Satie the Composer

Erik Satie remains one of the most bizarre figures in music history, yet everything he did has its own curious logic, once it can be perceived.

Robert Orledge (Author)

9780521078993, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 December 2008

440 pages, 37 b/w illus.
24.4 x 17 x 2.3 cm, 0.69 kg

Erik Satie remains one of the most bizarre figures in music history, yet everything he did has its own curious logic, once it can be perceived. In this important new study Dr Orledge reveals what made Satie 'tick' as a composer, dealing with every aspect of Satie's complex career and relating his achievement to the other arts and to the society in which he lived. Almost every figure in contemporary art was involved with Satie in some way or another, from Matisse and Picasso to Apollinaire, Cocteau and Brancusi. This, however, is no mere life-and-works study but rather an exploration of the technique behind Satie's art, which foreshadowed most of the 'advances' of twentieth-century music from serialism to minimalism, and even muzak. As the book progresses Satie appears as far more than just the composer of the popular Gymnopédies and Parade.

List of illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Chronology
Some descriptions of Satie
1. Satie's career as a composer: some interpretations
2. Why and where Satie composed
3. Parody, pastiche, quotation and the question of influence
4. Satie and Debussy
5. Satie's compositional aesthetic
6. Satie, counterpoint and the Schola Cantorum
7. Orchestration versus instrumentation
8. Questions of form, logic and the mirror image
9. Compositional systems and other sources of inspiration
10. Composition and the other arts
11. Satie on other composers
12. Satie and the wider world
Appendix: chronological catalogue of Satie's compositions
Notes
Select bibliography
Index of Satie's works
General index.

Subject Areas: Music [AV]