# Erik Satie (and Hopefully Some Similar Composers)



## stardust

I've been listening to Erik Satie quite a bit lately, and I really like his style. It's very minimalistic, but of course I don't find it boring it all. The sound is very rich and atmospheric. [When I think of the phrase "rainy day music," Satie immediately comes to mind.] I'll be honest: I've pretty much only listened to his _gymnopédies_, _gnossiennes_, and nocturnes. Those seem to me to be the most popular works in his oeuvre. Please mention any other favorite pieces of his that you like.

I've been looking for more music similar to his. Other than discovering Philip Glass through the process - whom I now like a lot but find isn't quite what I've been looking for - I've found no other composers. I know every composer is different, but is there anyone else you could recommend? As far as I can tell, he wasn't part of a big movement (like the Baroque or the Romantic movements) so figuring out what else I should naturally explore doesn't seem obvious to me.

In case anyone is unfamiliar with Satie, here is his Gnossienne No. 1 (which I believe is his most famous work).


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## neoshredder

Debussy, Ravel, Cage...?


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## Crudblud

The early works of John Cage would likely suit you.






You might also wish to try the music of Cage's associate Morton Feldman, who became the proponent of his own brand of minimalism, very slow and exploratory, revolving around subtle shifts and often very quiet. Quite a bit darker than you may be looking for, but worth a try nonetheless.






For composers of Satie's own time, you might want to look to the members of Les Six, a French composers' group which was created in opposition to the music of Wagner as well as Ravel and Debussy. A counterculture group, if you will.

Georges Auric





Darius Milhaud





Arthur Honegger





Of course, you may also find Ravel and Debussy to your liking. (video limit reached)

Ravel - Valses nobles et sentimentales

Debussy - Prélude à l'aprês-midi d'un faune


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## Mephistopheles

I'm afraid I don't know any composers similar to Satie. I'm just wondering, though, have you ever listened to Reinbert de Leeuw's recordings of his piano music? He has a set on the Philips label, and his Gnossienne No. 1 is eerily slow, unlike any others. It's perfect for when you haven't slept in over 24 hours and want a slightly trippy experience.


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## Cygnenoir

I quite like the humorous piece _Trois morceaux en forme de poire à quatre mains_.

Also try the _Embryons Desseches_ and _Six pieces froides_.


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## neoshredder

If you are interested in other Eras as well, Handel's Water Music is pretty mellow. Faure, Chopin, and Grieg for Romanticism..


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## Norse

Federico Mompou (1893 - 1987) is the most clearly Satie inspired composer I can think of. He doesn't have Satie's irony, and there's more impressionism and folk elements in his music, but the simple 'nakedness' of Satie is often present.

This is an early set of smaller pieces.


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## Manxfeeder

Norse said:


> Federico Mompou (1893 - 1987) is the most clearly Satie inspired composer I can think of. He doesn't have Satie's irony, and there's more impressionism and folk elements in his music, but the simple 'nakedness' of Satie is often present.


I think his Musica Callada is outstanding.


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## clavichorder

I third Mompou. Cancion Y Danza is another grouping of pieces of his to look for.


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## clavichorder

Mephistopheles said:


> I'm afraid I don't know any composers similar to Satie. I'm just wondering, though, have you ever listened to Reinbert de Leeuw's recordings of his piano music? He has a set on the Philips label, and his Gnossienne No. 1 is eerily slow, unlike any others. It's perfect for when you haven't slept in over 24 hours and want a slightly trippy experience.


I've heard that recording and I agree. At first it was really annoying but I had a late night experience with it once. Too bad it was an iTunes purchase and my old iPod broke along with the previously iTunes library...


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## clavichorder

Additionally going back in time, there are Satie-like compositions to be found from a seemingly unlikely composer. Alkan is primarily known for works of absurd virtuosity, but a more than passing glance at Alkan will reveal a second and quite prominent feature: quirky musicality. Deeper in his oevre, we have works that rely primarily on this "second trait." He wrote 48 Esquisses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquisses_(Alkan) and some of these are bound to have something like what I describe. I can't seem to think of any off hand, but I have a melody running through my head an looking through his list of compositions, can't for the life of my find what it is.


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## Guest

I agree with the Alkan and Mompou similarities mentioned above. Maybe some Chopin as well. Others mentioned - not so much.

You might also try Ludovico Einaudi who is putting out a succession of popular and accessible albums these days. His music definitely has that rainy day feel.


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## millionrainbows

stardust said:


> I've been listening to Erik Satie quite a bit lately, and I really like his style. It's very minimalistic, but of course I don't find it boring it all. The sound is very rich and atmospheric. [When I think of the phrase "rainy day music," Satie immediately comes to mind.] I'll be honest: I've pretty much only listened to his _gymnopédies_, _gnossiennes_, and nocturnes. Those seem to me to be the most popular works in his oeuvre. Please mention any other favorite pieces of his that you like.
> 
> I've been looking for more music similar to his. Other than discovering Philip Glass through the process - whom I now like a lot but find isn't quite what I've been looking for - I've found no other composers. I know every composer is different, but is there anyone else you could recommend? As far as I can tell, he wasn't part of a big movement (like the Baroque or the Romantic movements) so figuring out what else I should naturally explore doesn't seem obvious to me.
> 
> In case anyone is unfamiliar with Satie, here is his Gnossienne No. 1 (which I believe is his most famous work).


