Acolytes extinguishing candles on an altar adorned in violet for Lent. Note the cross and statues are often draped in violet, and no flowers or offerings are in display. Ash Wednesday, in an Episcopal church in Tennessee.

Lent celebrants carrying out a street procession during Holy Week. The violet color is often associated with penance and detachment. Similar Christian penitential practice is seen in other countries, sometimes associated with mortification of the flesh. Granada, Nicaragua.

Lent (Latin: Quadragesima, "fortieth"^[1]) is an observance in the liturgical year of many Christian denominations, lasting for a period of approximately six weeks leading up to Easter. In most Western denominations Lent is taken to run from Ash Wednesday to Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday) or to Easter Eve.

The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer—through prayer, penance, repentance, almsgiving, and self-denial. Its institutional purpose is heightened in the annual commemoration of Holy Week, marking the death and resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events of the Passion of Christ on Good Friday, which then culminates in the celebration on Easter Sunday of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

During Lent, many of the faithful commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxuries as a form of penitence. The Stations of the Cross, a devotional commemoration of Christ's carrying the Cross and of his execution, are often observed. Many Roman Catholic and some Protestant churches bare their altars of candles, flowers, and other devotional offerings, while Crucifixes, religious statues, and other elaborate religious paraphernalia are often veiled in violet fabrics in observance of this event. In certain pious Catholic countries, grand processions and cultural customs are observed, and the faithful attempt to visit seven churches during Holy Week in honor of Jesus Christ heading to Mount Calvary.

Lent is traditionally described as lasting for forty days, in commemoration of the forty days which, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus spent fasting in the desert before the beginning of his public ministry, where he endured temptation by Satan.^[2][3] However, different Christian denominations calculate the "forty days" of Lent differently. In most Western tradition the Sundays are not counted as part of Lent; thus the period from Ash Wednesday until Easter consists of 40 days when the Sundays are excluded. However in the Roman Catholic Church Lent is now taken to end on Holy Thursday rather than Easter Eve, and hence lasts 38 days excluding Sundays, or 44 days in total.

This event, along with its pious customs are observed by Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, as well as some Baptists and Mennonites.^{[4][4][5][5][6]}

Duration[link]

Most followers of Western Christianity observe Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday, and concluding on Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday)^[3][7] or on Easter Eve.^[8] The six Sundays in this period are often not regarded as being part of the observance (being termed Sundays in, rather than of, Lent), because each one represents a "mini-Easter," a celebration of Jesus' victory over sin and death.^[2]

One notable exception is the Archdiocese of Milan, which follows the Ambrosian Rite and observes Lent starting on the Sunday six weeks before Easter.^[9]

Since the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church has redefined Good Friday into Holy Saturday as the first two days of the Easter Triduum rather than the last two days of Lent, but Lenten observances are maintained until the Easter Vigil.

In those churches which follow the Rite of Constantinople (e.g. Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics), the forty days of Lent are counted differently; also, the date of Pascha (Easter) is calculated differently in the East than in the West (see Computus). The fast begins on Clean Monday, and Sundays are included in the count; thus, counting uninterruptedly from Clean Monday, Great Lent ends on the fortieth consecutive day, which is the Friday before Palm Sunday. The days of Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday and Holy Week are considered a distinct period of fasting. For more detailed information about the Eastern Christian practice of Lent, see the article Great Lent.

Among Oriental Orthodox Catholics, there are various local traditions regarding Lent. The Coptic, Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Churches observe eight weeks of Lent, which, with both Saturdays and Sundays exempt, has forty days of fasting.^[9] The first seven days of the fast are considered by some to be an optional time of preparation.^{[citation needed]} Others attribute these seven days to the fast of Holofernes who asked the Syrian Christians to fast for him after they requested his assistance to repel the invading pagan Persians. Joyous Saturday and the week preceding it are counted separately from the forty day fast in accordance with the Apostolic Constitutions giving an extra eight days.

Other related fasting periods[link]

The number forty has many Biblical references: the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai with God (Exodus 24:18); the forty days and nights Elijah spent walking to Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8); the forty days and nights God sent rain in the great flood of Noah (Genesis 7:4); the forty years the Hebrew people wandered in the desert while traveling to the Promised Land (Numbers 14:33); the forty days Jonah gave in his prophecy of judgment to the city of Nineveh in which to repent or be destroyed (Jonah 3:4).

Jesus retreated into the wilderness, where He fasted for forty days, and was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1–2, Mark 1:12–13, Luke 4:1–2). He overcame all three of Satan's temptations by citing scripture to the devil, at which point the devil left Him, angels ministered to Jesus, and He began His ministry. Jesus further said that His disciples should fast "when the bridegroom shall be taken from them" (Matthew 9:15), a reference to his Passion. Since, presumably, the Apostles fasted as they mourned the death of Jesus, Christians have traditionally fasted during the annual commemoration of his burial.

It is the traditional belief that Jesus lay for forty hours in the tomb^[9] which led to the forty hours of total fast that preceded the Easter celebration in the early Church^[10] (the biblical reference to 'three days in the tomb' is understood as spanning three days, from Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning, rather than three 24 hour periods of time). One of the most important ceremonies at Easter was the baptism of the initiates on Easter Eve. The fast was initially undertaken by the catechumens to prepare them for the reception of this sacrament. Later, the period of fasting from Good Friday until Easter Day was extended to six days, to correspond with the six weeks of training, necessary to give the final instruction to those converts who were to be baptized.

Converts to Catholicism followed a strict catechumenate or period of instruction and discipline prior to baptism. In Jerusalem near the close of the fourth century, classes were held throughout Lent for three hours each day. With the legalization of Christianity (by the Edict of Milan) and its later imposition as the state religion of the Roman Empire, its character was endangered by the great influx of new members. In response, the Lenten fast and practices of self-renunciation were required annually of all Christians, both to show solidarity with the catechumens, and for their own spiritual benefit.

Etymology[link]

In Latin the term quadragesima (translation of the original Greek Τεσσαρακοστή, Tessarakostē, the "fortieth" day before Easter) is used. This nomenclature is preserved in Romance, Slavic and Celtic languages (for example, Spanish cuaresma, Portuguese quaresma, French carême, Italian quaresima, Romanian păresimi, Croatian korizma, Irish Carghas, and Welsh C(a)rawys). However in most Slavic languages the common name is simply a phrase meaning "fasting time" (as Czech postní doba) or "great fast" (as Russian великий пост vyeliki post).

In the late Middle Ages, as sermons began to be given in the vernacular instead of Latin, the English word lent was adopted. This word initially simply meant spring (as in the German language Lenz and Dutch lente) and derives from the Germanic root for long because in the spring the days visibly lengthen.^[11]

Associated customs[link]

There are traditionally forty days in Lent which are marked by fasting, both from foods and festivities, and by other acts of penance. The three traditional practices to be taken up with renewed vigour during Lent are prayer (justice towards God), fasting (justice towards self), and almsgiving (justice towards neighbour). Today, some people give up a vice of theirs, add something that will bring them closer to God, and often give the time or money spent doing that to charitable purposes or organizations.^[12]

In many liturgical Christian denominations, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday form the Easter Triduum.^[13] Lent is a season of grief that necessarily ends with a great celebration of Easter. It is known in Eastern Orthodox circles as the season of "Bright Sadness." It is a season of sorrowful reflection which is punctuated by breaks in the fast on Sundays.

In the Roman Catholic Mass, Lutheran Divine Service, and Anglican Eucharist, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is not sung during the Lenten season, disappearing on Ash Wednesday and not returning until the moment of the Resurrection during the Easter Vigil. On major feast days, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is recited, but this in no way diminishes the penitential character of the season; it simply reflects the joyful character of the Mass of the day in question. It is also used in the Mass of the Lord's Supper. Likewise, the Alleluia is not sung during Lent; it is replaced before the Gospel reading by a seasonal acclamation. In the pre-1970 form of the Roman Rite omission of the Alleluia begins with Septuagesima. In the Byzantine Rite, the Gloria (Great Doxology) continues to be used in its normal place in the Matins service, and the Alleluia appears all the more frequently, replacing "God is the Lord" at Matins.

In pre-1970 forms of the Roman Rite, the last two weeks of Lent are known as Passiontide, a period beginning on the Fifth Sunday in Lent, which in the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal is called the First Sunday in Passiontide and in earlier editions Passion Sunday. All statues (and in England paintings as well) in the church were traditionally veiled in violet. This was seen as in keeping with the Gospel of that Sunday (John 8:46–59), in which Jesus “hid himself” from the people. The veils were removed at the singing of the Gloria during the Easter Vigil. In 1970 the name "Passiontide" was dropped, although the last two weeks are markedly different from the rest of the season, and continuance of the tradition of veiling images is left to the decision of a country's conference of bishops.

