Erik Satie: The First Modern

The Parisian "impressionists" were among the first modern composers; they siezed on the artistic, painterly style of the same name that preceded them, and tried to develop a national style of music that imitated the newer, successful work of French national painters, such as Monet and Renoir. All of the important composers were active and living in Paris -- Erik Satie (1866-1925), Claude Debussy (1862-1918), and Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Together they invented a new harmonic/tonal vocabulary for music that tried to emulate the "blurred images" of French impressionist art and diverged from the Germanic, Wagnerian style of music they believed had become entrenched and thwarted a unique French identity

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Satie's innovations came from his long interest in and study of Medieval French music that included plainchant and parallel organum. He contemplated for long hours in the gloom of Notre Dame and studied chant and Gothic art in the Paris Bibliothecque Nationale. He also took an active interest in various quasi-religious, mystical ideas, such as Rosicrucianism. Satie's musical aesthetic is antithetical to Wagnerian emotional indulgence. Instead we find the other-worldly, unemotional detachment of Gregorian chant and medieval esceticism. In Ogives of 1886, Satie imitated Gregorian monophony and the use of parallel planed chords. Monophony and monody in Satie's music became quite common, even in later works, such as Descriptions Automatiques (1913).

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Satie: Prelude de La porte héroïque du ciel

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Other Satie innovations include minimalism and furniture music. Musique d'ameublement comprises a group of several pieces written about 1920. It is a precursor of Muzak, music that is meant to be ignored, i.e., background music. In a conversation with Fernand Leger, Satie commented:

You know, there's a need to create furniture music; that is to say, music that would be a part of the surrounding noises and that would take them into account. I see it as melodious, as masking the clatter of knives and forks without drowning it completely, without imposing itself. It would spare them the usual banalities. Moreover, it would neutralize the street noises that indiscreetly force themselves into the picture.[6]

During the first performance of musique d'ameublement the audience sat silently, listening intently, but Satie became irritated, got up and admonished the audience with "No, no! Talk, walk around, pay no attention, don't listen."

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In summary, Satie deserves the credit for being the true "father of modern music". A list of his musical innovations (with examples) that were to have profound consequences for modern music includes:

• objective, detached, unemotional musical aesthetic, Sarabandes, 1887
• non-Wagnerian aesthetic, Sarabandes, 1887
• furniture music (pre-Muzak): musique d'ameublement, 1920
• minimalism (proto-minimalism): Vexations, 1883
• unbarred, unmeasured, ametric music (unused since the Renaissance), Le Fils des Etoiles, 1891
• quartal chords: Le Fils des Etoiles, 1891
• planing of sevenths, ninths, tritones, as well as fourths and fifths
• unresolved chords of sevenths and ninths: Sarabandes, 1887, Gymnopedies, 1888
• retrogressions used to nullify key
• atonality, Le Fils des Etoiles, 1891
• use of modes and "synthetic" scales, Gnossienes, 1890
• unresolved melodic tritones, Le Fils des Etoiles, 1891
• polychords, Le Fils des Etoiles, 1891
• proto-polytonality, Le Fils des Etoiles, 1891
• monophony and monody, Le Fils des Etoiles, 1891
• embracing of popular styles and cabaret music, 3 Morceaux en Form de Poire, 1903.

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