Editing Erik Satie

{{short description|French composer and pianist (1866–1925)}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2025}}
{{Infobox classical composer
|name                = Erik Satie
| image              = Ericsatie.jpg
| caption            = Satie in 1920
| alt                = Elderly white man, balding, with neat moustache and beard, in formal day wear with wing collar and dark necktie. He is wearing pince-nez glasses.
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1866|5|17|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Honfleur]], France
| birth_name         = Eric Alfred Leslie Satie
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1925|7|1|1866|5|17|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[Arcueil]], Paris, France
| occupation         = {{hlist| [[Composer]] | [[pianist]] }}
| works              = [[List of compositions by Erik Satie|List of compositions]]
| signature          = Satie Erik signature 1899.jpg
}}
'''Eric Alfred Leslie Satie'''{{refn|{{IPAc-en|UK|ˈ|s|æ|t|i|,_|ˈ|s|ɑː|t|i}}, {{IPAc-en|US|s|æ|ˈ|t|iː|,_|s|ɑː|ˈ|t|iː}};<ref>{{cite LPD|3}}</ref><ref>{{cite EPD|18}}</ref> {{IPA|fr|eʁik sati|lang}}|group=n}} (born 17 May 1866{{spaced ndash}}1 July 1925), better known as '''Erik Satie''', was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the [[Conservatoire de Paris|Paris Conservatoire]] but was an undistinguished student and did not obtain a diploma. In the 1880s he worked as a pianist in café-cabarets in [[Montmartre]], Paris, and began composing works, mostly for solo piano, such as his ''[[Gymnopédies]]'' and ''[[Gnossiennes]]''. He also wrote music for a [[Rosicrucian]] sect to which he was briefly attached.

After a period in which he composed little Satie entered Paris's second music academy, the [[Schola Cantorum de Paris|Schola Cantorum]], as a mature student. His studies there were more successful than those at the Conservatoire. From about 1910 he became the focus of successive groups of young composers attracted by his unconventionality and originality. Among them were the group known as [[Les Six]]. A meeting with [[Jean Cocteau]] in 1915 led to the creation of the ballet ''[[Parade (ballet)|Parade]]'' (1917) for [[Sergei Diaghilev]], with music by Satie, sets and costumes by [[Pablo Picasso]], and choreography by [[Léonide Massine]].

Satie's example guided a new generation of French composers away from post-[[Richard Wagner|Wagnerian]] [[Impressionism in music|impressionism]] towards a sparer, terser style. Among those influenced by him during his lifetime were [[Maurice Ravel]], [[Claude Debussy]], and [[Francis Poulenc]], and he is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as [[John Cage]] and [[John Adams (composer)|John Adams]]. His harmony is often characterised by unresolved chords; he sometimes dispensed with [[Bar (music)|bar-lines]], as in his ''[[Gnossiennes]]''; and his melodies are generally simple and often reflect his love of old church music. He gave some of his later works absurd titles, such as ''[[Véritables Préludes flasques (pour un chien)]]'' ("True Flabby Preludes (for a Dog)", 1912), ''[[Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois]]'' ("Sketches and Exasperations of a Big Wooden Man", 1913) and ''[[Sonatine bureaucratique]]'' ("Bureaucratic Sonatina", 1917). Most of his works are brief, and the majority are for solo piano. Exceptions include his "symphonic drama" ''[[Socrate]]'' (1919) and two late ballets ''[[Mercure (ballet)|Mercure]]'' and ''[[Relâche (ballet)|Relâche]]'' (1924).

Satie never married, and his home for most of his adult life was a single small room, first in Montmartre and, from 1898 to his death, in [[Arcueil]], a suburb of Paris. He adopted various images over the years, including a period in quasi-priestly dress, another in which he always wore identically coloured velvet suits, and is known for his last persona, in neat bourgeois costume, with [[bowler hat]], wing collar, and umbrella. He was a lifelong heavy drinker, and died of [[cirrhosis]] of the liver at the age of 59.

==Life and career==

===Early years===
[[File:MaisonSatie.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|Satie's birthplace and childhood home, now a museum in [[Honfleur]], Normandy]]
Satie was born on 17 May 1866 in [[Honfleur]], Normandy, the first child of Alfred Satie and his wife Jane Leslie ({{née|Anton}}). Jane Satie was an English Protestant of Scottish descent; Alfred Satie, a [[Shipping agency|shipping broker]], was a Roman Catholic.<ref name=r11>Rey, p. 11: "Erik Alfred Leslie Satie est né le 17 mai 1866 à Honfleur (Normandie) d'une mère anglaise et protestante, d'un père catholique, courtier maritime"</ref> A year later, the Saties had a daughter, Olga, and in 1869 a second son, Conrad. The children were baptised in the Anglican church.<ref name=r11/>