Pre-Lenten festivals[link]

Lent personified at a Carnival celebration. Detail of 1559 painting "The Battle between Carnival and Lent" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pile of straw with a fir tree and a "witch" doll attached to it, for the traditional "Funken" bonfire on the First Sunday of Lent in Herdwangen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

The "Funken" set ablaze

The traditional carnival celebrations which precede Lent in many cultures have become associated with the season of fasting if only because they are a last opportunity for excess before Lent begins. The most famous pre-Lenten carnival in the world is celebrated in Rio de Janeiro; other famous Carnivals are held in Trinidad & Tobago, Venice, Cologne, Mobile, AL and New Orleans. It is known by the name Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, or Fat Tuesday.

In Lebanon and Syria, the last Thursday before lent, Catholics celebrate Khamis el sakara where they indulge themselves with alcoholic drinks.

Fasting and abstinence[link]

Fasting during Lent was more severe in ancient times than today. Socrates Scholasticus reports that in some places, all animal products were strictly forbidden, while others will permit fish, others permit fish and fowl, others prohibit fruit and eggs, and still others eat only bread. In some places, believers abstained from food for an entire day; others took only one meal each day, while others abstained from all food until 3 o'clock. In most places, however, the practice was to abstain from eating until the evening, when a small meal without vegetables or alcohol was eaten.^{[citation needed]}

During the early Middle Ages, meat, eggs and dairy products were generally forbidden. Thomas Aquinas argued that "they afford greater pleasure as food [than fish], and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust."^[14]

However, dispensations for dairy products were given, frequently for a donation^{[citation needed]}, from which several churches are popularly believed to have been built, including the "Butter Tower" of the Rouen Cathedral. In Spain, the bull of the Holy Crusade (renewed periodically after 1492) allowed the consumption of dairy products^[15] and eggs during Lent in exchange for a contribution to the conflict.

Giraldus Cambrensis in his Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales reports that "in Germany and the arctic regions," "great and religious persons," eat the tail of beavers as "fish" because of its superficial resemblance to a fish, "both the taste and colour of fish." The animal was also very abundant in Wales at the time.^[16]

In current Western societies the practice is considerably relaxed, though in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches abstinence from all animal products including fish, eggs, fowl and milk sourced from animals (e.g. goats and cows as opposed to the milk of soy beans and coconuts) is still commonly practiced, meaning only vegetarian (vegan) meals are consumed in many Eastern countries^[which?] for the entire fifty-five days of their Lent. In the Roman Catholic Church it is traditional to abstain from meat from mammals and fowl on Ash Wednesday and every Friday for the duration of Lent, although fish and dairy products are still permitted. On Ash Wednesday and Good Friday it is customary to fast for the day, with no meat, eating only one full meal, and if necessary, two small meals also.^[17]

Pursuant to Canon 1253, days of fasting and abstinence are set by the national Episcopal Conference. On days of fasting, one eats only one full meal, but may eat two smaller meals as necessary to keep up one's strength. The two small meals together must sum to less than the one full meal. Parallel to the fasting laws are the laws of abstinence. These bind those over the age of fourteen. On days of abstinence, the person must not eat meat or poultry. According to canon law, all Fridays of the year, Ash Wednesday and several other days are days of abstinence, though in most countries, the strict requirements for abstinence have been limited by the bishops (in accordance with Canon 1253) to the Fridays of Lent and Ash Wednesday. On other abstinence days, the faithful are invited to perform some other act of penance. A custom that developed later was to also give up something a person “enjoyed” receiving or doing for the duration of Lent. Although it is not required or part of any rule, many Christians today will also choose to give up something during the Lenten period.

Exceptions to abstinence on Fridays during the Lenten Season can occur through the dispensation of a particular bishop. For example, in the United States in areas where the diocesan patron is St. Patrick (as in the Archdiocese of New York) or where many Catholics share an Irish heritage (as in Boston), if St. Patrick's Day (March 17) falls on a Friday, the local bishop can grant a dispensation to all Catholics of the diocese from abstinence. (Approximately one third of all Catholic dioceses in the United States grant such a dispensation.^[18]) More universally, this occurs on the solemnities of St. Joseph and the Annunciation, which are always 19 and 25 March respectively. If the solemnities (19 March or 25 March), although not Holy Days of Obligation, fall on a Friday during Lent then the obligation to abstain is abrogated. Similarly, during those two solemnities, the faithful may temporarily partake of anything they gave up for Lent, unless they were trying to give up a habitual sin as their Lenten offering- which is not uncommon.^[19]

Contemporary legislation is rooted in the 1966 Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI, Paenitemini. He recommended that fasting be appropriate to the local economic situation, and that all Catholics voluntarily fast and abstain. He also allowed that fasting and abstinence might be substituted with prayer and works of charity in nations with a lower standard of living.

Traditionally, on Easter Sunday, Roman Catholics may cease their fasting and start again whatever they gave up for Lent, after they attend Mass on Easter Sunday. Orthodox Christians break their fast after the Paschal Vigil (a service which starts around 11:00 pm on Holy Saturday), which includes the Paschal celebration of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. At the end of the service, the priest will bless eggs, cheese, flesh meats and other items that the faithful have been abstaining from for the duration of Great Lent.

Lenten practices (as well as various other liturgical practices) are more common in Protestant circles than they once were. Many modern Protestants consider the observation of Lent to be a choice, rather than an obligation. They may decide to give up a favorite food or drink (e.g. chocolate, alcohol) or activity (e.g., going to the movies, playing video games, etc.) for Lent, or they may instead take on a Lenten discipline such as devotions, volunteering for charity work, and so on. In the Reformed tradition Lent is rejected. Ulrich Zwingli, considered the initial leader of the Reformed movement in Switzerland, made the Lenten fast representative of the difference between the traditional sacramentalism of the Catholic Church and the belief in "sola fide" that he was beginning to espouse. On the first fasting Sunday, 9 March, Zwingli and about a dozen other supporters purposely and publicly violated the Lenten fast by cutting and distributing two smoked sausages. Since then, the Reformed movement, including the Puritans in the English speaking world, have not observed Lent, sometimes making a demonstration of their rejection of it.

Media coverage of Lent[link]

During Lent, BBC's Radio Four normally broadcasts a series of fifteen minute programs called the Lent Talks. These are fifteen minute programmes that are normally broadcast on a Wednesday, and have featured various speakers.

Facts about Lent[link]

There are several holy days within the season of Lent:

• Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent for Roman Catholics and most mainline Reformed and Protestant traditions.
• Clean Monday (or "Ash Monday") is the first day of Lent in Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
• There is no Ash Wednesday in the Ambrosian Rite, and Lent begins liturgically on what the Roman Rite regards as first Sunday in Lent. Traditionally, the fast began on the first Monday of Lent.
• The Sundays in Lent carry Latin names in German Lutheranism, derived from the beginning of the Sunday's introit. The first is called Invocabit, the second Reminiscere, the third Oculi, the fourth Laetare, the fifth Judica. The sixth Sunday is Palm Sunday.
• The fourth Sunday in Lent, which marks the halfway point between Ash Wednesday and Easter, is referred to as Laetare Sunday by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and many other Christians because of the traditional Entrance Antiphon of the Mass. Due to the more "joyful" character of the day (since laetare in Latin means "rejoice"), the priest (as well as deacon and subdeacon) has the option of wearing vestments of a rose colour (pink) instead of violet.
• The fourth Lenten Sunday Mothering Sunday, which has become synonymous with Mother's Day in the United Kingdom, has its origin is a sixteenth century celebration of the Mother Church.
• The fifth Sunday in Lent, also known as Passion Sunday (however, that term is also applied to Palm Sunday) marks the beginning of Passiontide
• The sixth Sunday in Lent, commonly called Palm Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week, the final week of Lent immediately preceding Easter
• Wednesday of Holy Week is known as Spy Wednesday to commemorate the days on which Judas spied on Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane before betraying him
• Thursday is known as Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, and is a day Christians commemorate the Last Supper shared by Christ with his disciples
• Good Friday follows the next day, on which Christians remember Jesus' crucifixion and burial

Cross veiled during Passiontide in Lent (Pfarrkirche St. Martin in Tannheim, Baden Württemberg, Germany).

In the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Old Catholic, and many other churches, the Easter Triduum is a three-day event that begins with the entrance hymn of the Mass of the Lord's Supper. After this Holy Thursday evening celebration, the consecrated Hosts are taken from the altar solemnly to a place of reposition where the faithful are invited to worship the holy Body of Christ. On the next day the liturgical commemoration of the Passion of Jesus Christ is celebrated at 3 pm, unless a later time is chosen due to work schedules. This service consists of readings from the Scriptures especially John the Evangelist's account of the Passion of Jesus, followed by prayers, adoration of the cross of Jesus, and a communion service at which the hosts consecrated at the evening Mass of the day before are distributed. The Easter Vigil during the night between Holy Saturday afternoon and Easter Sunday morning starts with the blessing of a fire and a special candle and with readings from Scripture associated with baptism, then the Gloria in Excelsis Deo is sung, water is blessed, baptism and confirmation of adults may take place, and the people are invited to renew the promises of their own baptism, and finally Mass is celebrated in the usual way from the Preparation of the Gifts onwards.

