Songs in the key of my life: Erik Satie - Trois Gnossiennes

My relationship to classical music has always been a bit complicated. Although I attended a better school, the music lessons were unsystematic, half-heartedly presented by overburdened and often very conservative teachers, and consisted of endless writing and practicing music scores. Believe it or not we didn't hear much music at all. My piano lessons with my great uncle didn't help much either, since he prefered German children and folk songs, and I prefered improvising wildly over practicing up and down scales. Nearly everything I know about classical music I picked up at a later age and all by myself. Therefore there are giant gaps in my knowledge and my preferences are very selective. There are not too many composers whose work I admire in its entirety, but Erik Satie is certainly one of them and he ranks high in my admiration. I came upon his work crabwise through his score for Rene Clair's classic short film 'Entr'acte' and his association with Dada. However, Satie's eccentricity as person and as artist was genuine compared to some Dadaists for whom Dada was just an attitude, and he was that way long before that artistic movement came to life. The 'Trois Gnossiennes' were actually composed as early as 1890 and published 1893. Satie composed quite a few series of piano compostions like the Gymnopédies, the Sarabandes, the Nocturnes, all worth listing here, but I'll put my attention on the Gnossiennes. The reason is that they are really the first of these compostions that I came across and, although I enjoy the Gymnopédies nearly as well, those have been misused so much in popular culture (even in advertising!) that I kind of avoid listening to them too often. And besides I still love 'Gnossienes no. 1' the most. The Gnossiennes are (as all the others) extremely short pinao compositions, and the scores have no barlines, therefore no time signature, I guess you can say no preconceived rhythm, and the instructions are often quirky as in "with astonishment" or "with doubt" or "tip in yourself", therefore the performer is quite free to interpret his version, and there are actually many quite differing performances. Basically there is consent to play them slow, and most controversy is about the tempo of a performance (to some the YouTube version I chose is much too fast!). The melodies are very simple and harmonious as if in an oriental key and their repetitiveness convey a sense of timelessnes and infinity and utter beauty. They are composed in a completely new manner, Satie was intending to reinvent classical music, and these compositions are considered today as the first true examples of minimal or ambient music. While preparing this note I have become newly enthusiastic of his music. If you have a chance do check out his eccentric orchesrtal works 'Parade' and 'Relache' and all the other piano miniatures I ighly recommend them! I also decided to start practicing to try and play these tunes.