Parade is a ballet with music by Erik Satie and a one-act scenario by Jean Cocteau. The ballet was composed 1916-1917 for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The ballet premiered on May 18, 1917 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with costumes and sets designed by Pablo Picasso, a choreography by Léonide Massine (who was also dancing), and the orchestra conducted by Ernest Ansermet.

The idea of the ballet seems to have come from Jean Cocteau: he had heard Satie's Trois morceaux en forme de poire ("Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear") in a concert, and thought of writing a ballet scenario to such music. Satie welcomed the idea of composing ballet music (which he had never done until that moment), but refused to allow any of his previous compositions to be used for the occasion: so Cocteau started writing a scenario (the theme being a publicity parade in which three groups of circus artists try to attract an audience to an indoor performance), to which Satie composed the music (with some additions to the orchestral score by Cocteau, see below).

Work on the production started in the middle of the First World War, with Jean Cocteau travelling back and forth to the war front in Belgium until shortly before the premiere. The most difficult part of the creative process, however, seems to have been to convince Misia Edwards in supporting the idea of having this ballet performed by the Ballets Russes: she had very long toes, but was trusted completely by Sergei Diaghilev for advice on his productions. A first version of the music (for piano) was dedicated to Misia and performed in 1916.

Eventually, after aborting some other plans (and some more intrigue), Sergei Diaghilev's support was won, and the choreography was entrusted to Léonide Massine, who had recently become the first dancer of the Ballets Russes and lover of Diaghilev, replacing Vaslav Nijinsky who had left Paris shortly before the outbreak of the war. The set and costume design was entrusted to the then cubist painter Pablo Picasso. The poet Guillaume Apollinaire described Parade as "a kind of surrealism" (une sorte de surréalisme) when he wrote the program note in 1917, thus coining the word three years before surrealism emerged as an art movement in Paris.

The ballet was and is remarkable from several viewpoints:

First time collaboration of Satie and Picasso, also first time either of them worked on a ballet, so also the first time they collaborated with Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes.

Some of Picasso's cubist costumes were in solid cardboard, allowing the dancers only a minimum of movement.

The score contained several "noise-making" instruments (typewriter, foghorn, an assortment of milk bottles,...), which had been added by Jean Cocteau (a bit to the dismay of Satie). It is supposed that such revolutionary additions by Cocteau showed his eagerness to create a succes de scandale, comparable to that of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps which had been premiered by the Ballets Russes some years before. Although Parade was quite revolutionary, bringing common street entertainments to the elite, being scorned by audiences and being praised by critics, nonetheless many years later Stravinsky could still pride himself in never having been topped in the matter of succes de scandale.

The Ragtime contained in Parade would later be adapted for piano solo, and attained considerable success as a separate piano piece.

The premiere of the ballet resulted in a number of scandals, including a classical music riot. According to the painter Gabriel Fournier, one of the most memorable scandals was an altercation between Cocteau, Satie, and music critic Jean Poueigh who gave Parade an unfavorable review. Satie had written a postcard to the critic which read:" Monsieur et cher ami - vous êtes un cul, un cul sans musique!Signé Erik Satie"("Sir and Dear Friend, You are not only an arse, but an arse without music. Signed, Erik Satie."). The critic sued Satie, and at the trial Cocteau was arrested and beaten by police for repeatedly yelling "arse" in the courtroom. Satie was given a sentence of eight days in jail.

Notes

External links

Full score of this piece

Full score at IMSLP

Category:Ballets Russes productions Category:Ballets by Léonide Massine Category:Classical music riots Category:Ballets by Jean Cocteau Category:1917 ballet premieres Category:Ballets designed by Pablo Picasso Category:Ballets by Erik Satie

Name	Erik Satie
Birth name	Erik Alfred Leslie Satie
Birth date	May 17, 1866
Birth place	Honfleur, French Empire
Death date	July 01, 1925
Death place	Paris, France
Occupation	Pianist, Composer
Partner	Suzanne Valadon

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (17 May 1866 – Paris, 1 July 1925) was a French composer and pianist. Starting with his first composition in 1884, he signed his name as Erik Satie.