Holy Week and the season of Lent, depending on denomination and local custom, end with Easter Vigil at sundown on Holy Saturday or on the morning of Easter Sunday. It is custom for some churches to hold sunrise services which include open air celebrations in some places.

In the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and many Anglican churches, the priest's vestments are violet during the season of Lent. On the fourth Sunday in Lent, rose-coloured (pink) vestments may be worn in lieu of violet. In some Anglican churches, a type of unbleached linen or muslin known as Lenten array is used during the first three weeks of Lent, and crimson during Passiontide. On holy days, the colour proper to the day is worn.^[20]

See also[link]

Christianity portal

• Asceticism
• Cold Food Festival
• Counting of the Omer
• Fasting in the Eastern Orthodox Church
• Fasting and abstinence in the Roman Catholic Church
• Fasting and abstinence of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
• Fast of Nineveh
• People's Sunday
• Quinquagesima
• Ramadan
• Tisha B'Av
• Vassa

References[link]

External links[link]

Look up Lent in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• The Lenten Season and How To Observe Lent
• Lent: Catholic Encyclopedia
• United Methodist Church: Lent and Easter Resources

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2010)

Erik Satie
Born	Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (1866-05-17)17 May 1866 Honfleur, France
Died	1 July 1925(1925-07-01) (aged 59) Paris, France
Occupation	Pianist, Composer
Partner	Suzanne Valadon

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (pronounced: [eʁik sati]) (17 May 1866 – Paris, 1 July 1925; signed his name Erik Satie after 1884) was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.^[1]

An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds") preferring this designation to that of a "musician", after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911.^[2]

In addition to his body of music, Satie also left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to the American culture chronicle Vanity Fair. Although in later life he prided himself on always publishing his work under his own name, in the late nineteenth century he appears to have used pseudonyms such as Virginie Lebeau and François de Paule in some of his published writings.

Early life and training[link]

Satie house and museum in Honfleur

Satie was the son of Alfred Satie and his wife Jane Leslie (née Anton), who was born in London to Scottish parents. Erik was born at Honfleur in Normandy; his home there is open to the public. When Satie was four years old, his family moved to Paris, his father having been offered a translator's job in the capital. After his mother's death in 1872, he was sent, together with his younger brother, Conrad, back to Honfleur, to live with his paternal grandparents. There, he received his first music lessons from a local organist. When his grandmother died in 1878, the two brothers were reunited with their father in Paris, who remarried (a piano teacher) shortly afterwards. From the early 1880s onwards, Satie started publishing salon compositions by his step-mother and himself, among others.

In 1879, Satie entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he was soon labelled untalented by his teachers. Georges Mathias, his professor of piano at the Conservatoire, described his pupil's piano technique in flatly negative terms, "insignificant and laborious" and "worthless".^[3] Émile Descombes called him "the laziest student in the Conservatoire".^[4] Years later, Satie related that Mathias, with great insistence, told him that his real talent lay in composing. After being sent home for two-and-a-half years, he was readmitted to the Conservatoire at the end of 1885, but was unable to make a much more favourable impression on his teachers than he had before, and, as a result, resolved to take up military service a year later. However, Satie's military career did not last very long; within a few months he was discharged after deliberately infecting himself with bronchitis.^[5]

Career[link]

Montmartre[link]

A caricature of Eric Satie by Santiago Rusiñol, 1891

In 1887, Satie left home to take lodgings in Montmartre. By this time, he had started what was to be an enduring friendship with the romantic poet Patrice Contamine, and had had his first compositions published by his father. He soon integrated with the artistic clientele of the Le Chat Noir Café-cabaret, and started publishing his Gymnopédies. Publication of compositions in the same vein (Ogives, Gnossiennes, etc.) followed. In the same period he befriended Claude Debussy. He moved to a smaller room, still in Montmartre (rue Cortot N° 6), in 1890. By 1891 he was the official composer and chapel-master of the Rosicrucian Order "Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique, du Temple et du Graal", led by Sâr Joséphin Péladan, which led to compositions such as Salut drapeau!, Le fils des étoiles, and the Sonneries de la Rose+Croix. Satie gave performances at the Salon de la Rose + Croix, organized by Péladan.

By mid-1892, he had composed the first pieces in a compositional system of his own making (Fête donnée par des Chevaliers Normands en l'honneur d'une jeune demoiselle), had provided incidental music to a chivalric esoteric play (two Prélude du Nazaréen), had had his first hoax published (announcing the premiere of Le bâtard de Tristan, an anti-Wagnerian opera he probably never composed), and had broken with Péladan, starting that autumn with the Uspud project, a "Christian Ballet", in collaboration with Contamine de Latour. While the comrades from both the Chat Noir and Miguel Utrillo's Auberge du Clou sympathised, a promotional brochure was produced for the project, which reads as a pamphlet for a new esoteric sect.

In 1893, he met the young Maurice Ravel for the first time, Satie's style emerging in the first compositions of the youngster. One of Satie's own compositions of that period, the Vexations, was to remain undisclosed until after his death. By the end of the year he had founded the Eglise Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur (the Metropolitan Church of Art of the Leading Christ). As its only member, in the role of "Parcier et Maître de Chapelle" he started to compose a Grande messe (later to become known as the Messe des pauvres), and wrote a flood of letters, articles and pamphlets showing off his self-assuredness in religious and artistic matters. To give an example: he applied for membership of the Académie Française twice, leaving no doubt in the application letter that the board of that organisation (presided by Camille Saint-Saëns) as much as owed him such membership. Such proceedings without doubt rather helped to wreck his popularity in the cultural establishment. In 1895 he inherited some money, allowing him to have more of his writings printed, and to change from wearing a priest-like habit to being the "Velvet Gentleman".

Move to Arcueil[link]

By mid-1896 all of Satie's financial means had vanished, and he had to move to cheaper and much smaller lodgings, first at the Rue Cortot,^[6] and two years later, after he'd composed the two first sets of Template:Pièces froides in 1897, to Arcueil, a suburb some five kilometres from the centre of Paris. During this period he re-established contact with his brother Conrad for numerous practical and financial matters, disclosing some of his inner feelings in the process. The letters to Conrad made it clear that he had set aside any religious ideas.

From 1899 on Satie started making money as a cabaret pianist, adapting over a hundred compositions of popular music for piano or piano and voice, adding some of his own. The most popular of these were Je te veux, text by Henry Pacory; Tendrement, text by Vincent Hyspa; Poudre d'or, a waltz; La diva de l'"Empire", text by Dominique Bonnaud/Numa Blès; Le Picadilly, a march; Légende californienne, text by Contamine de Latour lost, but the music later reappears in La belle excentrique; and many more, many of which have been lost. In his later years Satie would reject all his cabaret music as vile and against his nature,^[7] but for the time being, it was an income.

Only a few compositions that Satie took seriously remain from this period: Jack in the Box, music to a pantomime by Jules Depaquit (called a "clownerie" by Satie), Geneviève de Brabant, a short comic opera on a serious theme, text by Lord Cheminot, The Dreamy Fish, piano music to accompany a lost tale by Lord Cheminot, and a few others that were mostly incomplete, hardly any of them staged, and none of them published at the time.

Both Geneviève de Brabant and The Dreamy Fish have been analysed by Ornella Volta as containing elements of competition with Claude Debussy, of which Debussy was probably not aware, Satie not making this music public. Meanwhile, Debussy was having one of his first major successes with Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902, leading a few years later to ‘who-was-precursor-to-whom’ debates between the two composers, in which Maurice Ravel would also get involved.

In October 1905 Satie enrolled in Vincent d'Indy's Schola Cantorum de Paris to study classical counterpoint while still continuing his cabaret work. Most of his friends were as dumbfounded as the professors at the Schola when they heard about his new plan to return to the classrooms, especially as d'Indy was an admiring pupil of Saint-Saëns, not particularly favoured by Satie. Satie would follow these courses at the Schola, as a respected pupil, for more than five years, receiving a first (intermediate) diploma in 1908. Some of his classroom counterpoint-exercises, such as the Désespoir agréable, were published after his death. Another summary, of the period prior to the Schola, also appeared in 1911: the Trois morceaux en forme de poire, which was a kind of compilation of the best of what he had written up to 1903.^{[citation needed]}

Something that becomes clear through these published compilations is that Satie did not so much reject Romanticism and its exponents like Wagner, but that he rejected certain aspects of it. From his first composition to his last, he rejected the idea of musical development^{[citation needed]}, in the strict definition of this term: the intertwining of different themes in a development section of a sonata form. As a result, his contrapuntal and other works were very short; the "new, modern" Fugues do not extend further than the exposition of the theme(s). Generally, he would say that he did not think it permitted that a composer take more time from his public than strictly necessary.^{[citation needed]} Also Melodrama, in its historical meaning of the then popular romantic genre of "spoken words to a background of music", was something Satie avoided. His 1913 Le piège de Méduse could be seen as an absurdistic spoof of that genre.

