprit claiming to eat dinner in four minutes with
3248-406: A violin were sinuously outlined in black. A lyre , the invention of Mercury, lies at their feet. A dimensional effect was created through dissociation of line and color. These principles were carried over into the largely monochrome backdrops and scenic constructions. Reliefs of painted rattan and wire were mounted onto large wooden cutouts with moveable parts, which hidden dancers shifted about
3360-456: A waltz; La Diva de l'Empire , text by Dominique Bonnaud/Numa Blès; Le Picadilly , a march; Légende californienne , text by Contamine de Latour (lost, but the music later reappears in La belle excentrique ); and others. In his later years Satie rejected all his cabaret music as vile and against his nature. Only a few compositions that he took seriously remain from this period: Jack in
3472-484: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire , but was an undistinguished student and obtained no diploma. In the 1880s he worked as
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3584-618: Is a live recording (December 2, 1947) of him performing it with the Orchestre National de France . Lambert broadcast Mercure again with the London Symphony Orchestra on June 14, 1949, as part of a three-concert Satie series he conducted for the BBC Third Programme . Apart from Satie's score (first published in 1930), all that survives of the original production are Picasso's drop curtain and
3696-531: Is extraordinary. He's a mischievous and cunning old artist. At least, that's how he thinks of himself. Myself, I think the opposite! He's a very susceptible man, arrogant, a real sad child, but one who is sometimes made optimistic by alcohol. But he's a good friend, and I like him a lot. Throughout his adult life Satie was a heavy drinker, and in 1925 his health collapsed. He was taken to the Hôpital Saint-Joseph in Paris, diagnosed with cirrhosis of
3808-466: Is heightened by being delicately scored for strings only. At the same time, the music steers clear of any direct narrative or illustrative impulses. Constant Lambert believed the best example of Mercure' s abstract quality was the penultimate number Le chaos , "a skillful blending of two previously heard movements, one the suave and sustained Nouvelle danse , the other the robust and snappy Polka des lettres . These two tunes are so disparate in mood that
3920-490: Is possible that their simplicity and originality were influenced by Debussy; it is also possible that it was Satie who influenced Debussy. During the brief spell when Satie was composer to Péladan's sect he adopted a similarly austere manner. While Satie was earning his living as a café pianist in Montmartre he contributed songs and little waltzes. After moving to Arcueil he began to write works with quirky titles, such as
4032-460: Is regarded by some writers as an influence on minimalism , which developed in the 1960s and later. The musicologist Mark Bennett and the composer Humphrey Searle have said that John Cage 's music shows Satie's influence, and Searle and the writer Edward Strickland have used the term "minimalism" in connection with Satie's Vexations , which the composer implied in his manuscript should be played over and over again 840 times. John Adams included
4144-452: Is related quite simply to the music hall, without stylization, or any rapport with things artistic." Satie evoked a music hall spirit by employing naïve-sounding themes (though their harmonies are not) and popular forms ( march , waltz , polka ), and in the occasional self-consciously "humorous" scoring. The melody of Signes du Zodiaque is given to the tuba, while the comic effect of the transvestite Bain des graces ( Bath of The Graces )
4256-427: Is the revelation of an entirely new manner by Picasso, which owes nothing to cubism or realism and which surpasses cubism just as it does realism." The American journal The Little Review agreed that Picasso was the star of the show: "In Mercure the musician and the choreographer served purely as accompaniment to the painter. They felt this, and with remarkable art they acquiesced to this hegemony." Debates over
4368-404: The 9th arrondissement . By this time he had started what was to be an enduring friendship with the romantic poet Contamine de Latour , whose verse he set in some of his early compositions, which Satie senior published. His lodgings were close to the popular Chat Noir cabaret on the southern edge of Montmartre where he became an habitué and then a resident pianist. The Chat Noir was known as