What a good idea for a thread, stardust. I'm big on Satie. If you want something similar, try these: get the yellow-cover piano music first. It's all very minimal, but very beautiful.


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## millionrainbows

I highly recommend this 10-CD set of the complete piano works, on Audiophile Classics gold discs, played by Bojan Gorisek, a young Eastern European pianist. 








Also, Maurice Abravanel & the Utah Symphony, from way back in the vinyl LP days:









Also, some of the religious music Satie composed is interesting. He did some "art" statements, too, like hitting a chord hundreds of times.


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## sah

Manxfeeder said:


> I think his Musica Callada is outstanding.


This piece was (is?) the signature tune of a classical Spanish radio programme:


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## Jeremy Marchant

I've always thought this was rather Satiesque - and shades of the John Cage In a landscape that Crudblud recommends (thanks for that, C, I didn't know it)






... and this selection (lowering the tone slightly)


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## clavichorder

sah said:


> This piece was (is?) the signature tune of a classical Spanish radio programme:


This is a great one for the purposes of this thread as well!


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## elgar's ghost

Although not directly related to Satie's work, some of Prokofiev's early miniatures may be of interest as they were written between 1912 and 1917 just prior to the tailing off of Satie's own output for piano:

5 Sarcasms op. 17 and 20 Visions Fugitives op. 22.


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## stardust

Mephistopheles said:


> I'm afraid I don't know any composers similar to Satie. I'm just wondering, though, have you ever listened to Reinbert de Leeuw's recordings of his piano music? He has a set on the Philips label, and his Gnossienne No. 1 is eerily slow, unlike any others. It's perfect for when you haven't slept in over 24 hours and want a slightly trippy experience.


I haven't heard it. I'll definitely have to seek it out! Thanks!


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## BurningDesire

Erik Satie was a genius <3


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## Manxfeeder

BurningDesire said:


> Erik Satie was a genius <3


The old Encyclopedia Britannica from the '50s called him a genius with little talent. I wonder if that would be their assessment today.


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## BurningDesire

Manxfeeder said:


> The old Encyclopedia Britannica from the '50s called him a genius with little talent. I wonder if that would be their assessment today.


Even if it was, it just makes the writer a bit of a fool. Like all the people who write classical music texts about the 20th Century, or Late 20th Century, and ignore the work of Frank Zappa.


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## principe

Satie was a unique case composer. It's difficult to find some truly similar composers. 
His works (though somehow, pleasant, funny at times, mesmerizing, simple to very simple) are of rather limited significance in musical terms. It's interesting to note that, when a critic dared to say to Satie that his compositions sound a bit _naive_, the composer replied cunningly: "Sometimes, truth is..._naive"_. 
Make up your mind.

Principe


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## joen_cph

Grieg´s Lyric Pieces in the Gilels recording will probably also suit you.

As regards the music´s more humourous aspects, Poulenc and Villa Lobos can be a bit similar. Debussy has some of the mysticism in say, "Estampes", "Preludes", "Images" etc., Ravel in "Miroirs" etc.

Concerning a much earlier style, you probably know Chopin´s Nocturnes ? The Arrau philips recording is very special, for example.


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## Crudblud

BurningDesire said:


> Even if it was, it just makes the writer a bit of a fool. Like all the people who write classical music texts about the 20th Century, or Late 20th Century, and ignore the work of Frank Zappa.


There's a pretty good documentary I watched last night called The Freak Out List*, which looks at many of the names on the list of important people on the inside art of Freak Out, and in part explains how Zappa is embraced by many key figure of the avant garde classical world and dismissed by more conservative listeners who see him as a joke rather than a serious composer. Their loss, I say.

*seems to be part of a series of Zappa related documentaries, including one about Bizarre records, and another about the Mothers in the 60s. This one is somewhat strange in that three tracks used as background music are not Zappa originals but copies of them, despite the rest of the music being Frank's own, the Bizarre documentary is much the same, and also includes Beefheart rip-offs.


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## clavichorder

Another collection of Satie like work is to be found in the late piano music of Franz Liszt. Yep, Liszt. That later stuff is really, really weird, and not very hard to play.


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## clavichorder

As for Satie himself, I used to be pretty fanatical about him when I first discovered him. I haven't been able to hold onto fanaticism, though I am still very fond of Gymnopedies and Gnossienes. I had a pretty good sampling of his piano works, and there was this parody of a Clementi sonatina that I really enjoyed as well, "Sonatine Bureaucratique" and also this rag sounding thing called "Le Piccadily." The other more pure Satie stuff left me less impressed, though I tried to really enjoy it for a while.