In the meantime, other changes had also taken place: Satie had become a member of a radical socialist party, and had socialised with the Arcueil community: Amongst other things, he'd been involved in the "Patronage laïque" work for children. He also changed his appearance to that of the 'bourgeois functionary' with bowler hat, umbrella, etc. He channelled his medieval interests into a peculiar secret hobby: In a filing cabinet he maintained a collection of imaginary buildings, most of them described as being made out of some kind of metal, which he drew on little cards. Occasionally, extending the game, he would publish anonymous small announcements in local journals, offering some of these buildings, e.g. a "castle in lead", for sale or rent.

Height of success and influence[link]

Erik Satie: project of bust, 1913

Starting in 1912, Satie's new humorous miniatures for piano became very successful, and he wrote and published many of these over the next few years (most of them premiered by the pianist Ricardo Viñes). His habit of accompanying the scores of his compositions with all kinds of written remarks was now well established so that a few years later he had to insist that these not be read out during performances.^{[citation needed]} He had mostly stopped using barlines by this time. In some ways these compositions were very reminiscent^{[according to whom?]} of Rossini's compositions from the final years of his life, grouped under the name Péchés de vieillesse.

However the acceleration in Satie's life did not come so much from the success of his new piano pieces; it was Ravel who inadvertently triggered the characteristics of Satie's remaining years and thus influenced the successive progressive artistic and cultural movements that rapidly manifested themselves in Paris over the following years. Paris was seen as the artistic capital of the world, and the beginning of the new century appeared to have set many minds on fire.^{[citation needed]} In 1910 the "Jeunes Ravêlites", a group of young musicians around Ravel, proclaimed their preference for Satie's earlier work from before the Schola period, reinforcing the idea that Satie had been a precursor of Debussy.

At first Satie was pleased that at least some of his works were receiving public attention, but when he realised that this meant that his more recent work was overlooked or dismissed, he looked for other young artists who related better to his more recent ideas, so as to have better mutual support in creative activity. Thus young artists such as Roland-Manuel, and later Georges Auric, and Jean Cocteau, started to receive more of his attention than the "Jeunes".

As a result of his contact with Roland-Manuel, Satie again began publicising his thoughts, with far more irony than he had done before (amongst other things, the Mémoires d'un amnésique and Cahiers d'un mammifère).^[8]

With Jean Cocteau, whom he had first met in 1915, Satie started work on incidental music for a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (resulting in the Cinq grimaces). From 1916, he and Cocteau worked on the ballet Parade, which was premiered in 1917 by Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, with sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso, and choreography by Léonide Massine. Through Picasso Satie also became acquainted with other cubists, such as Georges Braque, with whom he would work on other, aborted, projects.

With Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, and Germaine Tailleferre Satie formed the Nouveaux jeunes, shortly after writing Parade. Later the group was joined by Francis Poulenc and Darius Milhaud. In September 1918, Satie – giving little or no explanation – withdrew from the Nouveaux jeunes. Jean Cocteau gathered the six remaining members, forming the Groupe des six (to which Satie would later have access, but later again would fall out with most of its members).

From 1919 Satie was in contact with Tristan Tzara, the initiator of the Dada movement. He became acquainted with other artists involved in the movement, such as Francis Picabia (later to become a Surrealist), André Derain, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Hugo and Man Ray, among others. On the day of his first meeting with Man Ray, the two fabricated the artist's first readymade: The Gift (1921). Satie contributed writing to the Dadaist publication 391. In the first months of 1922 he was surprised to find himself entangled in the argument between Tzara and André Breton about the true nature of avant-garde art, epitomised by the failure of the Congrès de Paris. Satie originally sides with Tzara, but manages to maintain friendly relations with most players in both camps. Meanwhile, an "Ecole d'Arcueil" had formed around Satie, with young musicians like Henri Sauguet, Maxime Jacob, Roger Désormière and Henri Cliquet-Pleyel.

Finally he composed an "instantaneist" ballet (Relâche) in collaboration with Picabia, for the Ballets Suédois of Rolf de Maré. In a simultaneous project, Satie added music to the surrealist film Entr'acte by René Clair, which was given as an intermezzo for Relâche.

Personal life[link]

Satie and Suzanne Valadon, an artists' model and artist in her own right, and a long-time friend of Miguel Utrillo (and mother of Maurice Utrillo), began an affair early in 1893. After their first night together, he proposed marriage. The two did not marry, but Valadon moved to a room next to Satie's at the Rue Cortot. Satie became obsessed with her, calling her his Biqui, and writing impassioned notes about "her whole being, lovely eyes, gentle hands, and tiny feet". During their relationship, Satie composed the Danses gothiques as a kind of prayer to restore peace of mind, and Valadon painted a portrait of Satie, which she gave to him. After six months she moved away, leaving Satie broken-hearted. Afterwards, he said that he was left with "nothing but an icy loneliness that fills the head with emptiness and the heart with sadness".^[9] It is believed this was the only intimate relationship Satie ever had.^[10]

Death[link]

After years of heavy drinking, Satie died on 1 July 1925 from cirrhosis of the liver.^[11] He is buried in the cemetery in Arcueil. There is a tiny stone monument designating a grassy area in front of an apartment building—'Parc Erik Satie'. Over the course of his 27 years in residence at Arcueil, no one had ever visited his room. After his death, Satie's friends discovered compositions that were totally unknown or thought to have been lost. The orchestral score to Parade was thought, by Satie, to have been left on a bus years before. These were found behind the piano, in the pockets of his velvet suits, and in other odd places, and included the Vexations; Geneviève de Brabant and other unpublished or unfinished stage works; The Dreamy Fish; many Schola Cantorum exercises; a previously unseen set of "canine" piano pieces; and several other works for piano, many untitled. Some of these would be published later as additional Gnossiennes, Pièces froides, Enfantines, and furniture music.

Media[link]

Gymnopedies – La 1 Ere. Lent et Douloureux

Performed by Robin Alciatore. Courtesy of Musopen

Gnossienne 1

Composed c. 1890.

Gnossienne 2

Composed c. 1890.

Gnossienne 3

Composed c. 1890.

Recordings and arrangements[link]

Piano works[link]

Recordings of Satie's piano works have been released by Cristina Ariagno, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, Jean-Joël Barbier, Aldo Ciccolini, Claude Coppens (live recording), Reinbert de Leeuw, Eve Egoyan, Philippe Entremont, Frank Glazer, Olof Höjer, Michel Legrand, Jacques Loussier, Anne Queffélec, Bill Quist, Pascal Rogé, João Paulo Santos, Yūji Takahashi, Branka Parlić, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, John Lenehan and Daniel Varsano, among others.

Orchestral and vocal[link]

• A recording of historical importance is Template:Erik Satie, Les inspirations insolites, re-issued by EMI as a 2-CD set, containing among other pieces: Geneviève de Brabant (in a version before Contamine's text had been recovered), Le piège de Méduse, Messe des pauvres, etc.
• Many other recordings exist: Parade/Relâche (Michel Plasson / Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse), Satie: Socrate [etc.] (Jean-Paul Fouchécourt / Ensemble), and recordings of songs, e.g., by Anne-Sophie Schmidt.

Arrangements in popular music[link]

• In 1968, Blood Sweat & Tears released their eponymous second album, which included an adaptation of Erik Satie's Gymnopédie #1 (arranged by Dick Halligan) which they titled as Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie (First and Second Movements). The first movement is a straightforward elaboration of the basic theme using flutes, an acoustic guitar and a triangle. The second is a far more abstract variation using only brass instruments. In 1969, Halligan received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Performance for the piece.
• In 1974, the jazz flutist Hubert Laws recorded an arrangement by Bob James of the "Gymnopedie #1" in his "In the Beginning" double album. The band featured keyboardist Bob James, guitarist Gene Bertoncini, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Steve Gadd, three strings, and Hubert's brother Ronnie Laws on tenor sax.
• In 1979 the band "Sky" (Tristan Fry, Francis Monkman, Kevin Peek, Herbie Flowers, and John Williams) included a version of Gymnopedie No1, which was arranged by John Williams, on the band's first album, which was entitled "Sky"
• In 1980, Gary Numan's 7-inch "We Are Glass" featured "Trois Gymnopedies (First Movement)" on the B-side.
• In 1987, the Serbian electronic music composer Mitar Subotić on his debut album Disillusioned! recorded a twenty-five minute long instrumental track "Thanx Mr. Rorschach - Ambijenti na muziku Erika Satija" ("Thanx Mr. Rorschach - Ambient to the music by Erik Satie"), as a kind of a musical Rorschach test to the music by Satie.
• In 1989, the Vienna Art Orchestra (directed by Mathias Rüegg) released The Minimalism of Eric Satie, a 2-LP set on the Swiss HatART label that included "reflections" on a number of Satie's works, notably three performances of Vexations in various instrumental/vocal combinations.
• In 1990, Movement 98's (Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne) single "Joy and Heartbreak" used the opening phrase of Trois Gymnopedies as the intro and instrumental.
• In 1994, Malcolm McLaren arranged Gnossienne 3&4 in his concept album Paris.
• In 1999, electronic music act Plaid's CD "Restproof Clockwork" included a track called "Tearisci" which is an uncredited version of Satie's "Pièces Froides, No. 2: Danses De Travers: III. Encore".
• In 2000, ex-Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett released the album, "Sketches of Satie", performing Satie's works on acoustic guitar, with contributions by his brother John on flute.
• The English electronic duo Isan recorded versions of the three Gymnopédies for a 2006 7-inch single, "Trois Gymnopedies" on the Morr Music record label.
• The 2006 video game Mother 3 features an arrangement of the 1st Gymnopedie as background music, titled "Leder's Gymnopedie".
• The 2006 movie The Painted Veil features Gnossienne No. 1 throughout the film.
• The 2nd movement of his Gymnopédies has been used in the original soundtrack of 2010 Japanese animated film The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya by Kyoto Animation studio. The full Gymnopédies as long as Gnossiennes are included in the 2nd CD of this OST.
• Ogive Number 2 (incorrectly labelled Ogive Number 1) was re-recorded electronically by William Orbit on his album Pieces in a Modern Style
• In 2011, singer-songwriter Tori Amos released an album entitled Night of Hunters, where her song "Battle of Trees" is a variation on Gnossienne no. 1.
• In 2011, Satie's "Gnossienne No.1" was used in the film Hugo.