After the [[Franco-Prussian War]] Alfred Satie sold his business and the family moved to Paris, where he set up as a music publisher.<ref name=gxix/> In 1872 Jane Satie died and Eric and his brother were sent back to Honfleur to be brought up by Alfred's parents. The boys were rebaptised as Roman Catholics and educated at a local boarding school, where Satie excelled in history and Latin but nothing else.<ref>Gillmor, p. 8</ref> In 1874 he began taking music lessons with a local organist, Gustave Vinot, a former pupil of [[Louis Niedermeyer]]. Vinot stimulated Satie's love of old church music, and in particular [[Gregorian chant]].<ref>Gillmor, p. 9</ref>

In 1878 Satie's grandmother died,{{refn|Her death was mysterious: she was found drowned on the beach at Honfleur in unexplained circumstances.<ref name=r11/>|group=n}} and the two boys returned to Paris to be informally educated by their father. Satie did not attend a school, but his father took him to lectures at the {{lang|fr|[[Collège de France]]|italic=no}} and engaged a tutor to teach Eric Latin and Greek. Before the boys returned to Paris from Honfleur, Alfred had met a piano teacher and salon composer, Eugénie Barnetche, whom he married in January 1879, to the dismay of the twelve-year-old Satie, who did not like her.<ref name=oxix>Orledge, p. xix</ref>

Eugénie Satie resolved that her elder stepson should become a professional musician, and in November 1879 enrolled him in the preparatory piano class at the [[Paris Conservatoire]].<ref name=grove/> Satie strongly disliked the Conservatoire, which he described as "a vast, very uncomfortable, and rather ugly building; a sort of district prison with no beauty on the inside – nor on the outside, for that matter".{{refn|"un vaste bâtiment très inconfortable et assez vilain à voir – une sorte de local pénitencier sans aucun agrément extérieur – ni intérieur du reste".<ref>Satie, p. 67</ref>|group=n}} He studied [[solfeggio]] with [[Albert Lavignac]] and piano with [[Émile Decombes]], who had been a pupil of [[Frédéric Chopin]].<ref>[[Martin Cooper (musicologist)|Cooper, Martin]], and Charles Timbrell. [https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000006587 "Cortot, Alfred"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 20 September 2021 {{subscription required}} {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220401074810/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000006587 |date=1 April 2022}}</ref> In 1880 Satie took his first examinations as a pianist: he was described as "gifted but indolent". The following year Decombes called him "the laziest student in the Conservatoire".<ref name=grove>[[Robert Orledge|Orledge, Robert]], revised by Caroline Potter. [https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.40105 Satie, Erik (Eric) (Alfred Leslie)"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210918001425/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040105 |date=18 September 2021}}, ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2020. Retrieved 16 September 2021</ref> In 1882 he was expelled from the Conservatoire for his unsatisfactory performance.<ref name=gxix>Gillmor, p. xix</ref>

[[File:Erik Satie 1884.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|alt=young white man with receding medium-length dark hair, in pince-nez|Satie in 1884]]

In 1884 Satie wrote his first known composition, a short Allegro for piano, composed while on holiday in Honfleur. He signed himself "Erik" on this and subsequent compositions, though he continued to use "Eric" on other documents until 1906.<ref name=oxx>Orledge, p. xx</ref> In 1885, he was readmitted to the Conservatoire, in the intermediate piano class of his stepmother's former teacher, [[Georges Mathias]]. He made little progress: Mathias described his playing as "insignificant and laborious" and Satie himself as "worthless. Three months just to learn the piece. Cannot sight-read properly."<ref>Gillmor, p. xx</ref>{{refn|Satie's biographer [[Robert Orledge]] has conjectured that Satie had [[dyslexia]], a condition that can make reading music as difficult as reading words.<ref name=gresham>[[Robert Orledge|Orledge, Robert]]. [https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/erik-satie-part-one-saties-musical-and-personal-logic-and-satie-as-poet "Erik Satie: His music, the vision, his legacy"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201125023449/https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/erik-satie-part-one-saties-musical-and-personal-logic-and-satie-as-poet |date=25 November 2020}}, Gresham College, 2021. Retrieved 17 September 2021</ref><ref>Ganschow, Leonore, Jenafer Lloyd-Jones, and T. R. Miles. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/23769692 "Dyslexia and Musical Notation"], ''Annals of Dyslexia'' 1994, pp. 185–202 {{subscription required}} {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210918051424/https://www.jstor.org/stable/23769692 |date=18 September 2021}}</ref>|group=n}} Satie became fascinated by aspects of religion. He spent much time in [[Notre-Dame de Paris]] contemplating the stained glass windows and in the [[Bibliothèque nationale de France|National Library]] examining obscure medieval manuscripts.<ref>Gillmor, p. 33</ref> His friend [[Alphonse Allais]] later dubbed him "Esotérik Satie".<ref>Harding, p. 35</ref> From this period comes ''[[Ogives]]'', a set of four piano pieces inspired by Gregorian chant and [[Gothic architecture|Gothic church architecture]].<ref>Rey, p. 22; and Gillmor, p. 64</ref>