4480-527: The Franco-Prussian War Alfred Satie sold his business and the family moved to Paris, where he eventually set up as a music publisher. In 1872 Jane Satie died and Eric and his brother were sent back to Honfleur to be brought up by Alfred's parents. The boys were rebaptised as Roman Catholics and educated at a local boarding school, where Satie excelled in history and Latin but nothing else. In 1874 he began taking music lessons with
4592-757: The Nazis and later by the Free French partisans . From the 1960s to the 1990s, it was known as the New Moon , first a lesbian cabaret , then a rock venue where Mano Negra , the French Lovers , Noir Désir , Calvin Russel , the Naked Apes of Reason , Les Wampas , and many other groups performed. The former café building was destroyed by fire in 2004 and demolished. This Paris geographical article
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4704-709: The Nouvelles pièces froides of 1907". After concluding his studies at the Schola Cantorum in 1912 Satie composed with greater confidence and more prolifically. Orchestration, despite his studies with d'Indy, was never his strongest suit, but his grasp of counterpoint is evident in the opening bars of Parade , and from the outset of his composing career he had original and distinctive ideas about harmony. In his later years he composed sets of short instrumental works with absurd titles, including Veritables Preludes flasques (pour un chien) ("True Flabby Preludes (for
4816-811: The Strauss adaptation Le Beau Danube ) and several short divertissements to stage for the Soirées, Massine urged Satie to finish the music as quickly as possible. The fact that Satie borrowed an unpublished composition from his Schola Cantorum days, the Fugue-Valse (c. 1906), for the Danse de tendresse in Tableau I suggests he was indeed rushed by Massine. The composer finally wrote to him on April 7, "I can't possibly go any faster, mon cher Ami: I can't hand over to you work which I couldn't defend. You who are conscience personified will understand me." The piano score
4928-476: The Three Graces – to be performed by men in drag with enormous fake breasts – were intended to represent Auric, Poulenc, and an arch-enemy of Satie's, the critic Louis Laloy. The creators kept their work secret and Satie jokingly told the inquisitive he had no clue what the ballet was about. Picasso's commission for Mercure came at a turning point in his career. Although he commanded great respect among
5040-535: The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées . Most troublesome was the fledgeling Surrealist group led by André Breton and Louis Aragon . Breton was eager to win Picasso over to his cause and ready to use violence to defend his honor. During a Dada event the previous year (at which Satie was present), he responded to poet Pierre de Massot's verbal attack of Picasso by breaking Massot's arm with his walking stick . He also had
5152-495: The "Arcueil School". In addition to turning against Ravel, Auric and Poulenc in particular, Satie quarrelled with his old friend Debussy in 1917, resentful of the latter's failure to appreciate the more recent Satie compositions. The rupture lasted for the remaining months of Debussy's life, and when he died the following year, Satie refused to attend the funeral. A few of his protégés escaped his displeasure, and Milhaud and Désormière were among those who remained friends with him to
5264-516: The "jeunes" – those associated with Ravel – and then a group known at first as the "nouveaux jeunes", later called Les Six , including Georges Auric , Louis Durey , Arthur Honegger , and Germaine Tailleferre , joined later by Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud . Satie dissociated himself from the second group in 1918, and in the 1920s he became the focal point of another set of young composers including Henri Cliquet-Pleyel , Roger Désormière , Maxime Jacob and Henri Sauguet , who became known as
5376-401: The "temple de la 'convention farfelue'" – the temple of zany convention, 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
5488-546: The Box , music to a pantomime by Jules Depaquit (called a " clownerie " by Satie); Geneviève de Brabant , a short comic opera to a text by "Lord Cheminot" (Latour); Le poisson rêveur ( The Dreamy Fish ), piano music to accompany a lost tale by Cheminot, and a few others that were mostly incomplete. Few were presented, and none published at the time. A decisive change in Satie's musical outlook came after he heard
5600-746: The Conservatoire". In 1882 he was expelled from the Conservatoire for his unsatisfactory performance. In 1884 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 1906. In 1885, he was readmitted to the Conservatoire, in the intermediate piano class of his stepmother's former teacher, Georges Mathias . He made little progress: Mathias described his playing as "Insignificant and laborious" and Satie himself "Worthless. Three months just to learn