See also[link]

• Ambient music
• Dada
• Impressionist music
• List of compositions by Erik Satie
• Surrealism

References[link]

Sources[link]

In English, unless indicated:

Writings by Satie[link]

• A Mammal's Notebook: Collected Writings of Erik Satie (Serpent's Tail; Atlas Arkhive, No 5, 1997) ISBN 0-947757-92-9 (with introduction and notes by Ornella Volta, translations by Anthony Melville, contains several drawings by Satie)
• Correspondence presque complète: Réunie, établie et présentée par Ornella Volta (Paris: Fayard/Imes, 2000; 1265pp) ISBN 2-213-60674-9 (an almost complete edition of Satie's letters, in French)

Books and articles on Satie[link]

• Allan, Kenneth R. “Metamorphosis in 391: A Cryptographic Collaboration by Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and Erik Satie.” Art History 34, No. 1 (February, 2011): 102-125.
• Davis, Mary E., Erik Satie. Reaktion Books – Critical Lives. June 2007. ISBN 978-1-86189-321-5
• Gillmor, Alan M., Erik Satie (Twayne Pub., 1988, reissued 1992; 387pp) ISBN 0-393-30810-3
• Myers, Rollo H., Erik Satie. (Dover Publications, New York 1968.) ISBN 0-486-21903-8
• Orledge, Robert, Satie Remembered (London: Faber and Faber, London, 1995)
• Orledge, Robert, Satie the Composer Cambridge University Press: 1990; 437pp – in the series Music in the Twentieth Century [ed.] Arnold Whittall) ISBN 0-521-35037-9
• Templier, Pierre-Daniel (translated by Elena L. French and David S. French), Erik Satie (The MIT Press, 1969, reissued 1971) ISBN 0-262-70005-0 and (New York: Da Capo Press, 1980 reissue) ISBN 0-306-76039-8. Note: Templier extensively consulted Conrad, Erik Satie's brother, when writing this first biography that appeared in 1932. The English translation was, however, criticised by John Cage; in a letter to Ornella Volta (25 May 1983) he referred to the translation as disappointing compared to the formidable value of the original biography.
• Volta, Ornella and Simon Pleasance, Erik Satie (Hazan: The Pocket Archives Series, 1997; 200pp) ISBN 2-85025-565-3
• Volta, Ornella, transl. Michael Bullock, Satie Seen Through His Letters (Marion Boyars, 1989) ISBN 0-7145-2980-X
• Whiting, Steven, Satie the Bohemian: from Cabaret to Concert Hall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999; 596pp). A fully researched account of Satie's musical career in what then was regarded as popular music.

Other[link]

• Satie Home page – Niclas Fogwall's website dedicated to Satie

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Erik Satie

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Erik Satie

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Erik Satie

Information and listening[link]

• Biography and photos
• UbuWeb's Erik Satie pages – including an Erik Satie Primer and downloadable recordings
• About Erik Satie – The eccentric Impressionist French composer and musician
• Erik Satie at Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music
• Three Gymnopedies by Eric Satie
• (French) erik-satie.com Website dedicated to the musician, with blog, timeline, gallery, biography
• Works by or about Erik Satie in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Scores[link]

• Public domain scores Satie's Scores + Audio
• Free scores by Erik Satie at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Erik Satie in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Erik Satie in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• www.kreusch-sheet-music.net Free Scores by Satie
• Satie's Scores – by the Mutopia Project

Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel in 1912
Born	Joseph Maurice Ravel (1875-03-07)March 7, 1875 Ciboure, France
Died	December 28, 1937(1937-12-28) (aged 62) Paris, France
Resting place	Levallois-Perret
Nationality	French
Occupation	Composer
Partner	None
Relatives	Marie Delouart, Joseph Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects. Much of his piano music, chamber music, vocal music and orchestral music has entered the standard concert repertoire.

Ravel's piano compositions, such as Jeux d'eau, Miroirs, Le tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la nuit, demand considerable virtuosity from the performer, and his orchestral music, including Daphnis et Chloé and his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, uses a variety of sound and instrumentation.

Ravel is perhaps known best for his orchestral work Boléro (1928), which he considered trivial and once described as "a piece for orchestra without music".^[1]

According to SACEM, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that of any other French composer. According to the law of most countries (including all members of the World Trade Organization), Ravel's works have been in the public domain since January 1, 2008, in most countries.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Birthplace of Maurice Ravel in Ciboure

Ravel was born in the Basque town of Ciboure, France, near Biarritz, close to the border with Spain, in 1875. His mother, Marie Delouart, was of Basque descent and grew up in Madrid, Spain, while his father, Joseph Ravel, was a Swiss inventor and industrialist from French Haute-Savoie.^[2] Both were Catholics and they provided a happy and stimulating household for their children. Some of Joseph's inventions were quite important, including an early internal-combustion engine and a notorious circus machine, the "Whirlwind of Death", an automotive loop-the-loop that was quite a success until a fatal accident at the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1903.^[3] Joseph delighted in taking his sons to factories to see the latest mechanical devices, and he also had a keen interest in music and culture.^[4] Ravel substantiated his father's early influence by stating later, “As a child, I was sensitive to music—to every kind of music.”^[5]

Ravel was very fond of his mother, and her Basque-Spanish heritage was a strong influence on his life and music. Among his earliest memories are folk songs she sang to him.^[6] The family moved to Paris three months after the birth of Maurice, and there his younger brother Édouard was born. Édouard became his father’s favorite and also became an engineer.^[6] At age six, Maurice began piano lessons with Henry Ghys and received his first instruction in harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Charles-René. His earliest public piano recital was in 1889 at age fourteen.^[7]

Though obviously talented at the piano, Ravel demonstrated a preference for composing. He was particularly impressed by the new Russian works conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Exposition Universelle in 1889.^[8] The foreign music at the exhibition also had a great influence on Ravel’s contemporaries Erik Satie, Emmanuel Chabrier, and most significantly Claude Debussy. That year Ravel also met Ricardo Viñes, who would become one of his best friends, one of the foremost interpreters of his piano music, and an important link between Ravel and Spanish music.^[9] The students shared an appreciation for Richard Wagner, the Russian school, and the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Stéphane Mallarmé.^[10]

The Conservatoire and early career[link]

Théâtre du Conservatoire, Paris: in Ravel's day, home to the Conservatoire de Paris

Ravel’s parents encouraged his musical pursuits and sent him to the Conservatoire de Paris, first as a preparatory student and eventually as a piano major. His teachers included Émile Descombes. He received a first prize in the piano student competition in 1891.^[11] Overall, however, he was not successful academically even as his musicianship matured dramatically. Considered “very gifted”, Ravel was also called “somewhat heedless” in his studies.^[11] Around 1893, Ravel created his earliest compositions, and he was introduced by his father to the café pianist Erik Satie, whose distinctive personality and unorthodox musical experiments proved influential.^[10]

Ravel was not a "bohemian" and evidenced little of the typical trauma of adolescence. At twenty years of age, Ravel was already "self-possessed, a little aloof, intellectually biased, given to mild banter."^[12] He dressed like a dandy and was meticulous about his appearance and demeanor. Short in stature, light in frame, and bony in features, Ravel had the "appearance of a well-dressed jockey".^[13] His large head seemed suitably matched to his great intellect. He was well-read and later accumulated a library of over 1,000 volumes.^[13] In his younger adulthood, Ravel was usually bearded in the fashion of the day, though later he dispensed with all whiskers. Though reserved, Ravel was sensitive and self-critical, and had a mischievous sense of humor.^[12] He became a life-long tobacco smoker in his youth, and he enjoyed strongly flavored meals, fine wine, and spirited conversation.^[14]