Keen to leave the Conservatoire, Satie volunteered for military service and joined the 33rd Infantry Regiment in November 1886.<ref>Gillmor, p. 12</ref> He found army life no more to his liking than the Conservatoire, and deliberately contracted acute [[bronchitis]] by standing in the open, bare-chested, on a winter night.<ref>Templier, pp. 10–11</ref> After three months' convalescence he was invalided out of the army.<ref name=grove/><ref>Templier, p. 11</ref>

===Montmartre===
In 1887, at the age of 21, Satie moved from his father's residence to lodgings in the [[9th arrondissement of Paris|9th arrondissement]]. By this time he had started what was to be an enduring friendship with the romantic poet [[Patrice Contamine de Latour|Contamine de Latour]], whose verse he set in some of his early compositions, which Satie senior published.<ref name=grove/> His lodgings were close to the popular {{lang|fr|[[Le Chat Noir|Chat Noir]]|italic=no}} cabaret on the southern edge of [[Montmartre]] where he became an habitué and then a resident pianist. The Chat Noir was known as the "temple de la 'convention farfelue'" – the temple of zany convention,<ref>Rey, p. 14</ref> and, as the biographer [[Robert Orledge]] puts it, Satie, "free from his restrictive upbringing … enthusiastically embraced the reckless bohemian lifestyle and created for himself a new persona as a long-haired man-about-town in frock coat and top hat". This was the first of several personas that Satie adopted over the years.<ref name=grove/>

[[File:Santiago Rusinol Portrait of Eric Satie at the harmonium.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|alt=Man in top hat, smoking a cigarette, seated at a musical keyboard|Satie by [[Santiago Rusiñol]], 1890s]]

In the late 1880s Satie styled himself on at least one occasion "Erik Satie – gymnopédiste",<ref>Orledge, p. 6</ref>{{refn|Later he referred to himself at least once as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds") after being called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book about contemporary French composers published in 1911.<ref>Innes and Shevtsova, p. 151</ref>|group=n}} and his works from this period include the three ''[[Gymnopédies]]'' (1888) and the first ''[[Gnossiennes]]'' (1889 and 1890). He earned a modest living as a pianist and conductor at the Chat Noir, before falling out with the proprietor and moving to become second pianist at the nearby Auberge du Clou. There he became a close friend of [[Claude Debussy]], who proved a kindred spirit in his experimental approach to composition. Both were [[Bohemianism|bohemians]], enjoying the same café society and struggling to survive financially.<ref>Whiting, p. 172</ref> At the Auberge du Clou Satie first encountered the flamboyant, self-styled "Sâr" [[Joséphin Péladan]], for whose mystic sect, the Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, he was appointed composer.<ref>Rey, p. 33</ref> This gave him scope for experiment, and Péladan's salons at the fashionable Galerie Durand-Ruel gained Satie his first public hearings.<ref name=grove/><ref>Gillmor, pp. 76–77</ref> Frequently short of money, Satie moved from his lodgings in the 9th arrondissement to a small room in the rue Cortot not far from [[Sacré-Cœur, Paris|Sacre-Coeur]],<ref>Rey, p. 17</ref> so high up the Butte Montmartre that he said he could see from his window all the way to the Belgian border.{{refn|"La vu s'étend jusqu'à la frontière belge".<ref>Lajoinie, p. 21</ref>|group=n}}

By mid-1892 Satie had composed the first pieces in a compositional system of his own making (''{{Lang|fr|Fête donnée par des Chevaliers Normands en l'honneur d'une jeune demoiselle}}''), provided incidental music to a [[chivalric]] [[esoteric]] play (two ''{{Lang|fr|Préludes du Nazaréen}}''), had a hoax published (announcing the premiere of his non-existent ''{{Lang|fr|Le bâtard de Tristan}}'', an anti-Wagnerian opera),<ref>Whiting, p. 151</ref> and broken away from Péladan, starting with the "''Uspud''" project, a "Christian Ballet", in collaboration with Latour.<ref>Whiting, p. 156.</ref> He challenged the musical establishment by proposing himself – unsuccessfully – for the seat in the [[Académie des Beaux-Arts]] made vacant by the death of [[Ernest Guiraud]].<ref name=w152>Whiting, p. 152</ref>{{refn|Satie repeated this gesture twice – on the deaths of [[Charles Gounod]] in 1894 and [[Ambroise Thomas]] in 1896. Professors from the Conservatoire were elected on both occasions.<ref>Pasler, Jann. [https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008232 "Dubois, (François Clément) Théodore"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press. Retrieved 16 September 2021{{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210524182753/https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000008232 |date=24 May 2021 }}; and Duchen, p. 120</ref>|group=n}} Between 1893 and 1895, Satie, wearing quasi-priestly dress, was the founder and only member of the [[Metropolitan Church of Art of Jesus the Conductor|Eglise Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur]]. From his "''Abbatiale''" in the rue Cortot, he published scathing attacks on his artistic enemies.<ref name=grove/>