5712-504: The Conservatoire, Satie volunteered for military service, and joined the 33rd Infantry Regiment in November 1886. He quickly found army life no more to his liking than the Conservatoire, and deliberately contracted acute bronchitis by standing in the open, bare-chested, on a winter night. After three months' convalescence he was invalided out of the army. In 1887, at the age of 21, Satie moved from his father's residence to lodgings in
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#17327766665855824-476: The Conservatoire, which he described as "a vast, very uncomfortable, and rather ugly building; a sort of district prison with no beauty on the inside – nor on the outside, for that matter". He studied solfeggio with Albert Lavignac and piano with Émile Decombes , who had been a pupil of Frédéric Chopin . In 1880 Satie took his first examinations as a pianist: he was described as "gifted but indolent". The following year Decombes called him "the laziest student in
5936-428: The Conservatoire. From about 1910 he became the focus of successive groups of young composers attracted by his unconventionality and originality. Among them were the group known as Les Six . A meeting with Jean Cocteau in 1915 led to the creation of the ballet Parade (1917) for Serge Diaghilev , with music by Satie, sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso , and choreography by Léonide Massine . Satie's example guided
6048-445: The Soirées abruptly ceased without notice. Beaumont left his idle company in limbo for days before finally disbanding it. On June 29, Satie reported this to Rolf de Maré: "The Cigale (Beaumont) has closed its doors...This poor Count – who is, after all, a good man – instead of compliments has only received insults and other nice things... That's life! Most consoling!" The Soirées de Paris was never revived, but its brief existence had
6160-611: The Soirées de Paris was to provide a comeback vehicle for Massine, who had been experiencing career difficulties since his acrimonious split from Diaghilev in 1921. He was installed in an apartment at the Beaumont estate and given two large rooms for private rehearsal space. Many of the dancers he employed had previously worked for the Ballets Russes, including the Soirées' female star Lydia Lopokova . Massine had little to say about Mercure in later years, acknowledging that it
6272-526: The Soirées de Paris: most of its leading artists were Satie's friends or disciples, including 25-year-old music director Désormière, whose first important engagement this was. Once Mercure was finished, Satie would immediately tackle another big commission from Rolf de Maré of the Ballets suédois ; this resulted in his final compositions, the ballet Relâche and the score for its accompanying "cinematographic interlude", Entr'acte . A love of calligraphy
6384-472: The Soirées. Since the ballet was supposed to be a mythological spoof, Satie and Picasso saw in Mercury an opportunity for some veiled mockery at Cocteau's expense. In the final scenario, Mercury is presented as a meddlesome schemer who bounds onto the stage to cause trouble and chew the scenery. The in-jokes did not stop there: according to Belgian music critic Paul Collaer , the risqué supporting characters of
6496-410: The alphabet. At Pluto 's behest, he arranges for Chaos to abduct Proserpine. They carry her off on a chariot in the finale. Mercure premiered on June 15, 1924 in a hostile atmosphere due to Parisian cultural infighting of the time. The audience was studded with cliques for and against Picasso, Satie, and Beaumont, as well as supporters of Diaghilev, whose Ballets Russes were performing across town at
6608-465: The artist directly and used only the design sketches as his guide. In an interview shortly before the premiere, Satie described his aesthetic approach: "You can imagine the marvelous contribution of Picasso, which I have attempted to translate musically. My aim has been to make the music an integral part, so to speak, with the actions and gestures of the people who move about in this simple exercise. You can see poses like them in any fairground. The spectacle
6720-712: The arts – to rival Serge Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes as an arbiter of Modernism in French theatre. He was famed for the extravagant annual costume balls he hosted at his Paris mansion and had enjoyed some success financing theatrical ventures, notably the Darius Milhaud - Jean Cocteau ballet Le boeuf sur le toit (1920). In late 1923, he rented the La Cigale music hall in Montmartre , hired former Diaghilev associate Massine as his choreographer and commissioned an eclectic group of dance and dramatic pieces utilizing