After failing to meet the requirement of earning a competitive medal in three consecutive years, Ravel was expelled in 1895. He turned down a music professorship in Tunisia then returned to the Conservatoire in 1898 and started his studies with Gabriel Fauré, determined to focus on composing rather than piano playing.^[15] He studied composition with Fauré until he was dismissed from the class in 1900 for having won neither the fugue nor the composition prize. He remained an auditor with Fauré until he left the Conservatoire in 1903.^[16] Ravel found his teacher’s personality and methods sympathetic and they remained friends and colleagues. He also undertook private studies with André Gedalge, whom he later stated was responsible for "the most valuable elements of my technique."^[17] Ravel studied the ability of each instrument carefully in order to determine the possible effects, and was sensitive to their color and timbre. This may account for his success as an orchestrator and as a transcriber of his own piano works and those of other composers, such as Mussorgsky, Debussy and Schumann.^[18]

His first significant work, Habanera for two pianos, was later transcribed into the well-known third movement of his Rapsodie espagnole, which he dedicated to Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot, another of his professors at the Conservatoire. His first published work was Menuet antique, dedicated to and premiered by Viñes.^[19] In 1899, Ravel conducted his first orchestral piece, Shéhérazade, and was greeted by a raucous mixture of boos and applause. Critics termed the piece "a jolting debut: a clumsy plagiarism of the Russian School" and called Ravel a “mediocrely gifted debutante ... who will perhaps become something if not someone in about ten years, if he works hard.”^[20] As the most gifted composer of his class and as a leader, with Debussy, of avant-garde French music, Ravel would continue to have a difficult time with the critics for some time to come.^[21]

	Pavane pour une infante défunte noicon Performed by Thérèse Dussaut.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Around 1900, Ravel joined with a number of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians who were referred to as the Apaches (hooligans), a name coined by Viñes to represent his band of "artistic outcasts".^[22] The group met regularly until the beginning of World War I and the members often inspired each other with intellectual argument and performances of their works before the group. For a time, the influential group included Igor Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla.^[23] One of the first works Ravel performed for the Apaches was Jeux d'eau, his first piano masterpiece and clearly a pathfinding impressionistic work. Viñes performed the public premiere of this piece and Ravel's other early masterpiece Pavane pour une infante défunte in 1902.^[24]

During his years at the Conservatoire, Ravel tried numerous times to win the prestigious Prix de Rome, but to no avail; he was probably considered too radical by the conservatives, including Director Théodore Dubois.^[25] One of Ravel's submitted pieces, the String Quartet in F, probably modeled on Debussy’s Quartet (1893), is now a standard work of chamber music, though at the time it was criticized and found lacking academically.^[26] In 1905, Ravel's final year of eligibility for the Prix de Rome, Ravel did not even pass the preliminary test, despite being favored to win one of the two first prizes available.^[27] Instead, all six selected finalists were students of Charles Lenepveu, a member of the jury and heir apparent of Dubois as director of the Conservatoire. The scandal – named the "Ravel Affair" by the Parisian press – engaged the entire artistic community, pitting conservatives against the avant-garde, and eventually caused the resignation of Dubois and his replacement by Fauré instead of Lenepveu, a vindication of sorts for Ravel.^[28] Alfred Edwards, editor of Le Matin, who had taken particular interest in the incident, took Ravel on a seven-week canal trip on his yacht Aimée through the Low Countries in June and July 1905, the first time Ravel traveled abroad.^[29] Though deprived of the opportunity to study in Rome, the decade after the scandal proved to be Ravel's most productive, and included his "Spanish period".^[30]

Ravel and Debussy[link]

Ravel met Debussy in the 1890s. Debussy was older than Ravel by some twelve years and his pioneering Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune was influential among the younger musicians including Ravel, who were impressed by the new language of impressionism.^[31] In 1900, Ravel was invited to Debussy’s home and they played each other’s works. Viñes became the preferred piano performer for both composers and a go-between. The two composers attended many of the same musical events and were performed at the same concerts. Ravel and the Apaches were strong supporters of Debussy’s controversial public debut of his unconventional opera Pelléas et Mélisande, which garnered Debussy both fame and scorn.^[25]

The two musicians also appreciated much the same musical heritage and operated in the same artistic milieu, but they differed in terms of personality and their approach to music. Debussy was considered more spontaneous and casual in his composing while Ravel was more attentive to form and craftsmanship.^[32] Even though they worked independently of one another, because they employed differing means to similar ends, and because superficial similarities and even some more substantive ones are evident, the public and the critics associated them more than the facts warranted.^[33]

Ravel wrote that Debussy’s “genius was obviously one of great individuality, creating its own laws, constantly in evolution, expressing itself freely, yet always faithful to French tradition. For Debussy, the musician and the man, I have had profound admiration, but by nature I am different from Debussy.”^[34] Ravel further stated, “I think I have always personally followed a direction opposed to that of the symbolism of Debussy.”^[15]

They admired each other’s music and Ravel even played Debussy’s work in public on occasion. However, Ravel did criticize Debussy sometimes, particularly regarding his orchestration, and he once said, "If I had the time, I would reorchestrate La mer."^[32]

By 1905, factions formed for each composer and the two groups began feuding in public. Disputes arose as to questions of chronology about their respective works and who influenced whom. The public tension caused personal estrangement.^[35] As Ravel said, “It is probably better after all for us to be on frigid terms for illogical reasons.”^[33] Ravel stoically absorbed superficial comparisons with Debussy promulgated by biased critics, including Pierre Lalo, an anti-Ravel critic who stated, “Where M. Debussy is all sensitivity, M. Ravel is all insensitivity, borrowing without hesitation not only technique but the sensitivity of other people.”^[35] During 1913, in a remarkable coincidence, both Ravel and Debussy independently produced and published musical settings for poems by Stéphane Mallarmé, again provoking comparisons of their work and their perceived influence on each other, which continued even after Debussy’s death five years later.^[36]

Early major works[link]

Ravel in 1906 (photograph by Pierre Petit)

The next of Ravel’s piano compositions to become famous was Miroirs (Mirrors, 1905), five piano pieces which marked a “harmonic evolution” and which one commentator described as “intensely descriptive and pictorial. They banish all sentiment in expression but offer to the listener a number of refined sensory elements which can be appreciated according to his imagination.”^[37] Next was his Histoires naturelles (Nature Stories), five humorous songs evoking the presence of five animals.^[38] Two years later, Ravel completed his Rapsodie espagnole, his first major "Spanish" piece, written first for piano four hands and then scored for orchestra. Though it employs folk-like melodies, no actual folk songs are quoted.^[39] It premiered in 1908 to generally good reviews, with one critic stating that it was "one of the most interesting novelties of the season", while Pierre Lalo (as usual) reacted negatively, calling it "laborious and pedantic".^[40] Next followed Ravel's music for the opera L'heure espagnole (The Spanish Hour), full of humor and rich in color, employing a wide variety of instruments and their characteristic qualities, including the trombone, sarrusophone, tuba, celesta, xylophone, and bells.^[41] The libretto was by Franc-Nohain, after his own comedy of the same name.

Ravel further extended his mastery of impressionistic piano music with Gaspard de la nuit, based on a collection by the same name by Aloysius Bertrand, with some influence from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, particularly in the second part.^[42] Viñes, as usual, performed the premiere but his performance displeased Ravel, and their relationship became strained from then on. For future premieres, Ravel replaced Viñes with Marguerite Long.^[43] Also unhappy with the conservative musical establishment which was discouraging performance of new music, around this time Ravel, Fauré, and some of his pupils formed the Société musicale indépendante (SMI). In 1910, the society presented the premiere of Ravel’s Ma mère l'oye (Mother Goose) in its original piano duet version.^[44] With this work, Ravel followed in the tradition of Schumann, Mussorgsky, and Debussy, who also created memorable works of childhood themes. In 1912, Ravel's Ma mère l'oye was performed as a ballet (with added music) after being first transcribed from piano to orchestra.^[45] Looking to expand his contacts and career, Ravel made his first foreign tours to England and Scotland during 1909 and 1911.^[46]