[[File:Suzanne-Valadon-1885.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=young white woman with dark hair in extravagant hat|[[Suzanne Valadon]], 1885]]
In 1893 Satie had what is believed to be his only love affair, a five-month liaison with the painter [[Suzanne Valadon]]. After their first night together, he proposed marriage. They 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".<ref name=r49>Rosinsky, p. 49</ref> During their relationship Satie composed the ''Danses gothiques'' as a means of calming his mind,<ref>Orledge, p. 157</ref> and Valadon painted his portrait, which she gave him. After five months she moved away, leaving him devastated. He said later that he was left with "nothing but an icy loneliness that fills the head with emptiness and the heart with sadness".<ref name=r49/>

In 1895 Satie changed his image once again, this time to that of "the Velvet Gentleman". From the proceeds of a small legacy, he bought seven identical [[Dun Cow|dun]]-coloured suits. Orledge comments that this change "marked the end of his Rose+Croix period and the start of a long search for a new artistic direction".<ref name=grove/>

===Move to Arcueil===
[[File:2015-Arcueil-Erik-Satie-house.jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|"Les quatre cheminées", [[Arcueil]] – Satie's home from 1898 to his death|alt=angled apartment block at intersection of two streets]]
In 1898, in search of somewhere cheaper and quieter than Montmartre, Satie moved to a room in the southern suburbs, in the [[Communes of France|commune]] of [[Arcueil|Arcueil-Cachan]], eight kilometres (five miles) from the centre of Paris.<ref>Gillmor, pp. 112–113</ref><ref>[https://www.viamichelin.co.uk/web/Routes?departure=22%20Rue%20Cauchy%2C%20Arcueil%2C%20France&arrival=Notre%20Dame%20de%20Paris&index=0&vehicle=0&type=0&distance=km&currency=EUR&highway=false&toll=false&vignette=false&orc=false&crossing=true&caravan=false&shouldUseTraffic=false&withBreaks=false&break_frequency=7200&coffee_duration=1200&lunch_duration=3600&diner_duration=3600&night_duration=32400&car=hatchback&fuel=petrol&fuelCost=1.581&allowance=0&corridor=&departureDate=&arrivalDate=&fuelConsumption=&shouldUseNewEngine=false Journey planner] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210917125017/https://www.viamichelin.co.uk/web/Routes?departure=22%20Rue%20Cauchy,%20Arcueil,%20France&arrival=Notre%20Dame%20de%20Paris&index=0&vehicle=0&type=0&distance=km&currency=EUR&highway=false&toll=false&vignette=false&orc=false&crossing=true&caravan=false&shouldUseTraffic=false&withBreaks=false&break_frequency=7200&coffee_duration=1200&lunch_duration=3600&diner_duration=3600&night_duration=32400&car=hatchback&fuel=petrol&fuelCost=1.581&allowance=0&corridor=&departureDate=&arrivalDate=&fuelConsumption=&shouldUseNewEngine=false |date=17 September 2021 }}, ViaMichelin. Retrieved 17 September 2021</ref> This remained his home for the rest of his life. No visitors were ever admitted.<ref name=grove/> He joined the [[French Section of the Workers' International|Socialist Party]] after the [[assassination of Jean Jaurès]] (he later switched his membership to the [[French Communist Party|Communist Party]] after its foundation),<ref>Orledge, p. 233</ref> but adopted a thoroughly bourgeois image: the biographer Pierre-Daniel Templier, writes, "With his umbrella and [[bowler hat]], he resembled a quiet school teacher. Although a Bohemian, he looked very dignified, almost ceremonious".<ref>Templier, p. 56</ref>

Satie earned a living as a cabaret pianist, adapting more than a hundred compositions of popular music for piano or piano and voice, adding some of his own. The most popular of these were ''{{Lang|fr|[[Je te veux]]}}'', text by Henry Pacory; ''{{Lang|fr|Tendrement}}'', text by Vincent Hyspa; ''{{Lang|fr|[[Poudre d'or]]}}'', a waltz; ''[[La Diva de l'Empire]]'', text by Dominique Bonnaud/Numa Blès; ''{{Lang|fr|Le Picadilly}}'', a march; ''{{Lang|fr|Légende californienne}}'', text by Contamine de Latour (lost, but the music later reappears in ''{{Lang|fr|[[La belle excentrique]]}}''); and others. In his later years Satie rejected all his cabaret music as vile and against his nature.<ref>Gillmor, p. xxix</ref> Only a few compositions that he took seriously remain from this period: ''[[Jack in the Box (Satie)|Jack in the Box]]'', music to a [[pantomime]] by [[Jules Depaquit]] (called a "{{Lang|fr|clownerie}}" by Satie); ''{{Lang|fr|[[Geneviève de Brabant (Satie)|Geneviève de Brabant]]}}'', a short comic opera to a text by "Lord Cheminot" (Latour); ''{{lang|fr|[[Le poisson rêveur]]}}'' (''The Dreamy Fish''), piano music to accompany a lost tale by Cheminot, and a few others that were mostly incomplete. Few were presented, and none published at the time.<ref>Whiting, p. 259</ref>
[[File:C-Debussy-V-d'Indy-A-Roussel-M-Ravel.jpg|thumb|left|Musical friends and teachers: from top left clockwise – [[Claude Debussy|Debussy]], [[Vincent d'Indy|d'Indy]], [[Albert Roussel|Roussel]], [[Maurice Ravel|Ravel]]|alt=head and shoulders photographs of four white men, two neatly bearded, with full heads of hair, the third bald and neatly bearded, the fourth clean shaven with full head of hair]]

