The Gymnopédies or Trois
Gymnopédies, are three piano compositions written by French composer and
pianist Erik Satie. The first and third were published in 1888 and the second
in 1895.
Jeunes filles au bord de la mer,
1879 painting by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, which may have inspired Satie for
the atmosphere he wanted to evoke in his Gymnopédies
The work's unusual title comes
from the French form of gymnopaedia, the ancient Greek word for an annual
festival where young men danced naked – or perhaps simply unarmed. The source
of the title has been a subject of debate. Satie and his friend Alexis
Roland-Manuel maintained that he adopted it after reading Gustave Flaubert's
novel Salammbô, while others see a poem by J. P. Contamine de Latour as the source
of Satie's inspiration, since the first Gymnopédie was published in the
magazine La Musique des familles in the summer of 1888 together with an excerpt
of Latour's poem Les Antiques, where the term appears
Oblique et coupant l'ombre un torrent éclatant
Ruisselait en flots d'or sur la dalle polie
Où les atomes d'ambre au feu se miroitant
Mêlaient leur sarabande à la gymnopédie
Slanting and shadow-cutting a bursting stream
Trickled in gusts of gold on the shiny flagstone
Where the amber atoms in the fire gleaming
Mingled their sarabande with the gymnopaedia.
However, it remains uncertain
whether the poem was composed before the music. Satie may have picked up the
term from a dictionary such as Dominique Mondo's Dictionnaire de Musique, where
gymnopédie is defined as a "nude dance, accompanied by song, which youthful
Spartan maidens danced on specific occasions", following a similar
definition from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Dictionnaire de Musique.]
Later in 1888, the third
Gymnopédie was published. The second Gymnopédie did not appear until seven
years later, and its impending publication was announced in several editions of
the Chat Noir and Auberge du Clou magazines.
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes'
symbolist paintings may have been an inspiration for the atmosphere Satie
wanted to evoke with his Gymnopédies.
Music
These short, atmospheric pieces
are written in 3
4 time, with each sharing a
common theme and structure.
Lent et douloureux (D major / D
minor)
Lent et triste (C major)
Lent et grave (A minor)
The melodies of the pieces use
deliberate, but mild, dissonances against the harmony, producing a piquant,
melancholy effect that matches the performance instructions, which are to play
each piece "painfully" (douloureux), "sadly" (triste), or
"gravely" (grave). The first few bars of Gymnopédie No. 1 (shown below)
consist of an alternating progression of two major seventh chords, the first on
the subdominant, G, and the second on the tonic, D.