Curiously, I knew who Satie was before I even knew who Debussy was. I learned about Debussy through Satie's wikipedia page maybe 4 years ago and thought him to be some minor French composer based on the cursory reference on the page till I searched and found La Mer and was reminded of how the last movement was featured in a scene of one of my favorite movies as a kid, Milo and Otis(Japanese movie about a cat and dog). I was such a noob!


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## millionrainbows

Jeremy Marchant said:


> I've always thought this *(Brian Eno's Music for Airports)* was rather Satiesque - and shades of the John Cage In a landscape...


Not only does Eno's "Music for Airports" sound like Cage's "In a Landscape" on the surface (a sound I would call "new-age-y" but not in a pejorative sense), it also shares with John Cage (and all the post-war serialists) an important conceptual element: that of the artist "stepping back" out of the artwork.

In "Music for Airports," Eno made several tape loops of varying diameters, each loop containing one different note of a predetermined scale. These loops were then played one-at-a-time and re-recorded onto a multitrack tape. Since each loop note was different in length, the result was a sequence of random occurrences of one, two, three, or more notes, depending on how they coincided. Thus, random "chords" are heard when the notes coincide; notes overlap randomly. Yet, since all the notes are scale-derived, the result is a gentle tonal, harmonic sound.

This is explained by Eno as "creating self-generating systems which act on their own" with no "interference" from the artist's preferences. Eno sees this as superior than if he "determined" the outcome according to his own personality.


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## norman bates

What about Chabrier? It seems that Satie was an admirer of his music.


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## millionrainbows

norman bates said:


> What about Chabrier? It seems that Satie was an admirer of his music.


That's a beautiful piece, thanx. I will track this down.


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## clavichorder

norman bates said:


> What about Chabrier? It seems that Satie was an admirer of his music.


I really love Chabrier! He is a truly polished composer, his small output sparkling quite brilliantly. And the piece you linked is possibly his most signature piano miniature, although I'm very fond of the Village Dance and Scherzo Valse as well.

Although, Feuillet d'Album is a very delightful piece as well.


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## millionrainbows

Thanks, clavichorder. That Chabrier piece is beautiful!


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## millionrainbows

I think Erik Satie's idea of "furniture music" presages Eno's "ambient" music; music which holds up when listened to, but which can be ignored.


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## gratefulshrink

I agree with Grieg -- Lyric Pieces. Also, any late Brahms, some Liszt (there is much to choose from), some Faure. One interesting composer is Sorabji. here is his bio from allmusic.com:

"Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji was one of the most interesting figures among classical composers of the twentieth century. A fair amount of inaccurate information about his life and music has been written, largely because of his insistence on privacy and his reluctance to divulge information about himself. Sorabji was a prolific composer, turning out over 100 works, a good many of enormous length. Yet most of his compositions remain unpublished, despite an upsurge of worldwide interest in them in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Sorabji was well cared for in his childhood and teens, and his finances throughout his adult life were fixed and fully adequate to support him and his various pursuits. As a child, Sorabji showed talent on the piano and his music and general education were privately arranged by his family. His father was a Parsi and his mother is believed to have been of Spanish-Sicilian descent. Sorabji's resentment of English culture caused him to discard his own name, or most of it -- he was born Leon Dudley Sorabji -- in favor of the Indian names by which he became known. By 1914, he began to compose his first works. Largely self-taught and by then a brilliant pianist, he found modern music of great interest, but was attracted to the works of then-more obscure figures such as Busoni (the composer he admired most), Mahler, Schoenberg, Reger, Godowsky, and a few others. But he attached his art to no particular trend, rejecting serial composition, neo-Classicism, and the later movements in electronic and aleatoric music. After World War I, he became a music critic writing for, among other publications, the New English Weekly and New Age. In 1929-1930, he wrote what would, a half century hence, become one of his better-known piano compositions, Opus Clavicembalisticum. It has a duration of well over four hours, but is still not his longest keyboard work: Sonata V (1934-1935) and Sequentia cyclica (1948-1949), among others, are even longer. Sorabji continued to compose and give infrequent concerts in the 1930s, gradually cultivating a disdain for audiences, however, and for public consumption of his music in general. By 1937, Sorabji had decided to give up public concerts altogether, though he did continue appearing in private performances. The following year, the rights to the publication of the few works of his to reach print in the postwar years were assumed by Oxford University Press. While this was good news, it was largely negated because the eccentric Sorabji had forbidden public performance of his music without his permission. Thus, little of his music would be heard over the next four decades. But Sorabji was unfazed and continued to write music, apparently unconcerned it might never be heard. True, he did play it in private concerts, but these were relatively few in number. Sorabji retired from music criticism in 1945 and largely focused on composition thereafter. It was not until 1976 that he sanctioned a major public performance of his music, that from pianist Yonty Solomon. Others followed, some from major pianists such as John Ogdon, and much later on, Marc-André Hamelin. Even a few recordings appeared in the latter twentieth century. Sorabji died at the age of 96, leaving most of his compositions in manuscript form. The bulk are for piano (or piano and orchestra), some are vocal/choral (a few with orchestra), and a handful for organ."


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