# Why did Satie call those pieces "Gymnopedies"?



## Au79 (Aug 18, 2015)

What is the meaning behind the name of Erik Satie's most famous pieces - the Gymnopedies? As far as I know _gymnos_ means naked in Greek, and _paidi_ means a child. I can't make much sense of it. Does anyone of you know more about that?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Wikipedia to the rescue.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

*Why did Satie call those pieces "Gymnopedies"? *

Because "The Well-Tempered Clavier" was taken.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Art Rock said:


> Wikipedia to the rescue.


Aw shucks! You ruined things by providing a sane, reasonable answer … before I could give my response! Which, of course, was neither sane nor reasonable. I guess I'll have to save it for the next post about naming compositions. Or have it engraved on my tombstone -- it's _that_ good. But now _you'll _never know! (But it did have something to do with "naked dancing". Wooo!)

Actually, I once wrote a play (titled "Urned Rites", for high school aged actors) on which I drew on much lore concerning things Eric Satie. One character played part of a Gymnopedie on a piano, and the theme became the underscore incidental music for the play. Another character danced (not naked) to a Gymnopedie, and the sound design utilized various manifestations (arrangements) of the Satie works. But there was more to the internal organization of the play, things actors and audience never knew about but which I used as structuring mechanisms -- things like "white foods" and whiteness in general (favorites of Satie) and other eccentricities of the composer. I always think of that play as the Satie play, though I'm sure no one else ever has. But I tend to present myself challenges when structuring a work, and for this particular play, since the Satie music was going to be so critical, I reached out towards a biography of an eccentric to provide stimulus for the plot line and character development. I have always loved Satie's piano pieces and have several collections of his music on hand.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> Wikipedia to the rescue.


When young men are dancing naked, I leave the scene. :wave:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Naked athletics! Who would have thunk it? I used to think he named these delightful pieces after his lunch to fool everybody.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Bulldog said:


> When young men are dancing naked, I leave the scene. :wave:


But what were you doing there to start with?

The public demands answers.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

eugeneonagain said:


> But what were you doing there to start with?
> 
> The public demands answers.


Release the report.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

All in all, 'gymnopédies' is not Satie's best title. Some better ones are:


Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear. (_Trois morceaux en forme de poire_)


Disagreeable Insights (_Aperçus désagréables)
_


Genuinely Flabby preludes (for a dog)_ - _(Veritables Preludes flasques (pour un chien). As a replacement for the rejected original versions of the 'flabby preludes', also for a dog.


Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois (I'll leave you to translate that!)


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Cuz he was a weird cat... why did he write on his piece Vexations that it should (maybe) be played 840 times?

In any case, great composer, and one of the people who got me into classical music proper. Through him I discovered Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, etc.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

flamencosketches said:


> In any case, great composer, and one of the people who got me into classical music proper. Through him I discovered Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, etc. [\quote]
> 
> Me too. I had dropped listening to classical music for over 20 years, but one night on the radio someone played Gnoissienne No. 5. I had to find out who Satie was. And if you get into Satie, you get into everyone he was around. Then there was John Cage's fascination with him, who led me to Webern. And Webern led me to Isaac and the Netherlands composers. And that led to my room filled with classical CDs from Gregorian chant to the present. All that from hearing one piece.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Did it ever occur to anyone that Satie used that title because he "liked naked young men," i.e., he was gay?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> Did it ever occur to anyone that Satie used that title because he "liked naked young men," i.e., he was gay?


Was he? I always assumed he was nothing else other than an eccentric loner who drank too much. It never occurred to me that the inspiration behind the _Gymnopedies_ was erotic in nature, just as I've always assumed there wasn't any in Granville Bantock's two works based on Sappho.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

He could have been gay, I guess, but more likely he was just French.

@Manxfeeder, couldn't have said it better myself. That's a great story.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

elgars ghost said:


> Was he? I always assumed he was nothing else other than an eccentric loner who drank too much. It never occurred to me that the inspiration behind the _Gymnopedies_ was erotic in nature, just as I've always assumed there wasn't any in Granville Bantock's two works based on Sappho.


You didn't know Bantock was a lesbian?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

amfortas said:


> You didn't know Bantock was a lesbian?


Har-de-har… ………….


