Editing Erik Satie (section)

===Last years===
Satie became the focus of successive groups of young composers, who he first encouraged and then distanced himself from, sometimes rancorously, when their popularity threatened to eclipse his or they otherwise displeased him.<ref>Gillmor, p. 259; Potter (2017), p. 233; and Whiting, p. 493</ref> First were the "jeunes" – those associated with Ravel – and then a group known at first as the "nouveaux jeunes", later called [[Les Six]], including [[Georges Auric]], [[Louis Durey]], [[Arthur Honegger]], and [[Germaine Tailleferre]], joined later by [[Francis Poulenc]] and [[Darius Milhaud]].<ref name=grove/> Satie dissociated himself from the second group in 1918, and in the 1920s became the focal point of another set of young composers including [[Henri Cliquet-Pleyel]], [[Roger Désormière]], [[Maxime Jacob]] and [[Henri Sauguet]], who became known as the "Arcueil School".<ref>Nichols, p. 264</ref> As well as turning against Ravel, Auric and Poulenc in particular,<ref>Kelly, p. 15 (Ravel); and Schmidt, p. 13 (Auric and Poulenc)</ref> Satie quarrelled with his old friend Debussy in 1917, resentful of the latter's failure to appreciate his recent compositions.<ref>Lesure, p. 333</ref> The rupture lasted for the remaining months of Debussy's life, and when he died the following year, Satie refused to attend the funeral.<ref>Dietschy, p. 190</ref> A few of his protégés escaped his displeasure, and Milhaud and Désormière were among those who remained friends with him to the last.<ref>Orledge, p. 255</ref>
[[File:Deuxième-manager-Parade.png|thumb|left|upright=0.75|''[[Parade (ballet)|Parade]]'', 1917 – music by Satie, décor by [[Pablo Picasso|Picasso]]|alt=stage costume design in absurdist style, with dancer almost invisible under costume representing a deputy manager]]
The [[First World War]] restricted concert-giving to some extent, but Orledge comments that the war years brought "Satie's second lucky break", when [[Jean Cocteau]] heard Viñes and Satie perform the ''Trois morceaux'' in 1916. This led to the commissioning of the ballet ''[[Parade (ballet)|Parade]]'', premiered in 1917 by [[Sergei Diaghilev]]'s [[Ballets Russes]], with music by Satie, sets and costumes by [[Pablo Picasso]], and choreography by [[Léonide Massine]]. This was a ''[[succès de scandale]]'', with jazz rhythms and instrumentation including parts for typewriter, steamship whistle and siren. It firmly established Satie's name before the public, and thereafter his career centred on the theatre, writing mainly to commission.<ref name=grove/>

In October 1916 Satie received a commission from the Princesse de Polignac, [[Winnaretta Singer]], that resulted in what Orledge rates as the composer's masterpiece, ''[[Socrate]]'', two years later. Satie set translations from [[Plato]]'s [[Socratic dialogue|Dialogues]] as a "symphonic drama". Its composition was interrupted in 1917 by a libel suit brought against him by a music critic, Jean Poueigh, which nearly resulted in a jail sentence for Satie. When ''Socrate'' was premiered, Satie called it "a return to classical simplicity with a modern sensibility", and among those who admired the work was [[Igor Stravinsky]], whom Satie regarded with awe.<ref name=grove/><ref name=gresham/>

In his later years Satie was in demand as a journalist, making contributions to the ''Revue musicale'', ''Action'', ''L'Esprit nouveau'', the ''Paris-Journal''<ref>Gillmor, p. xxv</ref> and other publications from the [[Dada]]ist ''[[391 (magazine)|391]]''<ref>[http://www.artic.edu/reynolds/essays/hofmann2.php "Documents of Dada and Surrealism: Dada and Surrealist Journals in the Mary Reynolds Collection"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150212081937/http://www.artic.edu/reynolds/essays/hofmann2.php |date=12 February 2015 }}, Artic.edu. Retrieved 17 September 2021</ref> to the English-language magazines ''[[Vanity Fair (American magazine 1913–1936)|Vanity Fair]]'' and ''[[The Transatlantic Review]]''.<ref name=grove/><ref>Orledge, p. xxxviii</ref> As he contributed anonymously or under pen names to some publications it is not certain how many titles he wrote for, but ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'' lists 25.<ref name=grove/> Satie's habit of embellishing the scores of his compositions with all kinds of written remarks became so established that he had to insist that they must not be read out during performances.{{refn|He wrote in the first edition of ''[[Heures séculaires et instantanées]]'', I forbid anyone to read the text aloud during the musical performance. Ignorance of my instructions will incur my righteous indignation against the presumptuous culprit. No exception will be allowed".<ref>Williamson, p, 176</ref>|group=n}}

In 1920 there was a festival of Satie's music at the [[Salle Érard]] in Paris.<ref>Gillmor, p. xxiv</ref> In 1924 the ballets ''[[Mercure (ballet)|Mercure]]'' (with choreography by Massine and décor by Picasso) and ''[[Relâche (ballet)|Relâche]]'' ("Cancelled") (in collaboration with [[Francis Picabia]] and [[René Clair]]), both provoked headlines with their first night scandals.<ref name=grove/>
[[File:Satie Cropped.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|Satie in his later years|alt=older version of Satie images reproduced above]]
Despite being a musical iconoclast, and encourager of modernism, Satie was uninterested to the point of antipathy in innovations such as the telephone, the gramophone and the radio. He made no recordings, and as far as is known heard only a single radio broadcast (of Milhaud's music) and made only one telephone call.<ref name=gresham/> Although his personal appearance was immaculate, his room at Arcueil, according to Orledge, was "squalid", and after his death the scores of several important works believed lost were found among the accumulated rubbish.<ref>Potter (2016), pp. 239 and 241</ref> He was incompetent with money. Having depended to a considerable extent on the generosity of friends in his early years, he was little better off when he began to earn a good income from his compositions, as he spent or gave away money as soon as he received it.<ref name=gresham/> He liked children, and they liked him, but his relations with adults were seldom straightforward. One of his last collaborators, Picabia, said of him:
{{blockquote|Satie's case is extraordinary. He's a mischievous and cunning old artist. At least, that's how he thinks of himself. Myself, I think the opposite! He's a very susceptible man, arrogant, a real sad child, but one who is sometimes made optimistic by alcohol. But he's a good friend, and I like him a lot.<ref name=gresham/>|}}
Throughout his adult life Satie was a heavy drinker, and in 1925 his health collapsed. He was taken to the Hôpital Saint-Joseph in Paris, diagnosed with [[cirrhosis]] of the liver. He died there at 8:00 p.m. on 1 July, at the age of 59.<ref>Gillmor, p. 258</ref> He was buried in the cemetery at Arcueil.<ref>Gillmor, p. 259</ref>