[edit] Daphnis et Chloé

Ravel began work with impresario Sergei Diaghilev during 1909 for the ballet Daphnis et Chloé commissioned by Diaghilev with the lead danced by the famous ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilev had taken Paris by storm the previous year in his Parisian opera debut, Boris Godunov.^[45] Daphnis et Chloé took three years to complete, with conflicts constantly arising among the principal artists, including Léon Bakst (sets and costumes), Michel Fokine (libretto), and Ravel (music).^[47] In frustration, Diaghilev nearly cancelled the project. The ballet had an unenthusiastic reception and lasted only two performances, only to be revived to acclaim a year later. Igor Stravinsky called Daphnis et Chloé "one of the most beautiful products of all French music" and author Burnett James claims that it is "Ravel's most impressive single achievement, as it is his most opulent and confident orchestral score".^[48] The work is notable for its rhythmic diversity, lyricism, and evocations of nature. The score utilizes a large orchestra and two choruses, one onstage and one offstage.^[49] So exhausting was the effort to score the ballet that Ravel's health deteriorated, with a diagnosis of neurasthenia soon forcing him to rest for several months.^[50] During 1914, just as World War I began, Ravel composed his Piano Trio (for piano, violin, and cello) with its Basque themes. The piece, difficult to play well, is considered a masterpiece among trio works.^[51]

War years[link]

Although he considered his small stature (1.61 m)^[52] and light weight an advantage to becoming an aviator, and he tried every means of securing service as a flyer, during the First World War Ravel was not allowed to enlist as a pilot because of his age and weak health.^[53] Instead, he became a truck driver stationed at the Verdun front.^[54] At one point Ravel's unit engaged a German unit that included a young Adolf Hitler.^[55] With his mother’s death in 1917, his fondest relationship ended and he fell into a “horrible despair”, adding to his ill health and the general gloom over the suffering endured by the people of his country during the war. However, during the war years, Ravel did manage some compositions, including one of his most popular works, Le tombeau de Couperin, a commemoration of the musical ideals of François Couperin, the early 18th-century composer, which premiered in 1919.^[56] Each movement is dedicated to a friend of Ravel's who died in the war, with the final movement dedicated to the deceased husband of Ravel’s favorite pianist Marguerite Long.^[56] During the war, the Ligue Nationale pour la Defense de la Musique Française (National League for the Defense of French Music) was formed but Ravel, despite his strong antipathy for the German aggression, declined to join stating:

“it would be dangerous for French composers to ignore systematically the works of their foreign colleagues, and thus form themselves into a sort of national coterie: our musical art, so rich at the present time, would soon degenerate and become isolated by its own academic formulas.”^[54]

Ravel was exhausted and lacking creative spirit at the war’s end in 1918. With the death of Debussy and the emergence of Satie, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky, modern classical music had a new style to which Ravel would shortly re-group and make his contribution.^[57]

1920s[link]

Ravel's house in Montfort-l'Amaury, where the composer lived from 1921 until his death

Around 1920, Diaghilev commissioned Ravel to write La valse (The Waltz), originally named Wien (Vienna), which was to be used for a projected ballet. The piece, conceived many years earlier, became a waltz with a macabre undertone, famous for its “fantastic and fatal whirling”. However, it was rejected by Diaghilev as “not a ballet. It’s a portrait of ballet”. Ravel, hurt by the comment, ended the relationship.^[58] Subsequently, it became a popular concert work and when the two men met again in 1925, Ravel refused to shake Diaghilev's hand. Diaghilev challenged Ravel to a duel, but friends persuaded Diaghilev to recant. The two never met again.^[59]

In 1920, the French government awarded Ravel the Légion d'honneur, but he refused it.^[60] The next year, he retired to the French countryside where he continued to write music, albeit even less prolifically, but in more tranquil surroundings.^[61] He returned regularly to Paris for performances and socializing, and increased his foreign concert tours. Ravel maintained his influential participation with the SMI which continued its active role of promoting new music, particularly of British and American composers such as Arnold Bax, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aaron Copland, and Virgil Thomson.^[62] With Debussy’s death, Ravel became perceived popularly as the main composer of French classical music. As Fauré stated in a letter to Ravel in October 1922, “I am happier than you can imagine about the solid position which you occupy and which you have acquired so brilliantly and so rapidly. It is a source of joy and pride for your old professor.”^[63] In 1922, Ravel completed his Sonata for Violin and Cello. Dedicated to Debussy’s memory, the work features the thinner texture popular with the younger postwar composers.^[63]

The English, in particular, lauded Ravel, as The Times reported April 16, 1923, “Since the death of Debussy, he has represented to English musicians the most vigorous current in modern French music."^[63] In reality, however, Ravel’s own music was no longer considered au courant in France. Satie had become the inspiring force for the new generation of French composers known as Les Six.^[64] Ravel was fully aware of this, and was mostly effective in preventing a serious breach between his generation of musicians and the younger group.^[64]

In post-war Paris, American musical influence was strong. Jazz particularly was played in the cafes and became popular, and French composers including Ravel and Darius Milhaud were applying jazz elements to their work.^[18] Also in vogue was a return to simplicity in orchestration and a transition from the great scale of the works of Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev were in the ascendant, and Arnold Schoenberg's experiments were leading music into atonality.^[65] These trends posed challenges for Ravel, always a slow and deliberate composer, who desired to keep his music relevant but still revered the past. This may have played a part in his declining output and longer composing time during the 1920s.^[65]

Around 1922, Ravel completed his famous orchestral arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky, which through its widespread popularity brought Ravel great fame and substantial profit.^[18] The first half of the 1920s was a particularly lean period for composing but Ravel did complete successful concert tours to Amsterdam, Milan, London, Madrid, and Vienna, which also boosted his fame. By 1925, by virtue of the unwelcomed pressure of a performance deadline, he finally finished his opera L'enfant et les sortilèges, with its significant jazz and ragtime accents. Famed writer Colette provided the libretto.^[66] Around this time, he also completed Chansons madécasses, the summit of his vocal art.^[67]

In 1927, Ravel’s String Quartet received its first complete recording. By this time Ravel, like Edward Elgar, had become convinced of the importance of recording his works, especially with his input and direction. He made recordings nearly every year from then until his death.^[68] That same year, he completed and premiered his Sonata for Violin and Piano, his last chamber work, with its second movement (titled “Blues”) gaining much attention.^[69]

Ravel also served as a juror with Florence Meyer Blumenthal in awarding the Prix Blumenthal, a grant given between 1919 and 1954 to young French painters, sculptors, decorators, engravers, writers, and musicians.^[70]

American tour[link]

Ravel at the piano, accompanied by Canadian singer Éva Gauthier, during his American tour, March 7, 1928. Third from right (standing) is conductor-composer Manoah Leide-Tedesco. At far right is George Gershwin.

After two months of planning, in 1928 Ravel made a four-month concert tour in North America, for a promised minimum of $10,000^[68] (approximately $135,349, adjusted for inflation^[71]). In New York City, he received a standing ovation, unlike any of his unenthusiastic premieres in Paris. His all-Ravel concert in Boston was equally acclaimed.^[72] The noted critic Olin Downes wrote, “Mr. Ravel has pursued his way as an artist quietly and very well. He has disdained superficial or meretricious effects. He has been his own most unsparing critic.”^[73] Ravel conducted most of the leading orchestras in the U.S. from coast to coast and visited twenty-five cities.^[74]

He also met the American composer George Gershwin in New York and went with him to hear jazz in Harlem, probably hearing some of the famous jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington.^[75] There is a story that when Gershwin met Ravel, he mentioned that he would like to study with the French composer. According to Gershwin, the Frenchman retorted, "Why do you want to become a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?"^[76] The second part of the story has Ravel asking Gershwin how much money he made. Upon hearing Gershwin's reply, Ravel suggested that maybe he should study with Gershwin. This tale may well be apocryphal: Gershwin seems also to have told a near-identical story about a conversation with Arnold Schoenberg, and some have claimed it was with Igor Stravinsky. (See George Gershwin.) In any event, this had to have been before Ravel wrote Boléro, which became financially very successful for him.

Ravel then visited New Orleans and imbibed the jazz scene there as well. His admiration of jazz, increased by his American visit, caused him to include some jazz elements in a few of his later compositions, especially the two piano concertos. The great success of his American tour made Ravel famous internationally.^[77]

Final years[link]

After returning to France, Ravel composed his most famous and controversial orchestral work Boléro, originally called Fandango. Ravel called it “an experiment in a very special and limited direction”.^[78] He stated his idea for the piece, “I am going to try to repeat it a number of times on different orchestral levels but without any development.”^[79] He conceived of it as an accompaniment to a ballet and not as an orchestral piece as, in his own opinion, “it has no music in it”, and was somewhat taken aback by its popular success.^[79] A public dispute began with conductor Arturo Toscanini. The Italian maestro, taking liberties with Ravel’s strict instructions, conducted the piece at a faster tempo and with an “accelerando at the finish”. Ravel insisted “I don’t ask for my music to be interpreted, but only that it should be played.” In the end, the feuding only helped to increase the work’s fame. A Hollywood film titled Bolero (1934), starring Carole Lombard and George Raft, made major use of the theme.^[80] Ravel made one of the few recordings of his own music when he conducted his Boléro with the Lamoureux Orchestra in 1930.