A decisive change in Satie's musical outlook came after he heard the premiere of Debussy's opera ''[[Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)|Pelléas et Mélisande]]'' in 1902. He found it "absolutely astounding", and he re-evaluated his own music.<ref name=grove/> In a determined attempt to improve his technique, and against Debussy's advice, he enrolled as a mature student at Paris's second main music academy, the [[Schola Cantorum de Paris|Schola Cantorum]] in October 1905, continuing his studies there until 1912.<ref>Rey, p. 61</ref> The institution was run by [[Vincent d'Indy]], who emphasised orthodox technique rather than creative originality.<ref>[https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001/acref-9780199579037-e-5982 "Schola Cantorum"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516120912/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001/acref-9780199579037-e-5982 |date=16 May 2021 }}, ''The Oxford Companion to Music'', edited by Alison Latham, Oxford University Press, 2011.</ref> Satie studied [[counterpoint]] with [[Albert Roussel]] and composition with d'Indy, and was a much more conscientious and successful student than he had been at the Conservatoire in his youth.<ref>Orledge, pp. 86 and 95</ref>

In 1911, when he was in his mid-forties, Satie came to the notice of the musical public in general. That January [[Maurice Ravel]] played some early Satie works at a concert by the [[Société musicale indépendante]], a forward-looking group set up by Ravel and others as a rival to the conservative [[Société nationale de musique]].<ref>[[Barbara L. Kelly|Kelly, Barbara L.]] [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/52145 "Ravel, Maurice"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press. Retrieved 17 September 2021 {{subscription required}}</ref>{{refn|The pieces were the second ''[[Sarabandes (Satie)|Sarabande]]'', the first prelude to ''[[Le Fils des étoiles]]'' and the third of the ''Gymnopédies''.<ref>[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2890931/f7.item.r=Erik%20Satie.zoom "Courrier Musicale"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210917113043/https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2890931/f7.item.r=Erik%20Satie.zoom |date=17 September 2021 }}, ''Le Figaro'', 14 January 1911, p. 7; and Gillmor, p. xxiii</ref>|group=n}} Satie was suddenly seen as "the precursor and apostle of the musical revolution now taking place";<ref>Orledge, p. 2</ref> he became a focus for young composers. Debussy, having orchestrated the first and third ''Gymnopédies'', conducted them in concert. The publisher Demets asked for new works from Satie, who was finally able to give up his cabaret work and devote himself to composition. Works such as the cycle ''[[Sports et divertissements]]'' (1914) were published in de luxe editions. The press began to write about Satie's music, and a leading pianist, [[Ricardo Viñes]], took him up, giving celebrated first performances of some Satie pieces.<ref name=grove/>
[[File:Erik Satie en 1909.PNG|thumb|upright=0.75|alt=Satie wearing a bowler hat and wing collar|Satie's final persona, [[bowler hat|bowler-hatted]] and formally dressed]]

===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>

==Works==

===Music===
{{see also|List of compositions by Erik Satie}}
In the view of the ''Oxford Dictionary of Music'', Satie's importance lay in "directing a new generation of French composers away from [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]]‐influenced [[Impressionism in music|impressionism]] towards a leaner, more epigrammatic style".<ref name=odm/> Debussy christened him "the precursor" because of his early harmonic innovations.<ref name=ocm/> Satie summed up his musical philosophy in 1917:
{{blockquote|To have a feeling for harmony is to have a feeling for tonality… the melody is the Idea, the outline; as much as it is the form and the subject matter of a work. The harmony is an illumination, an exhibition of the object, its reflection.<ref>''Quoted'' in Orledge, p. 68</ref>|}}

[[File:Satie Gymnopedie No. 3 for piano solo 02.png|thumb|upright=1.75|left|''Gymnopédie'' No. 3|alt=musical score with simple, slow music for solo piano]]