6832-460: The avant-garde as the co-founder of Cubism , his postwar Neoclassical paintings had made him prosperous and fashionable. He had abandoned Montparnasse bohemianism for Right Bank high society, and there were grumblings among younger artists (especially the Dadaists ) that he had "sold out to the establishment." (His friend Max Jacob referred to this time as Picasso's "duchess period"). Now he
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#17327766665856944-465: The back of the theatre. Darius Milhaud argued with the Breton group, Satie fans voiced their support, and a handful of people approached Picasso's box and hurled insults at him. By Tableau II, there was pandemonium in the hall and the curtain had to be lowered. Lydia Lopokova witnessed the events from the audience and quoted a protester proclaiming "Only Picasso lives, down with Beaumont's garçons and
7056-473: The boys returned to Paris from Honfleur, Alfred had met a piano teacher and salon composer, Eugénie Barnetche, whom he married in January 1879, to the dismay of the twelve-year-old Satie, who did not like her. Eugénie Satie resolved that her elder stepson should become a professional musician, and in November 1879 enrolled him in the preparatory piano class at the Paris Conservatoire . Satie strongly disliked
7168-410: The break public in an article for Paris-Journal (February 15, 1924), in which he castigated Cocteau and referred to recent ballets by Auric and Poulenc as "lots of syrupy things...buckets of musical lemonade." Auric used his position as music critic for Les Nouvelles littéraires to retaliate and for several months he and Satie took potshots at each other in the French press. Their feud would come to
7280-431: The comic and dramatic content of the ballet." A review of a later production suggests that among the dancers he alone kept in constant motion: "Through this series of plastic poses flew Mercury, a vivid figure in white tunic and scarlet coat, enthusiastically danced by Massine." Satie called Mercure "a purely decorative spectacle." The episodes and characters were loosely drawn from Roman and Greek mythology, except for
7392-495: The composer or the choreographer to do so...do whatever you want." Satie's input appears to have been decisive in selecting the ancient Roman god Mercury as the subject – and not entirely for artistic reasons. Conspicuously absent from the project was the fourth key member of the Parade team, Jean Cocteau. While Satie owed much of his postwar fame to Cocteau's promotional efforts on his behalf, he had never really gotten along with
7504-464: The conductor follow the "original version" of the score so audiences would not misinterpret it, leaving the scene changes to take place in silence. Mercure is scored for an orchestra of modest proportions: 1 piccolo , 1 flute , 1 oboe , 2 clarinets in B ♭ , 1 bassoon , 2 horns in F, 2 trumpets in C, 1 trombone , 1 tuba , percussion for 2 players ( snare drum , cymbals , bass drum ), and strings . One of Beaumont's objectives for
7616-482: The cycle Sports et divertissements (1914) were published in de luxe editions. The press began to write about Satie's music, and a leading pianist, Ricardo Viñes , took him up, giving celebrated first performances of some Satie pieces. Satie became the focus of successive groups of young composers, whom he first encouraged and then distanced himself from, sometimes rancorously, when their popularity threatened to eclipse his or they otherwise displeased him. First were
7728-448: The effect, mentally speaking, is one of complete chaos; yet it is achieved by strictly musical and even academic means which consolidate the formal cohesion of the ballet as a whole." The harmonious collaboration Satie enjoyed with Picasso was not shared with Massine. Mercure was originally planned as a work lasting eight minutes, but the score grew to nearly twice that length. With two other substantial ballets ( Milhaud 's Salade and
7840-401: The end of his Rose+Croix period and the start of a long search for a new artistic direction". In 1898, in search of somewhere cheaper and quieter than Montmartre, Satie moved to a room in the southern suburbs, in the commune of Arcueil-Cachan , eight kilometres (five miles) from the centre of Paris. This remained his home for the rest of his life. No visitors were ever admitted. He joined