Remarkably, Ravel composed both of his piano concertos simultaneously.^[81] He completed the Concerto for the Left Hand first. The work was commissioned by Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm during World War I. Ravel was inspired by the technical challenges of the project. As Ravel stated, “In a work of this kind, it is essential to give the impression of a texture no thinner than that of a part written for both hands.”^[82] At the premiere of the work, Ravel, not proficient enough to perform the work with only his left hand, played two-handed and Wittgenstein was reportedly underwhelmed by it. But later Wittgenstein stated, “Only much later, after I’d studied the concerto for months, did I become fascinated by it and realized what a great work it was.”^[83] In 1933, Wittgenstein played the work in concert for the first time to instant acclaim.^[84] Critic Henry Prunières wrote, “From the opening measures, we are plunged into a world in which Ravel has but rarely introduced us.”^[84]

The other piano concerto was completed a year later. Its lighter tone follows the models of Mozart, Domenico Scarlatti, and Saint-Saëns, and also makes use of jazz-like themes.^[85] Ravel dedicated the work to his favorite pianist, Marguerite Long, who played it and popularized it across Europe in over twenty cities, and they recorded it together in 1932.^[86] EMI later reissued the 1932 recording on LP and CD. Although Ravel was listed as the conductor on the original 78-rpm discs, it is possible he merely supervised the recording.

Ravel, ever modest, was bemused by the critics' sudden favor of him since his American tour: “Didn’t I represent to the critics for a long time the most perfect example of insensitivity and lack of emotion?... And the successes they have given me in the past few years are just as unimportant.”^[84]

Illness and death[link]

In 1932, Ravel suffered a major blow to the head in a taxi accident. This injury was not considered serious at the time.^[87] However, afterwards he began to experience aphasia-like symptoms and was frequently absent-minded.^[88] He had begun work on music for a film, Adventures of Don Quixote (1933) from Miguel de Cervantes's celebrated novel, featuring the Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin and directed by G. W. Pabst. When Ravel became unable to compose, and could not write down the musical ideas he heard in his mind, Pabst hired Jacques Ibert. However, three songs for baritone and orchestra that Ravel composed for the film were later published under the title Don Quichotte a Dulcinée, and have been performed and recorded.^[87]

On April 8, 2008, the New York Times published an article suggesting Ravel may have been in the early stages of frontotemporal dementia during 1928, and this might account for the repetitive nature of Boléro.^[89] This accords with an earlier article, published in a journal of neurology, that closely examines Ravel's clinical history and argues that his works Boléro and Piano Concerto for the Left Hand both indicate the impacts of neurological disease.^[90] This is contradicted somewhat, however, by the earlier cited comments by Ravel about how he created the deliberately repetitious theme for Boléro.

In late 1937, Ravel consented to experimental brain surgery, evidently with some hesitation. On December 17, he entered a hospital in Paris, following the advice of the well-known neurosurgeon Clovis Vincent. Vincent assumed there was brain tumor, and on December 19 operated on Ravel. No tumor was found, but there was some shrinkage of the left hemisphere of his brain, which was re-inflated with serous fluid. When Ravel awoke from the anaesthesia, he asked for his brother, but quickly sank into a deep coma, from which he never awoke.^[91] He died on December 28, at the age of 62, in Paris.

Ravel's death was probably a result of the brain surgery, with the underlying cause arguably being a brain injury caused by the automobile accident in 1932, and not from a brain tumor as some believe.^[92] This confusion may arise because his friend George Gershwin had died from a brain tumor only five months earlier.

On December 30, 1937, Ravel was buried next to his parents in a granite tomb at the cemetery at Levallois-Perret, a suburb of northwest Paris.

Personal life[link]

Ravel is not known to have had any intimate relationships, and his personal life, and especially his sexuality, remains a mystery. Ravel made a remark at one time suggesting that because he was such a perfectionist composer, so devoted to his work, he could never have a lasting intimate relationship with anyone.^[93] However, according to close friend and student Manuel Rosenthal, he asked violinist Hélène Jourdan-Mourhange to marry him, although she dismissed him, saying 'No, Maurice, I'm extremely fond of you, as you know, but only as a friend, and I couldn't possibly consider marrying you.'^[94] He is quoted as saying "The only love affair I have ever had was with music".^[95] Some of his friends suggested that Ravel frequented the bordellos of Paris, but no factual evidence has ever been found to substantiate this rumor.

A recent hypothesis presented by David Lamaze, a composition teacher at the Conservatoire de Rennes in France, is that he hid in his music representations of the nickname and the name of Misia Godebska, transcribed into two groups of notes, Godebska = G D E B A and Misia = Mi + Si + A = E B A. He was invited onto her boat during a 1905 cruise on the Rhine after his failure at the Prix de Rome, for which her husband, Alfred Edwards, organized a scandal in the newspapers. This same man owned the Casino de Paris where the Ravel family had a number staged, Tourbillon de la mort (A Car Somersault). The family of her half-brother, Cipa Godebski, is said to have been like a second family for Ravel. In 1907 on Misia's boat L'Aimée, Ravel completed L'heure espagnole and the Rapsodie espagnole, and at the premiere of Daphnis et Chloé, Ravel arrived late and did not go to his box but to Misia's, where he offered her a Japanese doll. In her memoirs, Misia hid all these facts.^[96]

In his Maurice Ravel: A Life, published in 2000, biographer Benjamin Ivry presents evidence in support of his thesis that Ravel's lack of known intimate relationships may be explained if he was a "very secretive" gay man. Ivry also attempts to illustrate examples where Ravel's sexuality may have been expressed in his musical compositions. In his review^[97] of Ivry's biography for Library Journal Larry Lipkis is persuaded by Ivry's research that, "There seems to be little question that Ravel was an affected, intensely secretive dandy with gay inclinations," but also expresses the view that Ivry's work is less persuasive in definitively linking Ravel's sexuality to characteristics of his musical oeuvre.

Legacy[link]

Many of Ravel's works are protected by copyright and due to various posthumous extensions will remain so until 2032 in the EU and US. The composer died childless and left everything to his brother Edouard who turned Ravel's house into a museum. Edouard was severely injured in a car accident in 1954 and required near constant care. In 1957, Edouard announced his intention to deed 80% of the composer's posthumous royalties to the city of Paris and endow a Nobel Prize in music.

Instead, Edouard consigned the rights to his nurse, Jeanne Taverne, and her husband Alexandre, a chauffer. When Edouard Ravel died in 1960, the Ravel estate fell subject to extensive litigation for ten years, reaching France's highest appellate court. Jeanne Taverne died before the litigation ended. During this period, Jean-Jacques Lemoine, the legal director of SACEM (the organization that collects and distributes royalties in France), froze distribution of Ravel's account.

When the litigation concluded, Lemoine resigned from SACEM and set up a shell company, Arima, with Alexandre Taverne for collecting Ravel's royalties. The company is based in Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands in order to avoid French taxes. The two also sued Ravel's publisher, then nearing retirement, to re-write the original contracts, consigning a greater percentage of the royalties to Arima than Durand's publisher. Since that time, the shell company has collected at least £30m and none of Ravel's estate has gone to the Ravel family or to further the cause of French music.^[98]

Musicality[link]

Musical sources[link]

Active during a period of great artistic innovations and diversification, Ravel benefited from many sources and influences, though his music defies any facile classification. As Vladimir Jankélévitch notes in his biography, "no influence can claim to have conquered him entirely […]. Ravel remains ungraspable behind all these masks which the snobbery of the century has attempted to impose."^[99]

Ravel's musical language was ultimately very original, neither absolutely modernist nor impressionist. Like Debussy, Ravel categorically refused this description of “impressionist” which he believed was reserved exclusively for painting.^[100]

Ravel was a remarkable synthesist of disparate styles. His music matured early into his innovative and distinct style. As a student, he studied the scores of composers of the past methodically: as he stated, "in order to know one's own craft, one must study the craft of others."^[101] Though he liked the new French music, during his youth Ravel still felt fond of the older French styles of Franck and the Romanticism of Beethoven and Wagner.^[12] Or, as Viñes put it, discussing Ravel's aesthetics (not his religion):

"He is, moreover, very complicated, there being in him a mixture of Middle Ages Catholicism and satanic impiety, but also a love of Art and Beauty which guide him and which make him react candidly."^[101]

Certain aspects of his music can be considered to belong to the tradition of 18th-century French classicism beginning with Couperin and Rameau as in Le Tombeau de Couperin. The uniquely 19th-century French sensibilities of Fauré and Chabrier are reflected in Sérénade grotesque, Pavane pour une infante défunte, and Menuet antique, while pieces such as Jeux d'eau, and the String Quartet in F owe something to the innovations of Satie and Debussy. The virtuosity and poetry of Gaspard de la nuit and Concerto for the left hand hint at Liszt and Chopin. His admiration for American jazz is echoed in L'enfant et les sortilèges, the Violin Sonata and the Piano Concerto in G, while the Russian school of music inspired homage in "À la manière de Borodin" and the orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Additionally, he variously cited Mozart, Saint-Saëns, Schubert and Schoenberg as inspirations for various pieces.