Among his earliest compositions were sets of three ''[[Gymnopédies]]'' (1888) and his ''[[Gnossiennes]]'' (1889 onwards) for piano. They evoke the ancient world by what the critics [[Roger Nichols (musical scholar)|Roger Nichols]] and [[Paul Griffiths (writer)|Paul Griffiths]] describe as "pure simplicity, monotonous repetition, and highly original [[Mode (music)|modal]] harmonies".<ref name=ocm>Griffiths, Paul, and Roger Nichols. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001/acref-9780199579037-e-5901 "Satie, Erik (Eric) (Alfred Leslie)"], ''The Oxford Companion to Music'', Oxford University Press, 2011. Retrieved 18 September 2021 {{subscription required}} {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210918130322/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199579037.001.0001/acref-9780199579037-e-5901 |date=18 September 2021}}</ref>
It is possible that their simplicity and originality were influenced by Debussy; it is also possible that it was Satie who influenced Debussy.<ref name=odm>Kennedy, Joyce, Michael Kennedy, and Tim Rutherford-Johnson. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199578108.001.0001/acref-9780199578108-e-7968 "Satie, Erik (Eric) Alfred Leslie"], ''The Oxford Dictionary of Music'', Oxford University Press, 2013. Retrieved 18 September 2021 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210918130322/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199578108.001.0001/acref-9780199578108-e-7968 |date=18 September 2021 }}</ref> During the brief spell when Satie was composer to Péladan's sect he adopted a similarly austere manner.<ref name=odm/>

While Satie was earning his living as a café pianist in Montmartre he contributed songs and little waltzes. After moving to Arcueil he began to write works with quirky titles, such as the seven-movement suite ''[[Trois morceaux en forme de poire]]'' ("Three Pear-shaped Pieces") for piano four-hands (1903), simply phrased music that Nichols and Griffiths describe as "a résumé of his music since 1890" – reusing some of his earlier work as well as popular songs of the time.<ref name=ocm/> He struggled to find his own musical voice. Orledge writes that this was partly because of his "trying to ape his illustrious peers … we find bits of Ravel in his miniature opera ''[[Geneviève de Brabant (Satie)|Geneviève de Brabant]]'' and echoes of both [[Gabriel Fauré|Fauré]] and Debussy in the ''Nouvelles pièces froides'' of 1907".<ref name=grove/>

After concluding his studies at the Schola Cantorum in 1912 Satie composed with greater confidence and more prolifically. Orchestration, despite his studies with d'Indy, was never his strongest suit,<ref>Orledge, p. 95; and Gillmor, p. 137</ref> but his grasp of counterpoint is evident in the opening bars of ''Parade'',<ref>Orledge, pp. 116 and 174</ref> and from the outset of his composing career he had original and distinctive ideas about harmony.<ref>Gillmor, p. 37</ref> In his later years he composed sets of short instrumental works with absurd titles, including ''[[Véritables Préludes flasques (pour un chien)]]'' ("True Flabby Preludes (for a Dog)", 1912), ''[[Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois]]'' ("Sketches and Exasperations of a Big Wooden Man", 1913) and ''[[Sonatine bureaucratique]]'' ("Bureaucratic Sonata", 1917). 
[[File:Satie socrate manuscript.jpg|Manuscript of ''[[Socrate]]''|upright=1.5|thumb|alt=neatly written manuscript of musical score, with careful, calligraphic letters in red ink]]

In his neat, calligraphic hand,<ref>Gillmor, p. 208</ref> Satie would write extensive instructions for his performers, and although his words appear at first sight to be humorous and deliberately nonsensical, Nichols and Griffiths comment, "a sensitive pianist can make much of injunctions such as 'arm yourself with clairvoyance' and 'with the end of your thought'".<ref name="ocm" /> His ''Sonatine bureaucratique'' anticipates the [[Neoclassicism (music)|neoclassicism]] soon adopted by Stravinsky.<ref name=grove/> Despite his rancorous falling out with Debussy, Satie commemorated his long-time friend in 1920, two years after Debussy's death, in the anguished "Elégie", the first of the miniature song cycle ''[[Quatre petites mélodies (Satie)|Quatre petites mélodies]]''.<ref>Orledge, p. 39</ref> Orledge rates the cycle as the finest, though least known, of the four sets of short songs of Satie's last decade.<ref name=grove/>

Satie invented what he called ''[[Musique d'ameublement]]'' – "furniture music" – a kind of background not to be listened to consciously. ''Cinéma'', composed for the René Clair film ''Entr'acte'', shown between the acts of ''Relâche'' (1924), is an example of early film music designed to be unconsciously absorbed rather than carefully listened to.<ref name=dance>[[Roger Shattuck|Shattuck, Roger]]. [https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195173697.001.0001/acref-9780195173697-e-1543 "Satie, Erik"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210918130334/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195173697.001.0001/acref-9780195173697-e-1543 |date=18 September 2021}}, ''The International Encyclopedia of Dance'', Oxford University Press, 2005. Retrieved 18 September 2021 {{subscription required}}</ref>