7952-405: The end of your thought'". His Sonatine bureaucratique anticipates the neoclassicism soon adopted by Stravinsky. Despite his rancorous falling out with Debussy, Satie commemorated his long-time friend in 1920, two years after Debussy's death, in the anguished "Elégie", the first of the miniature song cycle Quatre petites mélodies . Orledge rates the cycle as the finest, though least known, of
8064-665: The fashionable Galerie Durand-Ruel gained Satie his first public hearings. Frequently short of money, Satie moved from his lodgings in the 9th arrondissement to a small room in the rue Cortot not far from Sacre-Coeur , so high up the Butte Montmartre that he said he could see from his window all the way to the Belgian border. By mid-1892, Satie had composed the first pieces in a compositional system of his own making ( Fête donnée par des Chevaliers Normands en l'honneur d'une jeune demoiselle ), provided incidental music to
8176-418: The feat of drawing a figure or an animal with one continuous line. His ability to make a line twist itself into the illusion of a solid being, without taking pen from paper, had become an amazing act of virtuosity and a delight to watch. The costume drawings for Mercure are a masterly example of this kind of calligraphic drawing. With characteristic inventiveness, he had foreseen how they could be carried out on
8288-589: The figures of Polichinelle (from Italian Commedia dell'arte ) and the Philosopher in Tableau III. Below is a list of the ballet's roles and musical numbers, and summaries of the stage action. In the original production the Overture , a light, jaunty march, was played beneath Picasso's curtain before the ballet proper began. With the exception of the Danse de tendresse , each number lasts no more than
8400-464: The four sets of short songs of Satie's last decade. Satie invented what he called Musique d'ameublement – "furniture music" – a kind of background not to be listened to consciously. Cinéma , composed for the René Clair film Entr'acte , shown between the acts of Relâche (1924), is an example of early film music designed to be unconsciously absorbed rather than carefully listened to. Satie
8512-464: The general headings Cahiers d'un mammifère (A Mammal's Notebook) and Mémoires d'un amnésique (Memoirs of an Amnesiac), indicating, as Potter comments, that "these are not autobiographical writings in the conventional manner". He claimed the major influence on his humour was Oliver Cromwell , adding "I also owe much to Christopher Columbus , because the American spirit has occasionally tapped me on
8624-504: The last. The First World War restricted concert-giving to some extent, but Orledge comments that the war years brought "Satie's second lucky break", when Jean Cocteau heard Viñes and Satie perform the Trois morceaux in 1916. This led to the commissioning of the ballet Parade , premiered in 1917 by Sergei Diaghilev 's Ballets Russes , with music by Satie, sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso , and choreography by Léonide Massine . This
8736-588: The liver at the age of 59. Satie was born on 17 May 1866 in Honfleur , Normandy, the first child of Alfred Satie and his wife Jane Leslie ( née Anton). Jane Satie was an English Protestant of Scottish descent; Alfred Satie, a shipping broker , was a Roman Catholic anglophobe. A year later, the Saties had a daughter, Olga, and in 1869 a second son, Conrad. The children were baptised in the Anglican church. After
8848-534: The liver. He died there at 8.00 p.m. on 1 July, at the age of 59. He was buried in the cemetery at Arcueil. In the view of the Oxford Dictionary of Music , Satie's importance lay in "directing a new generation of French composers away from Wagner ‐influenced impressionism towards a leaner, more epigrammatic style". Debussy christened him "the precursor" because of his early harmonic innovations. Satie summed up his musical philosophy in 1917: To have
8960-440: The man he described as "a charming maniac." The author's increasingly exaggerated claims for his role in Parade' s success were a particular source of annoyance for both Satie and Picasso. In early 1924, just before creative talks for the Beaumont ballet got underway, Satie accused Cocteau of corrupting the morals of his onetime musical protégés Georges Auric and Francis Poulenc and severed ties with all three of them. He made
9072-775: The only time in his career that Diaghilev bought a ballet ready-made. The Ballets Russes presented it three times during its 1927 season: on June 2 at the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt in Paris, and on July 11 and July 19 at the Prince's Theatre in London. Massine recreated his choreography and role as Mercury. Constant Lambert found it "extremely funny but oddly beautiful", opinions not shared by London critics. The Times reviewer thought Satie's music and Picasso's "ridiculous contraptions" were outmoded, while dance historian and critic Cyril Beaumont wrote, "The whole thing appeared incredibly stupid, vulgar, and pointless." It