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## Au79 (Aug 18, 2015)

SONNET CLV said:


> Actually, I once wrote a play (titled "Urned Rites", for high school aged actors) on which I drew on much lore concerning things Eric Satie. One character played part of a Gymnopedie on a piano, and the theme became the underscore incidental music for the play. Another character danced (not naked) to a Gymnopedie, and the sound design utilized various manifestations (arrangements) of the Satie works. But there was more to the internal organization of the play, things actors and audience never knew about but which I used as structuring mechanisms -- things like "white foods" and whiteness in general (favorites of Satie) and other eccentricities of the composer. I always think of that play as the Satie play, though I'm sure no one else ever has. But I tend to present myself challenges when structuring a work, and for this particular play, since the Satie music was going to be so critical, I reached out towards a biography of an eccentric to provide stimulus for the plot line and character development. I have always loved Satie's piano pieces and have several collections of his music on hand.


_Is you is or is you ain't_ Kubrick reincarnated...

However, "things actors and audience never knew about but which I used as structuring mechanisms" - I *sooo* know what you're talking about!


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## Au79 (Aug 18, 2015)

I kinda start liking that guy. His eccentricity sounds a bit like Salvador Dali's (both born in May btw, coincidence?). On the gay thing - I also thought of that but then I thought it couldn't be that simple. I'll check out the other pieces @eugeneonagain mentioned. 
Thanky you guys!


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> Did it ever occur to anyone that Satie used that title because he "liked naked young men," i.e., he was gay?


No evidence for it. Plus he was having it away with Suzanne Valadon in that period.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

flamencosketches said:


> He could have been gay, I guess, but more likely he was just French.


Haa haaaa! :lol:


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

Don't know if anyone agrees with me but I hear them as variations of the same theme. The same with Gnoissiennes too.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I agree, and they work well for the classical guitar.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Judith said:


> Don't know if anyone agrees with me but I hear them as variations of the same theme. The same with Gnoissiennes too.


It's not necessarily the same theme, but it's more like looking at the same thing three ways. It's been likened to a Greek vase with a static background and with one-dimensional figures, and as you turn it, it shows similar but different scenes.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Manxfeeder said:


> It's not necessarily the same theme, *but it's more like looking at the same thing three ways*. It's been likened to a Greek vase with a static background and with one-dimensional figures, and as you turn it, it shows similar but different scenes.


Yes, that's how he described it. However the structure really is more or less the same throughout. A very similarly structured melody over 7th chords, over a pedal bass - the 7th in the bass according to how you name the chords. The opening could be described as just G maj7 and D maj7 or Bm/G (add #5) and F#m/D (add #5). I'm not great at chord naming, so might be off.

These early 'group-of-three' works - _Ogives _(4 in that one), _Gnossiennes, Sarabandes_, _Pièces froides_ etc - are all one idea presented three ways and all quite static in a way. His later pieces seem to abandon that, except for his next-to-last piano work _Avant-dernières pensées _which fully employs his ostinato plan over three movements.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I have three versions of Satie's Complete Piano Music: one by Aldo Ciccolini on 5 CDs (EMI) from 1967-1971, mentioned once by KenOC (my second favorite, the recording, not him), one by Jean-Yves Thibadeaux (which I intensely dislike, I don't care if I spelled his name correctly), and one by Bojan Gorisek, a 10-CD box on gold discs, which is by far my favorite.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> I have three versions of Satie's Complete Piano Music: one by Aldo Ciccolini on 5 CDs (EMI) from 1967-1971, mentioned once by KenOC (my second favorite, the recording, not him), one by Jean-Yves Thibadeaux (which I intensely dislike, I don't care if I spelled his name correctly), and one by Bojan Gorisek, a 10-CD box on gold discs, which is by far my favorite.


I'm not a vinyl enthusiast, but I have to admit, Ciccolini sounds better on vinyl than on the EMI-issued CDs.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> I have three versions of Satie's Complete Piano Music: one by Aldo Ciccolini on 5 CDs (EMI) from 1967-1971, mentioned once by KenOC (my second favorite, the recording, not him), one by Jean-Yves Thibadeaux (which I intensely dislike, I don't care if I spelled his name correctly), and one by Bojan Gorisek, a 10-CD box on gold discs, which is by far my favorite.


Mine are vinyls of Jean Joel Barbier (beautifully played on a Bösendorfer), which I always listened to before I got the Naxos CDs of the complete piano works by Klara Kormendi. I like the latter a lot, she treats the works very well. Her version of the Gymnopedies makes Thibaudet's sound like an amateur.