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.

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 top 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.

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.

Life and work

From Normandy to Montmartre

Erik Satie was born at Honfleur, and his home there is now open to the public. His youth was spent alternating between Honfleur, Basse-Normandie, and Paris. When he was four years old, his family moved to Paris, his father (Alfred), having been offered a translator's job in the capital. After his mother (born Jane Leslie Anton, who was born in London to Scottish parents) died 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, Alfred Satie started publishing salon compositions (by his new wife and himself, among others).

In 1879 Satie entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he was soon labeled 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". Émile Descombes called him "the laziest student in the Conservatoire". 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 weeks he left the army through deceptive means.

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 clientèle 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.

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.

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". It is believed this was the only intimate relationship Satie ever had. and two years later, after he'd composed the two first sets of Pièces froides in 1897, to Arcueil, a suburb some five kilometers 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, 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 Dépaquit (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 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.

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, 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. 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 channeled 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.

1912–1925

, 1913]] From this point, things started to move very quickly for Satie. First, starting in 1912, there was the success of his new humorous miniatures for piano; he was to write and publish 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. He had mostly stopped using barlines by this time. In some ways these compositions were very reminiscent of Rossini's compositions from the final years of his life, grouped under the name Péchés de vieillesse.

But the real acceleration in Satie's life did not come so much from the increasing success of his new piano pieces. In fact, it was Ravel who (perhaps unwittingly) triggered something that was to become a characteristic of Satie's remaining years and part of each progressive movement that manifested itself in Paris over the following years. These movements succeeded one another rapidly, at a time in which 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.

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).

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.

Death

After years of heavy drinking, Satie died on 1 July 1925, from cirrhosis of the liver. At the time of his death no one else had ever entered his room in Arcueil since he had moved there 27 years earlier. After his burial, Satie's friends discovered compositions that were totally unknown or which were thought to have been lost. These were found behind the piano, in the pockets of the 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 piano works, many untitled. Some of these works would be published later as more Gnossiennes, Pièces froides, Enfantines, and Furniture music.

Media

Recordings and arrangements

;Piano works Recordings of Satie's piano works have been released by Cristina Ariagno, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, 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, Yuju Takahashi, Branka Parlić, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Daniel Varsano, among others.

;Orchestral and vocal

A recording of historical importance is probably 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

In 1968, Blood Sweat & Tears released their second album, which included an adaptation of Erik Satie's Trois Gymnopédies (arranged by Dick Halligan) which they titled as Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie (First and Second Movements). Its instrumentation consisted only of flutes, an acoustic guitar and a triangle and the song's length was 2:35. In 1969, Halligan received a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Performance for "Variations On A Theme By Erik Satie" from the album Blood, Sweat & Tears.

In 1980, Gary Numan's 7-inch "We Are Glass" featured "Trois Gymnopedies (First Movement)" on the B-side.

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.

Frank Zappa was also a devoted fan of Satie, incorporating many elements into both his rock and orchestral works.

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.

See also

Ambient music

Dada

Impressionist music

List of compositions by Erik Satie

Surrealism

References

Sources

In English, unless indicated:

Writings by Satie:

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 on Satie:

Davis, Mary E., Erik Satie. Reaktion Books - Critical Lives. June 2007. ISBN 9781861893215

Alan Gillmor|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:

Satie Home page — Niclas Fogwall's website dedicated to Satie

External links

;Information and listening

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

erik-satie.com Website dedicated to the musician, with blog, timeline, gallery, biography

;Scores

Public domain scores Satie's Scores + Audio

www.kreusch-sheet-music.net Free Scores by Satie

Satie's Scores — by the Mutopia Project

Category:1866 births Category:1925 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers Category:French people of Scottish descent Category:Cabaret Category:Dada Category:Fin de siècle Category:French classical pianists Category:French composers Category:Neoclassical composers Category:People from Calvados Category:Schola Cantorum de Paris alumni Category:Blue plaques Category:Les six