9184-574: The piece. Cannot sight-read properly". Satie became fascinated by aspects of religion. He spent much time in Notre-Dame de Paris contemplating the stained glass windows and in the National Library examining obscure medieval manuscripts. His friend Alphonse Allais later dubbed him "Esotérik Satie". From this period comes Ogives , a set of four piano pieces inspired by Gregorian chant and Gothic church architecture . Keen to leave
9296-622: The premiere of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902. He found it "absolutely astounding", and he re-evaluated his own music. In a determined attempt to improve his technique, and against Debussy's advice, he enrolled as a mature student at Paris's second main music academy, the Schola Cantorum in October 1905, continuing his studies there until 1912. The institution was run by Vincent d'Indy , who emphasised orthodox technique rather than creative originality. Satie studied counterpoint with Albert Roussel and composition with d'Indy, and
9408-419: The principal context for its public reception." The Soirées did succeed in re-launching Massine in Paris. He was soon reconciled with Diaghilev and welcomed back to the Ballets Russes as a "guest choreographer" in January 1925, remaining with them through 1928. Diaghilev also hired Désormière as principal conductor for his troupe's final years (1925-1929). Cocteau was deeply offended by Mercure , though he
9520-549: The scores of his compositions with all kinds of written remarks became so established that he had to insist that they must not be read out during performances. In 1920 there was a festival of Satie's music at the Salle Erard in Paris. In 1924 the ballets Mercure (with choreography by Massine and décor by Picasso) and Relâche ("Cancelled") (in collaboration with Francis Picabia and René Clair ), both provoked headlines with their first night scandals. Despite being
9632-524: The scores of several important works believed lost were found among the accumulated rubbish. He was incompetent with money. Having depended to a considerable extent on the generosity of friends in his early years, he was little better off when he began to earn a good income from his compositions, as he spent or gave away money as soon as he received it. He liked children, and they liked him, but his relations with adults were seldom straightforward. One of his last collaborators, Picabia, said of him: Satie's case
9744-533: The seat in the Académie des Beaux-Arts made vacant by the death of Ernest Guiraud . Between 1893 and 1895, Satie, affecting a quasi-priestly dress, was the founder and only member of the Eglise Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur . From his " Abbatiale " in the rue Cortot, he published scathing attacks on his artistic enemies. In 1893 Satie had what is believed to be his only love affair,
9856-534: The seven-movement suite Trois morceaux en forme de poire ("Three Pear-shaped Pieces") for piano four-hands (1903), simply-phrased music that Nichols and Griffiths describe as "a résumé of his music since 1890" – reusing some of his earlier work as well as popular songs of the time. He struggled to find his own musical voice. Orledge writes that this was partly because of his "trying to ape his illustrious peers … we find bits of Ravel in his miniature opera Geneviève de Brabant and echoes of both Fauré and Debussy in
9968-498: The shoulder and I have been delighted to feel its ironically glacial bite". His published writings include: Mercure (ballet) Mercure ( Mercury , or The Adventures of Mercury ) is a 1924 ballet with music by Erik Satie . The original décor and costumes were designed by Pablo Picasso and the choreography was by Léonide Massine , who also danced the title role. Subtitled "Plastic Poses in Three Tableaux", it
10080-533: The significance of Picasso's décor continued for weeks, including illustrated coverage in the July 1, 1924 issue of Vogue , which gave it the imprimatur of the haut monde . In its attempt to distance Picasso from his collaborators, the Surrealist "Tribute" sparked false rumors that Satie had fallen out with him as he had with so many other friends, due to his hypersensitive personality. Satie addressed this in