Satie is regarded by some writers as an influence on [[Minimal music|minimalism]], which developed in the 1960s and later. The musicologist Mark Bennett and the composer [[Humphrey Searle]] have said that [[John Cage]]'s music shows Satie's influence,<ref>Bennett, p. 7</ref> and Searle and the writer Edward Strickland have used the term "minimalism" in connection with Satie's ''[[Vexations]]'', which the composer implied in his manuscript should be played over and over again 840 times.<ref>Potter (2016), p. 230; and Strickland, p. 124</ref> [[John Adams (composer)|John Adams]] included a specific homage to Satie's music in his 1996 ''[[Century Rolls]]''.<ref>Potter (2016), p. 252</ref>

===Writings===
[[File:Tombe satie.jpg|thumb|right|Satie's grave bearing a white cross in [[Arcueil]], to the south of Paris]]
Satie wrote extensively for the press, but unlike his professional colleagues such as Debussy and [[Paul Dukas|Dukas]] he did not write primarily as a music critic. Much of his writing is connected to music tangentially if at all. His biographer Caroline Potter describes him as "an experimental creative writer, a ''blagueur''{{refn|A ''blagueur'' is "a joker or prankster" according to the [[Merriam-Webster]] French-English dictionary.|group=n}} who provoked, mystified and amused his readers".<ref>Potter (2016), pp. 206–207</ref> He wrote ''[[Glossary of French words and expressions in English#Jeu d'esprit|jeux d'esprit]]'' claiming to eat dinner in four minutes with a diet of exclusively white food (including bones and fruit mould), or to drink boiled wine mixed with [[fuchsia]] juice, or to be woken by a servant hourly throughout the night to have his temperature taken;<ref>Weeks, pp. 83–84</ref> he wrote in praise of [[Beethoven]]'s non-existent but "sumptuous" Tenth Symphony, and the family of instruments known as the cephalophones, "which have a compass of thirty octaves and are absolutely unplayable".<ref>Dickinson, pp. 248 and 249</ref>

Satie grouped some of these writings under the general headings ''Cahiers d'un mammifère'' (A Mammal's Notebook) and ''Mémoires d'un amnésique'' (Memoirs of an Amnesiac), indicating, as Potter comments, that "these are not autobiographical writings in the conventional manner".<ref>Potter (2016), p. 207</ref> He claimed the major influence on his humour was [[Oliver Cromwell]], adding "I also owe much to [[Christopher Columbus]], because the American spirit has occasionally tapped me on the shoulder and I have been delighted to feel its ironically glacial bite".<ref>''Quoted'' in Dickinson, p. 247</ref>

His published writings include:
* ''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)
* ''{{Lang|fr|Correspondence presque complète: Réunie, établie et présentée par Ornella Volta}}'' (Paris: Fayard/Imes, 2000; 1265 pages) {{ISBN|2-213-60674-9}} (an almost complete edition of Satie's letters, in French)
* Nigel Wilkins, ''The Writings of Erik Satie'', London, 1980.

