Erik Satie died in a Paris hospital on July 1st, 1925, aged 59. He had been suffering from cirrhosis of the liver brought on by a lifetime of overindulgence in alcohol, in particular his favourite tipple, absinthe. In the 27 years prior, no-one except him had set foot inside his Arcueil residence.

His fellow composer and friend, Darius Milhaud, visited to help clear out the deceased’s belongings. From his account, there were two upright pianos in the apartment, one on top of the other, the higher of which was used to store mail. The sheets on the bed had obviously not been changed in years, if not decades, and strung above was a hammock with glass wine bottles attached. Satie would apparently fill these with hot water to warm him as he lay in bed during the winter, since the apartment had no heating.

His only clothes were seven identical velvet suits, inside whose pockets were found several unpublished manuscripts. Also discovered in the lodgings was the score to the ballet Parade, which pioneered the writing of fishing rods and typewriters into the instrumentation. Satie had given this up for lost as he was sure he had left it on a bus. The last track on this
disc is a piano transcription by Hans Ourdine of the Ragtime from this ballet.

Parade was by no means his most eccentric piece. The piano composition Vexations was arguably more aberrant, consisting of 16 measures of dissonant chorale followed by the instruction that the performer repeat them 848 times. This is usually performed by relays of
pianists; on the one occasion a single pianist attempted the entire 18 hours solo, he had to abandon the performance after apparently hallucinating an alligator emerging from the piano.

The Embryons Desséchés also reflect Satie’s outré nature.
Meaning dessicated embryos, the 3 pieces each describe a different sea creature, and are annotated with bizarre stories about their daily routines. The first is about a Holothurian, a type of sea cucumber which is said to make a ‘purring’ sound, reflected in the music’s quiet trills. The second, a rather doleful trudge, is inspired by the sad existence of an Edriophthalma (type of crustacean with immovable eyes). The finale depicts a hunt involving a Podophthalma (another crustacean, this time of the stalk-eyed variety).
Satie makes use of musical quotation; in the first he cites a popular song called Mon Rocher de Saint-Malo by Loïsa Puget, and the middle section of d’Edriphthalma contains a simplified version of the lament from Chopin’s funeral march (The third movement of the Bb minor Sonata Op. 35), although Satie playfully credits it as a famous Schubert Mazurka. The
trilogy ends with an incongruously long cadenza which appears to be a satire of Beethoven’s tendency to end works with overly emphatic cadences. I would love to divulge some of the ludicrous performance directions but Satie was adamant that these are “the pianist’s treat”.

The Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes hint at Satie’s philosophical and religious tenets. He was involved in the mystic Christian sect of Rosicrucianism early in his life, composing many ceremonial works for them. He concocted the word ‘Gnossienne’ perhaps wanting it to seem
derived from the Greek “Gnossis” (meaning “knowledge” but also the root of the phrase ‘gnostic sects’ of which Rosicrucianism is one). That usage refers more to a secret wisdom protected by these cults and thought to lead to true emancipation. Others have theorised that Satie created the title to conjure an image of a dance from the Cretan city of Knossos (home
to the Minotaur in mythology). This interpretation is more in keeping with the titling of the Gymnopédies, a word which appears in the poem Les Antiques by J.P.Contamine in a context which seems to refer to an ancient Greek dance.

The Ogives which intersperse the other cycles on this disc also have ecclesiastical connotations. An ogive is a tapered curve common to stained glass windows. These pieces evoke the sounds of plainchant alternating with a pipe-organ reverberating around a cathedral.

© 2014 Alexander Metcalfe