This is so immensely beautiful...

If I ever feel in turmoil, this just calms me down.

I can recommned this musical painkiller to anyone.

HamsterHuey said:

More info please...

Don't we love AMG?

Biography

Erik Satie was an important French composer from the generation of Debussy. Best remembered for several groups of piano pieces, including Trois Gymnopédies (1888), Trois Sarabandes (1887) and Trois Gnossiennes (1890), he was championed by Jean Cocteau and helped create the famous group of French composers, Les Six, which was fashioned after his artistic ideal of simplicity in the extreme. Some have viewed certain of his stylistic traits as components of Impressionism, but his harmonies and melodies have relatively little in common with the characteristics of that school. Much of his music has a subdued character, and its charm comes through in its directness and its lack of allegiance to any one aesthetic. Often his melodies are melancholy and hesitant, his moods exotic or humorous, and his compositions as a whole, or their several constituent episodes, short. He was a musical maverick who probably influenced Debussy and did influence Ravel, who freely acknowledged as much. After Satie's second period of study, he began turning more serious in his compositions, eventually producing his inspiring cantata, Socrate, considered by many his greatest work and clearly demonstrating a previously unexhibited agility. In his last decade he turned out several ballets, including Parade and Relâche, indicating his growing predilection for program and theater music. Satie was also a pianist of some ability.

As a child Erik Satie showed interest in music and began taking piano lessons from a local church organist, named Vinot. While he progressed during this period, he showed no unusual gifts. In 1879 he enrolled in the Paris Conservatory, where he studied under Descombe (piano) and Lavignac (solfeggio), but failed to meet minimum requirements and was expelled in 1882. Satie departed Paris on November 15, 1886, to join the infantry in Arras, but he found military life distasteful and intentionally courted illness to relieve himself of duty. That same year his first works were published: Elégie, Trois Mélodies, and Chanson.

The years following his military service formed a bohemian period in Satie's life, the most significant events of which would be the beginnings of his friendship with Debussy, his exposure to eastern music at the Paris World Exhibition, and his association with a number of philosophical and religious organizations (most notably the Rosicrucian Brotherhood).

In 1905 he decided to resume musical study, enrolling in the conservative and controversial Schola Cantorum, run by Vincent d'Indy. His music took on a more academic and rigorous quality, and also began to exhibit the dry wit that would become hallmarks of his style. Many of his compositions received odd titles, especially after 1910, such as Dried up embryos and Three real flabby preludes (for a dog). Some of his works also featured odd instructions for the performer, not intended to be taken seriously, as in his 1893 piano work, Vexations, which carries the admonition in the score, "To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities."

In 1925 Satie developed pleurisy and his fragile health worsened. He was taken to St. Joseph Hospital, where he lived on for several months. He received the last rites of the Catholic Church in his final days, and died on July 1, 1925.

I was just getting into Satie when Lisa Coleman released her piano improvisations as a bonus disc along with the limited edition of Eroica. These four instrumentals got compared to Satie alot, so if you know these works, then you kind of get a picture of the mood of Satie's work.
[note; One of these four Coleman improv's is Minneapolis #1, formerly known as Dream Factory's Visions.]

It's melancholic, but not without ever losing itself in waters that are too deep to swim in.
To me, it's a soundtrack to these certain moods I go through. These works by Satie (best performed by Reinbert de Leeuw) just calm me. Kind of keep me down, but they steady my mood. It makes me mellow. Helps me to cry. And to get over it.

TRON said:

Nuf said?

BTW AMG is such a kewl site...

I have been trying to remember the name of Reinbert de Leeuw for ages, but I just could come up with the picture of this album...

AMG helped me find him! I am SO happy now! I have lots of stuff on tape, but long ago lost the jackets.

HamsterHuey said:

Did I hip you to AMG?

Troisième Gnossienne is playing now... after Cinquième Gnossienne I will hit the hay...

It's cool ( I only know "Gymnopédie " => I've heard that it's the name of an antic Greek dance.

HamsterHuey said:

You can find two different versions of Gymnopedie in Louis Malle's My Dinner With Andre and Woody Allen's Another Woman. I've always been moved to tears when I hear this lovely and meloncholy movement in both films.

Thanks for your reactions, all!

Hey JN! Long time no speak! Spoke about you with Mary Sharon when she was here!

And I did not know the title refers to a dance or that the music was used in a Louis Malle and Woody Allen movie. Seen the first, don't care so much for the Allen-antics, so missed that one.

Hi jeremy! we'll meet again this century

jn2 said:

Yes!
There will be male strippers involved!

HamsterHuey said:

Aah,but think Ingmar Bergman in terms of the mood and tone of Allen's Another Woman. It's completely mesmorizing.

Crazy awesome compositions!

We're using Gymnopedie in a portion of our wedding ceremony on 10.1.05

We love it!

HamsterHuey said:

I played the three Gymnopedies for one of my recitals in college. Great music, very meditative. They are actually ballet warmups (that's what Gymnopedie means). I think Blood Sweat & Tears did some kind of a rendition of Gymnopedie No.1 years ago. Never heard it but I'm told it was fairly popular.

CinisterCee said:

You have got good taste!

Satie is of the atonal school, but where Schoenberg to me sounds more clinical, Satie sounds more melodic & musical. I'd like to hear more of him; I may have to check out your recommendation.

andyman91 said:

These pieces are a good place to start. Try to find works by Reinbert De Leeuw, his renditions ad something to the music as presented on paper.

thanks for recommeding this! Sounds like i've heard it before, just can't place where it was.

sinisterpentatonic said:

I myself have had a hard time locating certain classical pieces. Some things you hear and you cannot remember exactly who it was, or who played it.
I do not come from a classical upbringing, so I kind of make it all up as I go along.

I recommend you all a track called Valse triste (Sad Waltz ) by Jean Sibelius , it's beautiful - get it you'll thank me later!

jn2 said:

LoL
Have it already. Good call.

HamsterHuey said:

thanks for the tip babe....

sosgemini said:

So very welcome. I like to share.