Erik satie composer biography paper

Erik Alfred Leslie Satie, known after as Erik Satie, was an avant-garde French composer and pianist whose work set the stage for later musical movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theater of the Absurd. His enduring influence resonates in the world of music. Here, he received his first lessons in music, nurturing his musical abilities from an early age.

His musical exploration continued with his stepmother, a piano teacher, when he reunited with his father. At the age of thirteen, the young Satie joined the prestigious Paris Conservatoire. His dissatisfaction with the Conservatoire led him to leave and serve a year in the army, after which he decided to venture into composition.

InSatie settled in the bohemian Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre, becoming a familiar figure in the community. Satie also wrote music for a Rosicrucian sect that he was briefly attached to. His interest in medieval music and Gothic art manifested in his compositions, with his set of four piano pieces, Ogivesreflecting the influence of these styles.

Life and career [ edit ]. Early years [ edit ]. Montmartre [ edit ]. Move to Arcueil [ edit ]. Last years [ edit ]. Works [ edit ]. Music [ edit ]. See also: List of compositions by Erik Satie. Writings [ edit ]. Notes, references and sources [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. Professors from the Conservatoire were elected on both occasions.

Ignorance of my instructions will incur my righteous indignation against the presumptuous culprit. No exception will be allowed". References [ edit ]. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary 3rd ed. ISBN Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary 18th ed. Cambridge University Press. Sources [ edit ]. Further reading [ edit ]. External links [ edit ].

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Erik Satie. Wikiquote has quotations related to Erik Satie. Wikisource has original works by or about: Erik Satie. Erik Satie. List of compositions. Bonjour Biqui, Bonjour! Category Audio. Denis Tamiris Wiesenthal Wigman. Portals : Classical music Opera Biography Music. He was a conservatory trained composer and pianist whose innovative style helped determine the course of Western music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

His music is distinguishable by its seemingly sparse textures, unusual harmonies, and humor. Satie's mother died during his childhood and he and his siblings were sent to live wit their father's parents. His musicality was recognized by his family during his childhood and his grandmother became his first music teacher. When he outgrew her tutelage, he studied organ with the local organist, Gustave Vinot, who encouraged Satie's study of old church music, especially modal compositions and Gregorian chant, which proved highly influential on Satie's later harmonic language which was not major or minor but modal.

He in turn wrote that the school was like a prison to him. Inhe was expelled from the institution due to his poor performance. Satie then joined the military but his career was cut short due to poor health. The Parisian Bohemian. At the age of 21, Satie moved to Montmartre in Paris and became a part of the "Bohemians," a community of creatives, artists, and revolutionaries.

Erik satie composer biography paper

His sparse style contrasted greatly with the harmoniously rich and lush music of the previous generation of Romantic composers. While living in Montemartre, he fell in love for the only time with painter Suzanne Valadon September 23, — April 7, Although Valadon moved into the apartment next to Satie, she turned down his proposal of marriage.

Satie died on 1 July in Paris. Shattuck, Roger. New York Volta, Ornella, ed. Satie Seen through His Letters. Translated by Michael Bullock. London, Whiting, Steven Moore. Oxford, U. Erik Satie was an eccentric but important French composer. His works and his attitude toward music anticipated developments of the next generation of composers.

Erik Satie was born in Honfleur to a French father and a Scottish mother. From the beginning Satie had a flair for novel musical ideas, and his first serious compositions reveal this originality. His Three Sarabandes for piano include some very interesting parallel ninth chords that later became an important feature of the styles of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

In some of his compositions of the next few years Satie used Gregorian modes as well as chords built in fourths, again anticipating musical idioms that would be extensively developed in the next 25 years. In Satie "withdrew" to Arcueil, a suburb of Paris, where he spent the rest of his life. He gave the piano pieces he wrote at this time ridiculous, almost surrealistically humorous titles, such as Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear, Three Flabby Preludes for a Dog, and Desicated Embryos —perhaps parodying the elaborately evocative titles Debussy sometimes gave his compositions.

Satie also included in his scores such puzzling directions as "play like a nightingale with a toothache," "with astonishment," "from the top of the teeth," and "sheepishly. Satie's tendency to underplay the importance of his compositions reached its climax in the music he wrote in for the erik satie composer biography paper of an art gallery.

The score, for piano, three clarinets, and a trombone, consists of fragments of well-known tunes and isolated phrases repeated over and over, like the pattern of wallpaper. In the program he stated, "We beg you to take no notice of the music and behave as if it did not exist. This music … claims to make its contribution to life in the same way as a private conversation, a picture, or the chair on which you may or may not be seated.

This violently antiromantic attitude toward music attracted the attention of the group of young French composers who were to become known as " Les Six " and of Jean Cocteautheir poet-artist-publicity agent. Another group acclaimed Satie as the leader of the "School of Arcueil. Cocteau wrote the libretto, and Pablo Picasso designed the cubist sets and costumes.

A surrealist movie, part of the ballet, is accompanied by music that alternates between two neutral, "wallpaper" compositions. Socratefor four solo sopranos and chamber orchestra, is a serious work. The words are fragments from three Platonic dialogues, one having to do with the death of Socrates. Socrate is distinguished by its atmosphere of calm and gentle repose.

It is completely nondramatic, for one of the sopranos sings Socrates's words. The music consists of simple melodic lines and repetitive accompaniment figures. It is this simplicity, this avoidance of the big gesture that made Satie's music important and prophetic of an important branch of 20th-century musical developments. Myers, Eric Satie Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Yearscontains an interesting chapter on Satie in the context of Paris in the early years of the century.

Satie, Erik gale. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia. Satie the Composer. Cambridge, U. Steven M. Satie, Erik Alfred Leslie oxford. Moved to Paris Worked as pianist in at Montmartre cabaret. Met Debussy in In joined Catholic Rosicrucian sect and comp. Shortly afterwards seemed almost to have retired from comp. In entered Schola Cantorum as pupil of d' Indy and Roussel, leaving in From about became something of a cult among young composers attracted by the eccentric, humorous titles of some of his works, e.

Trois Morceaux en forme de poire Three Pear-shaped Pieces. Strongly influenced group of young composers known as Les Six.