So a little background information for anyone unfamiliar with Erik Satie (Don't fret, most people are!). I'll be quite brief, but do look him up on the internet or in one of those ancient artifacts consisting of bound paper...
Erik Satie (1866-1925) was a French composer who is known for being an eccentric, writing "simple" music with odd titles, and for his bohemian connection with the Montmartre district of Paris. His most popular pieces are the 3 Gymnopédies that were among his first published pieces in 1888. While these pieces are simply mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful, and timeless, you really need to listen to music from later periods in his life to fully appreciate his artistic genius. I recommend checking out music from the ballet Parade if you can find it. Another favorite of mine is the set Les Trois Valses Distinguées Du Précieux Dégoûté which show off a bit more of a chromatic and dissonant side... Anyways, don't miss out on all the great music he has composed by getting caught up only in the Gynopédies and Gnossienes, as great as they are... Satie shared a friendship, albeit sometimes stormy, with the much more famous composer Claude Debussy. I am personally of the opinion that without Satie, we wouldn't have the Debussy that we know today, but of course, I am one person. Satie had some influence on Igor Stravinsky and was greatly admired by John Cage. Other than minimal footnotes talking about "that strange little Parisian Erik Satie", he is hardly talked about in music history which I think is too bad...
Right, so the reason for the back story is that while Haley and I took a short holiday to France last weekend, one of the side-quests we embarked on was an Erik Satie tour. We began in the Parisian suburb of Arcueil where Satie lived for the last 20 some years of his life. We took a bus from the center of the city and after a 20 minute walk, arrived at the beautiful cemetery in Arcueil where Mr. Satie is buried.
Later that day, we went to Montmartre and stopped by No. 6 Rue Cortot which was a tiny apartment he lived in for a few years.
While there used to be an Erik Satie museum in this very place years ago, today it is simply an average apartment building. There is, however, a museum of all things Satie in his hometown of Honfleur... So we went there on Sunday! Honfleur is a port up in the Normandy region of France and sadly, is overflowing with tourists from all over France, Europe, and the world. Down a quiet street away from the throngs is the Maison de Satie, an interesting museum that features artifacts, music, and information about the composer. While parts of the museum were odd and not exactly relevant - i.e. they just had some weird stuff playing off of the "quirky composer" motif- other parts were great. I really appreciated that they played a wide variety of his music and that you didn't walk from room to room only hearing Gymnopédie No. 1 on a loop. I also enjoyed the footage at the end of the walk that shows clips from productions of his ballets and collaborations, including the film segment of Relâche which shows an aging Satie loading a cannon with some others goofing around. He wrote music to accompany the film frame by frame and it was said that this was one of the first silent films to have music composed for it in this manner. Anyways, here are some pictures of the exterior.
Did I mention it is in the house where he was born? Yeah, very neat.
I hope to put some footage from the French trip up in the next week or so.
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