Erik Satie (1866-1925) was an eccentric joker with a
rebellious spirit, and often made fun of classical
music by composing parodies with unusual titles like
Unpleasant Glimpses, Desiccated Embryos, Genuine Flabby
Preludes (for a dog), Old Sequins and Old Breastplates,
and Teasing Sketches of a Fat Man Made of Wood to name
a few.
Satie was good friends with Claude Debussy and Maurice
Ravel, even though he opposed impressionistic music - a
genre in which Debussy and Ravel composed many gr...(+)
Erik Satie (1866-1925) was an eccentric joker with a
rebellious spirit, and often made fun of classical
music by composing parodies with unusual titles like
Unpleasant Glimpses, Desiccated Embryos, Genuine Flabby
Preludes (for a dog), Old Sequins and Old Breastplates,
and Teasing Sketches of a Fat Man Made of Wood to name
a few.
Satie was good friends with Claude Debussy and Maurice
Ravel, even though he opposed impressionistic music - a
genre in which Debussy and Ravel composed many great
pieces.
The word "gnossienne" describes several pieces of piano
music composed by Satie that didn't fit into any of the
existing styles of classical music like a piano prelude
or a sonata. Satie easily solved this dilemma by simply
titling the pieces with a completely new and made up
word, in this case - "gnossienne." Though the etymology
and the pronunciation of Satie's made up word
"gnossienne" remain a mystery to many, what is clear is
that his six gnossiennes are wonderfully unique and
beyond intriguing.
Satie composed his first three gnossiennes around 1890,
without time signatures and bar lines (often referred
to as "absolute time") and traditional tempo markings.
Satie's peculiar scores could be read like musical
poetry - one can interpret the piece with very few
restrictions, as his tempo markings were made of
phrases like "don't leave", "lightly, with intimacy"
and "don't be proud." The first gnossiennes (Nos. 1 and
3) were published in September of 1893, in Le Figaro
musical Nr. 24, while No. 2 was published in Le Coeur
the next month. The remaining three gnossiennes, Nos.
4-6, were composed in 1891, 1899, and 1897,
respectively. However, these were not published until
1968.
Satie's gnossiennes are often viewed as a musical
continuation of his popular Trois Gymnopedies, though
some musicologists believe they are more closely
related to his Sarabandes. Either way, it's apparent
that music like this has never been composed before,
making it easy to understand why such an enigmatic
title was given to them. The inherent feelings of
timelessness and infinity of each piece come from the
works' cyclical nature - you could leave each
gnossienne on repeat and never distinctly hear a
beginning or and ending apart from the pause generated
by your CD player in between tracks. Like the
Gymnopedies, Satie composes lonely melodies supported
by less than complex, almost elementary, harmonies and
chord structures.
Although originally created for Solo Piano, I created
this Interpretation of the Gnossienne No. 2 for Viola &
Classical Guitar.
SHEET MUSIC