10192-558: The stage and manipulated along with the music. Some of them took the place of characters. The three-headed Cerberus was depicted on a circular shield beneath which only the dancer's feet were visible, and Massine described how the Three Graces were transformed into amorphous flats "with plaited necks like telephone extension wires which stretched and contracted as their heads bobbed up and down." André Breton called these puppet-like objects "tragic toys for adults." In counterpoint to
10304-722: The stage... The results in terms of form and movement achieved with such simple means was a triumph." In early 1924, Satie was at the height of his postwar cachet. He had produced little since his orchestral dance suite La belle excentrique (1921), but his role as "precursor" to Debussy and Ravel was acknowledged, as was his advocacy of young French composers ( Les Six and the "Arcueil School"). The March 1924 edition of La Revue musicale contained several laudatory articles about him, and that same month, he traveled to Belgium to give lectures on his music in Brussels and Antwerp. Beaumont trusted him implicitly and his influence pervaded
10416-437: The static poses of Massine's choreography, Picasso's mobile scenery became part of the dance. After seeing the ballet Gertrude Stein wrote, "The scenery of Mercure ... was written, quite simply written. There was no painting, it was pure calligraphy ". Roland Penrose elaborated on this, tracing Picasso's inspiration beyond Cubism to his early gifts for contour drawing : "From childhood... Picasso had enjoyed accomplishing
10528-412: The talents of authors Cocteau and Tristan Tzara , composers Milhaud and Henri Sauguet , artists Georges Braque , André Derain , and Marie Laurencin , and pioneer lighting designer Loie Fuller . Beaumont's biggest coup was reuniting Massine with Picasso and Satie for their first stage collaboration since the scandalous, revolutionary Diaghilev ballet Parade (1917), and their work was anticipated as
10640-431: The venue, evidently hoping to see Picasso after the performance. Instead, they encountered Satie on his way out. The composer later reassured Milhaud, "They didn't say a word to me." Five more performances of Mercure through June 22 passed without incident. Mercure was coolly received by the public and mainstream press. Maurice Boucher of Le Monde musical remarked that despite the opening night demonstration, there
10752-478: The whole Soirées de Paris!" When police arrived to eject the demonstrators, Surrealist Francis Gérard reproached Picasso: "You see, Beaumont has the police throw us out because we were applauding you!" Louis Aragon, still raging against Satie, managed to jump onto the stage and shout, "In the name of God, down with the cops!" before he was dragged off. Order was finally restored and the ballet allowed to continue. The Surrealists not taken into custody waited outside
10864-475: The years. In the late 1880s Satie styled himself on at least one occasion "Erik Satie – gymnopédiste", and his works from this period include the three Gymnopédies (1888) and the first Gnossiennes (1889 and 1890). 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
10976-546: Was a succès de scandale , with jazz rhythms and instrumentation including parts for typewriter, steamship whistle and siren. It firmly established Satie's name before the public, and thereafter his career centred on the theatre, writing mainly to commission. In October 1916 Satie received a commission from the Princesse de Polignac that resulted in what Orledge rates as the composer's masterpiece, Socrate , two years later. Satie set translations from Plato 's Dialogues as
11088-455: Was a much more conscientious and successful student than he had been at the Conservatoire in his youth. It was not until 1911, when he was in his mid-forties, that Satie came to the notice of the musical public in general. In January of that year Maurice Ravel played some early Satie works at a concert by the Société musicale indépendante , a forward-looking group set up by Ravel and others as
11200-481: Was a single small room, first in Montmartre and, from 1898 to his death, in Arcueil , a 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 hat , wing collar, and umbrella. He was a lifelong heavy drinker, and died of cirrhosis of
11312-442: Was an important link between Picasso's Neoclassical and Surrealist phases and has been described as a "painter's ballet." Mercure was commissioned by the Soirées de Paris stage company and first performed at the Théâtre de la Cigale in Paris on June 15, 1924. The conductor was Roger Désormière . The Soirées de Paris was a short-lived attempt by Count Étienne de Beaumont (1883–1956) – socialite, balletomane , and patron of
