“Open your head”, “light as an egg” and “from the top of your back teeth”: such phrases are only to be found in the scores of the eccentric Erik Satie, a composer born into a generation where ‘only more could be more’ – the post-Wagnerian age of richly furnished, intense music full of emotional layering. Expelled from the Paris Conservatoire for being its ‘laziest student’, Satie rebelled strongly against the musical climate in which he grew up, instead choosing to adopt a voice that did away with what he considered to be pretentious behaviour and which instead drew on irony through the use of free association, subtle dissonances and unexpected asides.
Works:
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Satie: Gnossienne No. 1
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Satie: Gnossienne No. 4
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Satie: Gnossienne No. 5
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Satie: Gnossienne No. 6
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Satie: Gymnopédie No. 1
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Satie: Petite Ouverture à danser
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Satie: Pièces froides (6)
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Satie: Pièces froides: Airs à faire fuir (3)
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Satie: Pièces froides: Danses de travers (3)
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Satie: Six Gnossiennes
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Satie: Trois Gymnopédies
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Satie: Gymnopédie No. 2
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Satie: Gymnopédie No. 3