The Sunday Listen: 'Gnossienne No.2' by Erik Satie
Good Sunday everyone!
It’s been an incredibly hectic past couple of weeks, so this Sunday Listen we’re settling in to a quiet yet mysterious and expansive piece by Erik Satie, ‘Gnossienne No.2’.
Satie’s name has come up a few times recently in lessons, so it felt fitting to pay tribute to him on today’s blog. Many of you will probably be already familiar with his ‘Gymnopedie No.1’…
Like the ‘Gymnopédies’, the ‘Gnossiennes’ also allude to ancient Greek traditions (the term ‘gnossienne’ was an invention of Satie’s, deriving from the Cretan city “knossos” or “gnossus”, home of the story of King Minos and the minotaur). Perhaps inspired by the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889, Satie made use of oriental ornamentation, combined with influences from cabaret music heard from his time as a jobbing cafe pianist, as well as his own ideas, to create something very new for its time.
This music may not sound experimental to our ears today, which perhaps evidences how influential it has been. For the time, these were highly experimental pieces, lacking the usual form and structure of classical music, not even having bar lines to denote the strong beats and phrasing. Satie sought to strip pretentiousness and sentimentality from music and thereby reveal an austere essence, to create something musically very concentrated, with no thrills – just pure, irreducible harmony. For this reason, many see Satie as the godfather of musical minimalism.
Yet whilst the standard instructions of the bar lines are missing (perhaps Satie felt they were unnecessary?), the pianist is given a series of rather unusual verbal prompts instead instead. Satie was a legendarily eccentric figure, closely allied to the Dada and Surrealist movements in art, who enjoyed applying mocking, perverse instructions to his work. According to Satie they were not supposed to be read aloud but to create a link between composer and player, a secret creative challenge.
For example to play a phrase “Du bout de la pensee”, which means something along the lines of ‘from the edge of thought’ or ‘on the brink of an idea.’ Or how about “Postulez en vous-meme” (apply to yourself !?) or “Sur la langue” (on the tongue)? Or a nod to the French phrase “Donner sa langue au chat”, translated as ‘Give your tongue to the cat’, but which means give up, there are no more ideas and you may as well leave it to the cat to come up with something.
The version I’ve shared above is also unusual in that it’s played on a de-tuned single string piano, giving it an even more otherworldly air.
Wishing you all a good week!
Will