==Notes, references and sources==
===Notes===
{{Reflist|45em|group=n}}

===References===
{{Reflist}}

===Sources===
{{div col|colwidth=-45em}}
* {{cite book | last= Bennett | first= Mark | title= A Brief History of Minimalism | year= 1995 | location= Ann Arbor | publisher=UMI| oclc= 964203894}}
* {{cite book | last= Dickinson | first= Peter | title= Words and Music| year= 2016| location= Woodbridge | publisher= Boydell Press | isbn= 978-1-78327-106-1}}
* {{cite book | last= Dietschy | first= Marcel | title= A Portrait of Claude Debussy | year=1999 | location= Oxford | publisher= Clarendon | isbn= 978-0-19-315469-8}}
* {{cite book | last = Duchen | first = Jessica |author-link= Jessica Duchen |year = 2000 | title = Gabriel Fauré | location = London | publisher = Phaidon | isbn = 978-0-7148-3932-5}}
* {{cite book | last =Gillmor| first= Alan | title= Erik Satie| year= 1988| location= Boston | publisher= Twayne | isbn= 978-0-8057-9472-4}}
* {{cite book | last= Harding | first= James | author-link=James Harding (music writer) | title= Erik Satie | year= 1975| location= London | publisher= Secker & Warburg | oclc= 251432509 }}
* {{cite book | last1= nnes | first1=Christopher|author1-link=Christopher Innes|author2= Maria Shevtsova| title=The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Directing | year= 2013| location= Cambridge and New York | publisher= Cambridge University Press | isbn= 978-0-521-84449-9 }}
* {{cite book | last= Kelly | first= Barbara L.|author-link=Barbara L. Kelly|chapter=History and Homage| title= The Cambridge Companion to Ravel|editor= Deborah Mawer | year= 2000| location=Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press | isbn=978-0-52-164856-1}}
* {{cite book | last= Lajoinie | first= Vincent |language=fr| title= Erik Satie | year= 1985| location= Lausanne | publisher= Age d'homme | oclc=417094292 }}
* {{cite book | last= Lesure | first= François | author-link= François Lesure | title= Claude Debussy: A Critical Biography | year= 2019| location=Rochester, NY | publisher=University of Rochester Press | isbn=978-1-58046-903-6 }}
* {{cite book | last= Nichols | first= Roger|author-link=Roger Nichols (musical scholar)| title= The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris 1917–1929 | year= 2002| location=London | publisher=Thames and Hudson | isbn=978-0-500-51095-7 }}
* {{cite book | last= Orledge | first= Robert | author-link=Robert Orledge| title= Satie the Composer| year= 1990| location= Cambridge| publisher= Cambridge University Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QJ9OAAAAIAAJ | isbn= 978-0-521-35037-2}}
* {{cite book | last= Potter | first= Caroline | title= Erik Satie: A Parisian Composer and his World| year=2016 | location= Woodbridge | publisher= Boydell Press | isbn= 978-1-78327-083-5}}
* {{cite book | last= Potter | first= Caroline | title= French Music Since Berlioz | year= 2017| location=London | publisher=Routledge | isbn=978-1-315-09389-5 }}
* {{cite book | last= Rey | first= Anne|author-link=Anne Rey | title= Erik Satie| year= 1974| language=fr|location= Paris | publisher= Seuil | isbn= 978-2-02-000255-4}}
* {{cite book | last= Rosinsky | first=Thérèse Diamand | title =Suzanne Valadon | year= 1994| location= New York | publisher= Universe | isbn = 978-0-87663-777-7 }}
*{{cite book | last =Satie | first =Erik|editor=Ornella Volta | title = Écrits | date =1981|edition=second | location =Paris | publisher = Éditions Champ libre | isbn = 978-2-85184-073-8 }}
* {{cite book | last= Strickland | first= Edward | title= Minimalism: Origins| year= 2000| location= Bloomington| publisher= Indiana University Press | isbn= 978-0-253-21388-4}}
* {{cite book | last= Templier | first= Pierre-Daniel | title= Erik Satie| year= 1969| location= Cambridge, Massachusetts |url=https://archive.org/details/eriksatie00temp/page/10/mode/2up| publisher= MIT Press | oclc= 1034659768}}
* {{cite book | last= Weeks | first= David | title= Eccentrics| year= 1995| location= London | publisher= Weidenfeld & Nicolson | isbn= 978-0-297-81447-4}}
* {{cite book | last= Whiting | first= Steven Moore | title= Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall | year= 1999| location= Oxford | publisher= Oxford University Press | isbn=978-0-19-816458-6 }}
* {{cite book | last= Williamson | first= John|author-link=John Williamson (musicologist)| title= Words and Music | year= 2005| location= Liverpool | publisher= Liverpool University Press | isbn= 978-0-85323-619-1 }}
{{div col end}}

===Further reading===
* {{cite book |last=Shattuck|first=Roger|author-link=Roger Shattuck| title=The Banquet Years: The Arts in France, 1885–1918: Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, Guillaume Apollinaire | location=U.S. | publisher=Henry Holt and Company | year=1958|ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last=Shattuck|first=Roger| title=The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I. | location=U.S. | publisher=Freeport, New York, Books for Libraries Press | year=1968 | isbn=0836928261|ref=none}} Revised edition of 1958 book.

==External links==
{{Commons category|Erik Satie}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{wikisource author}}
* {{IMSLP|id=Satie, Erik}}
* {{ChoralWiki|Erik Satie}}
* [https://www.musees-honfleur.fr/menucacher.html "Maisons Satie"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170713170503/http://www.musees-honfleur.fr/maison-satie.html |date=13 July 2017 }} – Satie birthplace museum, Honfleur.

{{Erik Satie}}
{{Modernism}}
{{Portal bar|Biography|Classical music}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Satie, Erik}}
[[Category:1866 births]]
[[Category:1925 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century French classical composers]]
[[Category:19th-century French male classical pianists]]
[[Category:19th-century French classical pianists]]
[[Category:20th-century French classical composers]]
[[Category:20th-century French male classical pianists]]
[[Category:20th-century French classical pianists]]
[[Category:Ballets Russes composers]]
[[Category:Cabaret]]
[[Category:Composers for piano]]
[[Category:Dada]]
[[Category:Deaths from cirrhosis]]
[[Category:Experimental composers]]
[[Category:Fin de siècle]]
[[Category:French ballet composers]]
[[Category:French communists]]
[[Category:French male classical composers]]
[[Category:French people of Scottish descent]]
[[Category:French socialists]]
[[Category:French surrealist artists]]
[[Category:Neoclassical composers]]
[[Category:People from Honfleur]]
[[Category:Musicians from Normandy]]
[[Category:People of Montmartre]]
[[Category:Pupils of Georges Mathias]]
[[Category:Pupils of Vincent d'Indy]]
[[Category:Rosicrucians]]
[[Category:Schola Cantorum de Paris alumni]]
[[Category:Surreal comedy]]
[[Category:Alcohol-related deaths in France]]
[[Category:French Army personnel]]
[[Category:French comedy musicians]]
[[Category:Humor in classical music]]