On the 19th of July 1865 Jules Alfred Satie (1842-1903) a Norman ship broker of  Honfleur marries Jane Leslie Anton (born in London of Scottish parents at St Mary’s Church, Barnes, Surrey. Eric is conceived during they honeymoon is Scotland. Looking like an impressionist painting, Honfleur is a little port on the Normandy coast, only two hours from Paris. It is where, on May 17th 1866, Alfred Eric Leslie Satie “came to the World very young in a very old era” like he stated later. Baptized at birth in the Anglican religion, then, after his mother died (1871) in the Catholic religion, the young Eric was seven when he received his first music lessons from M.Vinot, organist at the church of Saint Léonard de Honfleur. Vinot, former student of Niedermeyer, was a composer of slow waltzes, devoted to the study of Gregorian chant, that will become a major influence for Satie.

Looking like an impressionist painting, Honfleur is a little port on the Normandy coast, only two hours from Paris. It is where, on May 17th 1866, Alfred Eric Leslie Satie “came to the World very young in a very old time” like he stated later. His Dad, Alfred, was a Norman ship broker who married a Scottish woman: Jane Leslie Anton.

 

 

 

 

Baptized at birth in the Anglican religion, then, after his mother died (1871) in the Catholic religion, the young Eric was seven when he received his first music lessons from Guilmant, organist at the church of Saint Léonard de Honfleur. Guilmant, former student of Niedermeyer, was a composer of slow waltzes, devoted to the study of Gregorian chant, that will become a major influence for Satie, but also .

Click Here For More Details and Listen to Gregorian Music

 

 

 

By the age of twelve Eric moved to Paris with his father who married the pianist and composer Eugenie Bametche, ten years older than him, and became translator for an insurance company.
With disappointing results – Eric was considered a student without any talent – Satie studied piano and harmony at the National Conservatory of Music and Declamation from 1879 to 1886. To resign from the Conservatoire, he enrolled in the army which he managed to escape shortly after by exposing his bare chest to a cold winter night and deliberately caught a pleurisy. Leaving the army, he changed his name to Erik; with the help of his father he published Valse-Ballet, his first work.

“I call myself Erik Satie, like everyone else”

Montmartre, at the end of the 19th century,was the heart of artistic life and bohemian lifestyle. Many artists lived and worked there turning Montmartre into a mecca for writers, poets and artists. Erik Satie became a regular at the cabaret “Le Chat Noir” – The Black Cat – accompanying its shadow theater on the harmonium or directing the cabaret’s orchestra. Le Chat Noir is also the place where he met Debussy.

More to come…

You are more than welcome to post your comments and questions…

“Satie gave comic titles to his music in order to protect his works from persons obsessed with the sublime.” – Cocteau

Teenager, I spent long afternoons daydreaming, listening to Erik Satie. Always my favorite interpretation were Aldo Ciccolini renditions. Preparing the publication of my arrangements of Satie’s music, I decided to start blogging about this intriguing and so interesting character. More than a composer. Eccentric… that is the most common way Erik Satie is referred to. Always portrayed as a strange man who gave his compositions odd titles such as Dried up Embryos, Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear, Cold Pieces, Airs that Chase Away…

However you have heard his music in movies, commercials, even on “Sesame Street,” Master of ambient music, Satie not only inspired Debussy, Ravel but all the classical minimalists (Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Cage…)

But who was Monsieur Satie?

Not only a composer, Satie developed a sound environment originated in the most “anti bourgeois” intentions. In a 1920 manifesto he advocated musique d’ameublement (Furniture Musique) after he overheard Matisse express a desire for some art form without any nagging subject matter:

“You know, there is a need to create furniture music, that is to say, music that would be a part of the surrounding noises and that would take them into account. I see it as melodious, as masking the clatter of knives and forks without drowning it completely, without imposing itself. It would fill up the awkward silences that occasionally descend on guests. It would spare them the usual banalities. Moreover, it would neutralize the street noises that indiscreetly force themselves into the pictures.”

This is what he claimed to be:

What I am

Everyone will tell you I am not a musician. That is correct.
From the very beginning of my career I class myself a phonometrographer. My work is completely phonometrical. Take my Fils des Étoiles, or my Morceaux en forme de Poire, my En habit de Cheval or my Sarabandes – it is evident that musical ideas played no part whatsoever in their composition. Science is the dominating factor.
Besides, I enjoy measuring a sound much more than hearing it. With my phonometer in my hand, I work happily and with confidence.
What haven’t I weighed or measured? I’ve done all Beethoven, all Verdi, etc. It’s fascinating.
The first time I used a phonoscope, I examined a B flat of medium size. I can assure you that I have never seen anything so revolting. I called in my man to show it to him.
On my phono-scales a common or garden F sharp registered 93 kilos. It came out of a fat tenor whom I also weighed.
Do you know how to clean sounds? It’s a filthy business. Stretching them out is cleaner; indexing them is a meticulous task and needs good eyesight. Here, we are in the realm of pyrophony.
To write my Pièces Froides, I used a caleidophone recorder. It took seven minutes. I called in my man to let him hear them.
I think I can say that phonology is superior to music. There’s more variety in it. The financial return is greater, too. I owe my fortune to it.
At all events, with a motodynamophone, even a rather inexperienced phonometrologist can easily note down more sounds that the most skilled musician in the same time, using the same amount of effort. This is how I have been able to write so much.
And so the future lies with philophony.

More to come…