A totally peaceful piece of music

Well, three of them. Eric Satie was a Frenchman first and a composer of what I would call little miniatures for piano (his most famous stuff).  I like this guy for a lot of reasons. He wasn't appreciated by his teachers and peers (Georges Mathias, his professor of piano at the Conservatoire (Paris Conservatory), described his pupil's piano technique in flatly negative terms, "insignificant and laborious" and "worthless") and generally was described as one of those talents of sorts one finds at a lot of Hamptons (Long Island) gatherings - pleasant but of no perceived value.  Not true. He had talent. Amazing talent.

In some ways, he wrote the most motionless of dance pieces....3 The anecdote of Satie introducing himself as a "gymnopaedist" in December 1887 runs as follows: the first time Satie visited the Chat Noir cabaret, he was introduced to its director, Rodolphe Salis, famous for serving sharp comments. Being coerced to mention his profession, Satie, lacking any recognisable professional occupation, presented himself as a "gymnopaedist", supposedly in an attempt to outwit the director.

What are gymnopaedists? ...those who participate in a festival of dance in ancient Greece. Think Grecian Urn ...frozen in glaze and high heat put to music.  Now that is interesting. Dance without motion. Dance without motion. Dance. Frozen.




and in the orchestral version