Ciccolini's is a bit odd. He's recorded them more than once and he does some bizarre things. In the first he plays the 'Aubade' from _Avant-dernières_... painfully slow, then in his re-recording he plays ridiculously fast. You can tell he's quite bored with them and probably just doing it for the money.

Thibaudet's is okay in places, but way overrated.

As a selections album a great favourite of mine is Peter Lawson's from 1980. His performance of the 2nd an 4th nocturnes is very good.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I like Satie, his eccentricities are hilarious, I enjoy reading about his life. I admire his influence on modern music. That said the only piece of music he wrote that does anything for me is the famous _Gymnopedie No. 1_.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Satie had a wicked sense of humor. I particularly like his _Sonatine Bureaucratique_, a disarragement of Clementi's sonatine known by all beginning piano players.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Here's the 1917 ballet music for "Parade" that Erik Satie did with Picasso as set designer. It's not what I expected:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

This recording (now on CD) was my first "imprint" of Satie, an Everest LP. Note the Bonnard cover. I had to have it on CD for sentimental reasons.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Satie had a wicked sense of humor. I particularly like his _Sonatine Bureaucratique_, a disarragement of Clementi's sonatine known by all beginning piano players.


That's what's great about Satie: he understood his listeners. He liked to deconstruct pieces, but, of course, it doesn't work if you aren't in on the joke. So he deconstructed pieces everybody knows whether they know it or not, like Chabrier's Espania, Chopin's funeral march, and, as you said, the one piece just about every beginning piano player knows.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> This recording (now on CD) was my first "imprint" of Satie, an Everest LP. Note the Bonnard cover. I had to have it on CD for sentimental reasons.
> 
> View attachment 115192


Are these arrangements? I'm not familiar with any of Satie's orchestral music; didn't know he had written any, really. Will definitely have to check this one out. Bonnard is also one of my favorite painters, definitely suits Satie's style.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Manxfeeder said:


> That's what's great about Satie: he understood his listeners. He liked to deconstruct pieces, but, of course, it doesn't work if you aren't in on the joke. So he deconstructed pieces everybody knows whether they know it or not, like Chabrier's Espania, *Chopin's funeral march*, and, as you said, the one piece just about every beginning piano player knows.


And in parentheses he refers to it as 'A citation from the famous mazurka by Schubert'.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

flamencosketches said:


> Are these arrangements? I'm not familiar with any of Satie's orchestral music; didn't know he had written any, really. Will definitely have to check this one out. Bonnard is also one of my favorite painters, definitely suits Satie's style.


I hadn't paid much attention to Bonnard until last week, where there is an exhibit at our art gallery. Wow. His works are visually stunning.

Personally, one painting that fits Satie's style for me (at least his satirical phase) is Paul Klee's Twittering Machine. If you forget about the first piece in the Descriptions Automatiques being about a boat, it sounds like someone is cranking Klee's nice little bird machine, not noticing the barbs.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

I've heard Thibaudet's complete Satie piano works about a thousand times through. If it gets better, I'd love to hear it.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

flamencosketches said:


> I've heard Thibaudet's complete Satie piano works about a thousand times through. If it gets better, I'd love to hear it.


Listen to the suggested alternatives then. Thibaudet's is perhaps the weakest of the most known interpretations, and I have heard a lot of interpretations - live and recorded. I can play Satie better than Thibaudet.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Here's the Bojan Gorisek box, on gold CDs. I would advise buying it before it goes up in price even more. For some reason, the individual discs are costing more than the box itself, which is identical as far as I know. Also pictured is another separate title 
by Gorisek. He's got a George Crumb disc that's mighty impressive, as well.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

eugeneonagain said:


> Listen to the suggested alternatives then. Thibaudet's is perhaps the weakest of the most known interpretations, and I have heard a lot of interpretations - live and recorded. I can play Satie better than Thibaudet.


I will. Curious, though, what makes his interpretations so bad in your eyes? I have heard almost nothing else to compare.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

tdc said:


> That said the only piece of music he wrote that does anything for me is the famous _Gymnopedie No. 1_.


Actually, I heard this on the radio yesterday and enjoyed it, perhaps Francine Kay's interpretation helped... I think his piano music is growing on me.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

tdc said:


> Actually, I heard this on the radio yesterday and enjoyed it, perhaps Francine Kay's interpretation helped... I think his piano music is growing on me.


That's not a bad thing . . .


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

The shorter gnossienne no.2 is my favourite of those three first gnossiennes. Sometimes I play it just after getting out of bed (piano is actually about a metre from the foot of the bed ).


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