Satie - Trois Gnossiennes

Erik Satie was an eccentric French avant-garde composer of the late 19th-early 20th century whose music influenced many composers.  He didn't consider  himself a musician, but referred to himself as a gymnopedist and a measurer of sounds - a phonometrographer:

Everyone will tell you that I am not a musician. That is correct. From the very beginning of my career, I classed myself as a phonometrographer. My work is completely phonometrical. Take my Fils des Etoiles, or my Morceaux en Forme d’une Poire, my En Habit de Cheval, or my Sarabandes — it is evident that musical ideas played no part whatsoever in their composition. Science is the dominating factor... 

Satie took lessons from a local organist as a child. He attended the Paris Conservatoire beginning in 1879 and immediately was labeled as lazy and untalented by his professors. His piano playing was called worthless, and soon left the school. He began to re-attend in 1885, but created the same impression and left once again. It wasn't until he was 40 years old that he finally got a diploma (barely) from music school.

He lived by himself in a very small apartment for much of his life, and his life truly was an eccentric one. His apartment was in a rough part of Arcueil, a suburb of Paris, and when he went out for a walk he always carried a hammer for protection.  He changed his clothes from a frock coat, long hair and untidy beard to a gray colored corduroy suit which he bought multiple pairs of and wore exclusively for many years.

He also wrote prose and articles which were full of his own style of weird logic and nonsense. In 1912 he wrote the book the full title of which was Memoirs of an Amnesiac: To be Read Far from the Herd and the Mummified Dead, Those Great Scourges of Humanity. One of the articles in the book is titled: Intelligence and Musicality In Animals. an excerpt: 

Very few animals learn anything from humans. The dog, the mule, the horse, the ass, the parrot, the blackbird and a few others are the only animals to receive even a semblance of education, and that can only be called education in that it isn't clearly anything else. Compare, I beg you, the teaching given to animals with that given by the universities to young human undergraduates, and you will have to admit that it is not worth speaking of and couldn't possibly widen or make easier the knowledge that an animal can pick up through its work and steady industry. But what about music? Horses have learned to dance; spiders have remained underneath a piano during the whole of a long recital put on for them by a respected master of the keyboard. And what then? Nothing. Now and then people will mention the starling's musicality, the crow's ear for a tune, the owl's ingenious harmony as it taps on its stomach to accompany itself — an artificial method yielding only slender polyphony.

There has been suggestions that Satie had a high-functioning form of autism that was previously known as Asperger's Syndrome. Other composers like Anton Bruckner and Beethoven for instance have been thought to have had the same syndrome. Asperger's Syndrome people can have the ability to zero in on one thing to the exclusion of other things. They are of average to high intelligence, and can also suffer from anxiety and depression more than most people. There social skills can be lacking as well, and repetition of actions and sounds can be a comfort to them. Perhaps Satie self-medicated himself with alcohol and absinthe for many years because of depression. Whatever the reason, he died from cirrhosis of the liver in 1925. When his friends went to his small apartment after his death (no one ever was allowed to visit it when he was alive) they found it in squalor with over 100 umbrellas chaotically strewn about.

He began to compose in the early 1880's with his earliest music being written in the salon style of the time. His lack of formal education was no deterrent to writing some of the music he is most remembered for; the set of 3 Gymnopédies. These pieces were followed by the first set of 3 Gnossiennes about 1890. There are a total of 6 Gnossiennes for piano.

The title of Gnossiennes was created by Satie, and no one knows exactly what it means. Some have thought that it refers to the word gnosis, a Greek word that means knowledge. Although Satie did not call them dances, they seem to be like the Gymnopédies, written with a simple melody over a slowly moving accompaniment of block chords.

