{"id":1622,"date":"2020-05-18T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museusdesitges.wordpress.com\/?p=1622"},"modified":"2020-05-18T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T08:30:00","slug":"satie-monsieur-le-pauvre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museusdesitges.cat\/blog\/2020\/05\/18\/satie-monsieur-le-pauvre\/","title":{"rendered":"Satie, Monsieur Le Pauvre"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Erik Satie was born in Honfleur, 17 May 1866, next year we will remember the 155 years since his birth. Son of a Scottish mother, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where his music was considered insignificant and laborious and considered untalented, the laziest student in the conservatoire. Described by Rollo Myers as \u00abhermit, saint, philosopher, wit, bouffon, Socratic ironist, an enemy of convention, champion of youth and fearless explorer along new and untried paths in art\u00bb, he is now the person in the world of music most closely related to Surrealism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the 19th century, in Montmartre, a young Erik put music to the shadow puppets that Miquel Utrillo performed for a living in Barcelona and later in Montmartre at the Chat Noir, and it is here that Santiago Rusi\u00f1ol became friends with him. The Bohemians in Montmartre were a mix of artists, clowns, dancers, prostitutes and acrobats. In the early years, Satie made his income as a cabaret pianist in a bar in Montmartre (le Chat Noir), engaged to be the second pianist and where he met Utrillo, Russi\u00f1ol etc. It is to this background that we owe all the musical ballads and the down-to-earth tuned of his songs. He influenced later generations of French composers including Milhaud, Poulenc, Auric, and Honegger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utrillo and Satie also shared a lover -in separate times- the model and painter Suzanne Valadon<\/strong>, who was also the mother of Maurice Utrillo. Their affair started in 1893, and he proposed marriage after just one night spent together, they didn’t marry, but they lived next to each other at the Rue Corot, she was his Biqui. The model had had many partners before like Puvis de Chavannes, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas or Miquel Utrillo. Her love child, Maurice Utrillo, was an alcoholic before the age of ten to whom Erik sent flowers every day, but when she left him for a banker, they only shared a bonjour bonjour. To get over the heartbreak he wrote the Danses Gothiques to calm his spirit, as he had \u00abnothing but an icy loneliness that fills the head with emptiness and the heart with sadness\u00bb, Suzanne remained his only love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Harm\u00f2nium<\/em>, by Mayermarix
Par\u00eds,\u00daltim quart segle XIX – primer quart segle XX
Museu Rom\u00e0ntic Can Llopis, Sitges. Col. Romanticisme<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While he worked at the Chat Noir, his friend Debussy introduced him to the Rosicrucian Order and its leader, S\u00e2r P\u00e9ladan, priest of the Rose-Croix, and became a significant influence for him, he created the music for the cult. His sister, Olga Satie, after describing her brother as having always been challenging to understand, expressed the opinion that Erik was a spiritualist rather than a true mystic. She was under the impression that he was working under the direct guidance of some mediaeval cleric whose fanatical piety had been inherited from Beyond the Grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a specialist in titles, he invented a new word for some new pieces, Gymnop\u00e9dies<\/strong>. Composed in 1888 in a set of three for piano (he liked the sets of three), they were revolutionary in a time that was dominated by Wagner, Mahler or Brahms. Debussy orchestrated them, and it is in this version that we know them now. Satie wanted to show something new, but he was shy about himself, so he used humour and gave his music funny names to disarm the critics in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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