11424-432: Was careful to maintain his friendship with Picasso. In 1925, he wrote his play Orphée , updating the title character into a famous but beleaguered Parisian poet. From then on, the figure of Orpheus replaced Mercury in his personal mythos. Satie fared the worst in this undertaking. Poet and critic Rene Chalupt reported that even some of the composer's closest friends were disappointed by his music. Mercure set in motion
11536-431: Was completed on April 17 and the orchestration on May 9. Afterwards, Satie never forgave Massine for what he felt was the choreographer's attempt to compromise his work. Satie did not provide musical interludes to cover the scenery changes between the three tableaux . At the premiere, Désormière apparently repeated material from the ballet for this purpose, creating what Satie called "false intermissions." He demanded that
11648-422: Was disconcerted by the Soirées de Paris, not least because some of its artists were working for him at the same time. He called it "a soirée of the Ballets Russes in which the only thing missing is my name." But he attended its performances, and the originality of Mercure left him, according to Serge Lifar , "pale, agitated, nervous." In 1926, he took the unprecedented step of acquiring Mercure from Beaumont –
11760-707: Was in demand as a journalist, making contributions to the Revue musicale , Action , L'Esprit nouveau , the Paris-Journal and other publications from the Dadaist 391 to the English-language magazines Vanity Fair and The Transatlantic Review . As he contributed anonymously or under pen names to some publications it is not certain how many titles he wrote for, but Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians lists 25. Satie's habit of embellishing
11872-451: Was little to get upset about. He dismissed Satie's music as "the ordinary pom-pom of the music hall" and attributed the minimalism of Picasso's décor to poverty of imagination – and, perhaps, a little drunkenness. The Surrealists seized on this indifference to write a "Tribute to Picasso", published in the June 20 issue of Paris-Journal and subsequently reprinted in several periodicals: It
11984-474: Was never again staged in its original form. By that time, Satie's score had already provided the basis for another ballet in the United States. Former Ballets Russes dancer Adolph Bolm and his Chicago Allied Arts company presented it in 1926 under the title Parnassus on Montmartre , with a new text about Parisian art students at a masquerade. Ruth Page starred. London's Ballet Rambert mounted
12096-415: Was not the only thing Satie shared with Picasso. He was a perceptive, lifelong enthusiast of avant-garde art, from Impressionism to Dada. His friend Man Ray famously described him as "the only musician who had eyes." During the creation of Parade in 1916, he found Picasso's ideas most inspiring and Cocteau was forced to change his original scenario accordingly. On Mercure , Satie was able to work with
12208-428: Was predominately Picasso's work. Surviving drawings reveal that Picasso designed actual groupings for the dancers – the "living pictures" demanded by Beaumont. Regarding the choreography, Massine noted, "As Mercury I had a series of adventures – intervening in the affairs of Apollo, directing the signs of the Zodiac, arranging the rape of Proserpine – each of which had to be clearly differentiated in order to strengthen
12320-416: Was prepared to reassert his modernist credentials by creating a freer semi-abstract style, and chose this ballet as a suitably high-profile occasion in which to introduce it to the public. The drop curtain he designed featured patches of muted color (earth tones and pastel shades of blue, white and red) suggesting forms and landscape, over which the figures of a guitar-playing Harlequin and Pierrot with
12432-405: Was quick to recognize the potential benefits of associating with Breton and his colleagues. Mercure was the catalyst for this. According to Michael C. FitzGerald, "With Picasso's reputation in danger of losing its avant-garde edge, the Surrealists' intervention publicly restored Picasso to his accustomed position. During the following decade, Surrealism would be a primary inspiration for his art and
12544-414: Was signed by Breton and 14 other artists and writers, including Aragon, Max Ernst , and Philippe Soupault . Renegade Dadaist Francis Picabia ridiculed this homage with a quip comparing Picasso's "troubling modernity" to the outdated fashions of designer Paul Poiret , causing Aragon to counter with his own statement: "I think that nothing stronger than this ballet has ever been presented in the theatre. It
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