Gnossienne No. 1 - Lent (Slow) - Satie wrote the Gnossiennes in free time,  without bar lines or time signatures. They move slowly, with simple harmonies that tend to repeat, a type of musical minimalism that preceded the Minimalist movement in art and music by many years. There is a timeless quality to the first one in the set. Tinged with a touch of sadness, the music has no real beginning or ending. It only starts and stops.  No. 1 has the key signature of F minor, and most of the harmony is in F minor, with only 2 other chords appearing in the piece; C minor and B-flat minor, the chordal structure followed by countless pieces of music all the way to modern rock and roll and pop, tonic, dominant, subdominant. The melody flows above these chords and is punctuated by grace notes that give an exotic feeling to the plainness of the harmony. Most of Satie's piano music is not technically difficult, but the austere appearance of it on the page is deceiving. It requires an almost imperceptible subtlety of variation. Appearing at the end of the Romantic era of music with all of the excess that could go along with it, Satie's music is elegant and something new.  As was Satie's habit, the first three Gnossienne had what may appear to be performance directions sprinkled throughout the music. Whether they make any sense or are even supposed to make sense is anyone's guess. The words and phrases that appear in this first piece (of course originally in French) are: Shining, Questioning, From the tip of the thought, Wonder about yourself, On the tip of the tongue.

Gnossienne No. 2 - Avec attonnement (With astonishment) - Much shorter than the first piece in the set, No. 2 has more harmonic variety and melody. Perhaps that is why the tempo indication reads 'with astonishment' as the harmony shifts from major to minor, from G minor to F-sharp major, F major, D diminished and E minor 7th. And the chord that goes with the key signature of no sharps or flats, C major, does make an appearance near the end. The words and phrases appearing in this piece are: Don't leave, With great kindness, More intimately,. Lightly with intimacy, Don't be so proud.

Gnossienne No. 3 - Lent - The final piece in the set begins in the same way as the first one, harmonies used are the tonic A minor, subdominant D minor, and dominant E minor. But the melody is more chromatic and leads to mild dissonance and use of other chords such as E major, B minor and F minor. The key signature is no sharps or flats, and the piece ends in A minor. The words and phrases that appear in this piece are: Counsel yourself cautiously, Be clairvoyant, Alone for a second, So as to be a hole, Very lost, Carry this further, Think right, Muffle the sound.

Schubert - Fantasia For Piano 4 Hands In F Minor, D. 940

Franz Schubert lived but 31 years, with most of those years being absorbed with composition. His total number of known works is over 1,500 and to write that much music he had to be composing most of the time.

The last year of his life he suffered from the illnesses that proved fatal. But that did not dampen his creative spirit as he wrote some of his most profound music. One his most admired works of that year is the Fantasia For Piano 4 Hands In F Minor.  Schubert wrote a sizable number of works for piano 4 hands, more than any other composer of his era, and published his first work in the genre in 1822. The popularity of the piano as an instrument was to be found more and more in the homes of the emerging middle class, and the sales of music suitable for amateurs to play was growing. Music for piano 4 hands became very popular, and along with music originally composed in the form were arrangements of orchestral works. Much of this music was not taxing for amateurs to play, with much of Schubert's 4 hand music intended for amateurs and students. But the Fantasia in F minor is an exception for it has a depth of emotion and artistry that makes it not only one of Schubert's most outstanding compositions in the form, but one of his masterpieces in any genre. 

The Fantasia is in one continuous movement, and consists of 4 distinct sections:

 I. Allegro molto moderato - The music begins with a gentle accompaniment before the entrance of the main theme of dotted rhythms and grace notes. The theme is repeated in  F major until the second theme more emphatic theme enters. These two themes are repeated and developed before the music shifts to F-sharp minor and the entrance of the theme of the next section.

II. Largo - This section's main theme in reminiscent of the French overture style of Bach's time with its double dotted rhythms and trills. The next theme is a reflection of the preceding one and leads to a development of the double dotted theme. This section is short, and leads directly to the next.

III. Allegro vivace - This section is a scherzo in F-sharp minor with a trio in D major. When the scherzo returns, it alternates between F-sharp minor and A major and leads up to the final section.

