Satie: 3 Gymnopédies

Introduction

The Gymnopédies [ʒim.nɔ.pe.di], published in Paris starting in 1888, are three piano compositions written by French composer and pianist Erik Satie.

History

With the Gymnopédies Erik Satie tried to cut himself loose from the conventional 19th century "salon music" environment of his father and stepmother. In September 1887, Satie composed three sarabandes (Trois Sarabandes), taking a quote from J. P. Contamine de Latour's La Perdition by way of introduction. By this time, Satie knew Contamine personally.

Satie had apparently used the word "gymnopédiste" (gymnopaedist) before writing this work, when he visited the Chat Noir cabaret in December 1887. He was introduced to its director, Rodolphe Salis, who was famous for his sarcasm, and when pressed for his profession, Satie, who had none, said he was a "gymnopaedist". The composition of the three Gymnopédies started two months later, and they were completed in April 1888. In August of that year, the first Gymnopédie was published.

The first work was published with the following verse by Contamine from Les Antiques ("The Ancients").

However, it remains uncertain whether the poem was composed before the music, or whether Contamine wrote the verse as a tribute to his friend, after he had completed his set of sarabands and gymnopédies.

Later in 1888, the third Gymnopédie was published. The second Gymnopédie did not appear until 7 years later, and its impending publication was announced in several editions of the Chat Noir and Auberge du Clou magazines.

The word Gymnopédie appears infrequently in 19th-century France, to the point where it might have been considered a neologism. It had, however, already been included in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Dictionnaire de Musique (Paris: Duchesne, 1775), where Gymnopédie is described as an "air or chant to which young female Lacedaemonians danced naked." (Air ou Nome sur lequel dansoient à nu les jeunes Lacédémoniennes") (vol 1, p. 376). The exact connotation intended by Satie and Contamine remains uncertain. Among the possibilities are:

• a dance – this is likely, as he mentions it alongside another dance, the saraband(e);
• antiquity – perhaps, given the title of the poem. This however does not yet give a clear picture of how antiquity was perceived in late 19th-century France (see below);
• nudity – maybe, although words like "gymnastique" (gymnastics) and "gymnase" (gymnasium) based on the same Greek word for nudity (γυμνός – "gymnos") were common in those days, but had lost any reference to nudity; in Sparta, when much of schoolwork was physical training, the youths were typically nude. It seems clear that -ped refers to children (paed). As suggested below, a dance or parade by children from the gymnasium seems a reasonable interpretation.
• warfare– probably not. In Ancient Greece, the word indicated a war dance but little war-like intent is apparent in the poem;
• a religious ceremony/festivity (which was the context of the Ancient gymnopaedia) – probably neither; there seems to be no allusion made to them in the poem.

Satie claimed his Gymnopédies were inspired by reading Gustave Flaubert's novel Salammbô. Also Puvis de Chavannes' symbolist paintings may have been an inspiration for the atmosphere Satie wanted to evoke with his Gymnopédies.

Music

These short, atmospheric pieces are written in ³
₄ time, with each sharing a common theme and structure.

1. Lent et douloureux (D major / D minor)
2. Lent et triste (C major)
3. Lent et grave (A minor)

The melodies of the pieces use deliberate, but mild, dissonances against the harmony, producing a piquant, melancholy effect that matches the performance instructions, which are to play each piece "painfully" (douloureux), "sadly" (triste), or "gravely" (grave). The first few bars of Gymnopédie No. 1 consist of an alternating progression of two major seventh chords, the first on the subdominant, G, and the second on the tonic, D.