IV. Allegro molto moderato -  The music returns to the main theme of the first section in F minor, with the 4 sections together resembling one single sonata form movement as the first section can be thought of as the exposition, the second and third sections the development, and the fourth as the recapitulation. After the main theme is heard, the second theme is transformed into a fugue that leads to a dramatic  climax that ends in C major. The initial theme returns, and the fantasia ends in the home key.

Bach - The Well Tempered Clavier Book II, Nos. 1-6

In the court and church appointments that Johann Sebastian Bach had throughout his life, he was not only required to compose and lead the musicians in performance, but to teach them as well. He himself was taught the basics of music by his older brother after the death of his parents. But his innate curiosity lead him to copy out music of other composers to learn all he could. This was a common occurrence of the time as most music was not published and if it circulated at all it was in the form of hand-made copies. So Bach was probably an autodidact to a large degree.

By copying and filtering the music of others through his mind, he created his own way of doing things, which in turn made him an excellent teacher.

The preludes and fugues of the Well Tempered Clavier were written and used to instruct and entertain students and musicians. Leave it to the creative urge of Bach to write not just one set of 24 preludes  and fugues, but two. But the differences in the two books are evidence that Bach didn't repeat himself with the second set.

The second book of the Well Tempered Clavier appeared roughly twenty years after the first volume, and Bach surely did not remain static. His style broadened, he encompassed more of the current trends in composing. While it can be said that the first book is more obviously geared to instruction, the second book is not as clear cut.


Prelude and Fugue No. 1 In C Major, BWV 870 - As in the first prelude of Book I, this prelude emphasizes harmonic progressions. But within those progressions occur snippets of melodies and themes, examples of how Bach could weave harmony and counterpoint into very satisfying music that makes profound musical sense.

The 3-voice fugue that follows has a subject that is 4 bars long, with a rest in the middle of it. Next the mildly declamatory prelude that precedes it, the fugue has a little bit of rhythmic bounce.

Prelude and Fugue No. 2 In C Minor, BWV 871 - C minor has been a key of passion and drama to many composers, and Bach wrote a dramatic prelude/ toccata in C minor in the first book. This prelude is decidedly less so. Any drama it has isn't obvious, and it is almost entirely written in two parts.

At only 28 bars, this fugue is somewhat short on the page. The subject is but one measure long, and Bach works out the fugue in a simpler form.

Prelude and Fugue No. 3 In C-sharp Major, BWV 872 - The only music Bach wrote in the key of C-sharp major is contained within the Well Tempered Clavier. The prelude of the first book is a brilliant piece, while this one is more studied and introverted and sounds akin to the C major prelude in the first book. There is a shift from 4/4 time to 3/8 time near the end and the music becomes a short fugato.

This 3-voiced fugue has a subject of only 5 notes, with the second entry coming before the first statement of it is complete.

Prelude and Fugue No. 4 In C-sharp Minor, BWV 873 - There was not always a particular feeling or emotion Bach conveyed with specific keys, but the key of C-sharp minor seems to be one of them. As in the first book, this prelude has a feeling of sadness. It is written in 3 voices throughout.

The fugue is in contrast to the prelude. It is written in 12/16 time, a compound meter of 4/4 time that implies a quick tempo. There is an interesting chromatic section within it.

Prelude and Fugue No. 5 In D Major, BWV 874 - The prelude opens with a fanfare and proceeds like a dance from one of Bach's sets of dance pieces.  The first section is repeated, rather like a Scarlatti sonata, and some have conjectured that Bach knew about the development of sonata form. The theme bounces around the voices, and is answered as it makes its way to the end.

The 4-voiced fugue is stately and refined.

Prelude and Fugue No.6 In D Minor, BWV 875 - Written in two parts, a brilliant companion piece to the D minor prelude of Book One.

An interesting subject with a chromatic section in the eighth notes, and a complex set of note values from sixteenth triplets, sixteenth notes, and eighth notes.