PROGRAMME NOTES

5 March 2006

Satie, Cage and the Minimalists

Tonight’s programme will attempt to briefly trace the influence of Erik Satie’s philosophy and art on John Cage’s and the minimalist composers’ work.

It has been argued in academic circles that Erik Satie was the first European avant-garde composer, a true “father of modern music”. Satie was the first to invent and apply a number of compositional techniques and principles, most of which later fostered streams of development in modern music. Composers such as Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, John Cage and many others (including minimalist composers) have admitted to having been influenced greatly by Satie’s ideas, some going on to use or further extend them in their own work.

Musicologist Larry Solomon, in his article “Satie, the First Modern” lists Satie’s many innovations and proves (with musical examples) his precedence in using them, some of which include:

That American composer John Cage was much influenced by Satie’s philosophy is amply demonstrated by the 25-concert festival, dedicated to the music of Satie, which Cage organized at Black Mountain College, North Carolina in 1948; one of the pre-concert lectures was entitled "Defense of Satie". A festival highlight was the performance of Satie’s Le Piége de Méduse, considered to be the first example of surrealist drama. The one-act play is constructed in seven scenes, with dances in between. The Black Mountain College performance featured Buckminster Fuller and Elaine de Kooning in the main roles, dancer Merce Cunningham and stage sets by Willem de Kooning.

Scholars have frequently compared the music of Satie and the minimalist composers. In that relation John Cage was somewhat of a mediator: having absorbed Satie’s philosophy, he passed it onto a generation of composers to come, some of whom (La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Philip Glass and Steve Reich) started the “American branch” of the minimalist movement. The minimalists’ work is characterized by traits such as rhythmic simplicity, repetition, lack of development, cadence or climax, and emotional detachment, all of which epitomize Satie’s music. It is worth mentioning that this similarity was not incidental: both Satie’s and the minimalists’ work was a rebellion against established artistic trends of hyper-complexity and strictness bordering on rigidity, reigning at the time (Wagnerism in the case of Satie, and the Post-modernism of Boulez and Stockhausen in the case of the minimalists).

Le Piége de Méduse, 1913 for paper-prepared piano. Another of Satie’s inventions was the prepared piano. Today, John Cage is widely considered to be the inventor of the instrument, having written his first piece for it in 1938; some suggest that Ravel was the first to manipulate the sound of the piano, by using interwoven sheets of paper between its strings (in his opera L’Enfants and le Sortiléges, 1920). Records show, however, that Satie did the same in 1913, which again gives him precedence.

The text of Satie’s comico-surrealist Le Piége de Méduse (a one act “comédie lirique”) was written in February of 1913. A few months later he added the music — a set of seven short dances, originally written for piano, to accompany the dance of a mechanical monkey.

At the private premiere of the work, Satie inserted sheets of paper between the hammers and strings of the piano, in order to achieve a more mechanical sound. There are no records of how exactly he did it or what the result sounded like; tonight’s performance is the fruit of the performer’s experiment, in an attempt to be true to the author’s original idea.

John Cage composed Bacchanale in 1938, to accompany the dance of Syvilla Fort. According to Cage, the prepared piano was born out of necessity — the necessity of having a percussion ensemble in a space that could accommodate only a small grand piano.

Cage, himself a pianist, believed that “percussion music is a contemporary transition from keyboard-influenced music to the all-sound music of the future.” He realized his belief by giving the pianist the role of a one-person percussion orchestra. Through the ingenious use of bolts, nuts and strips of felt, Cage magically transformed the piano into a new instrument.

Satie’s Socrate, a “symphonic drama in three parts” was composed in 1918. It was initially notated for four speakers (singers) and small orchestra; another original version by Satie is for one singer and piano. The text is a (now antiquated) French translation of Plato’s Dialogues. All three movements feature simple, often repetitive rhythms and endless, continuous melodies; the music is free-flowing, without cadences or climaxes.

John Cage was so enticed by the music of Socrate that he decided to make a two-piano arrangement for a dance of Merce Cunningham. Cage transcribed the first movement in 1945, but was forced (by copyright issues) to postpone the process until 1968, when the whole work was finally published. In his arrangement Cage kept true to Satie’s score; the vocal parts are beautifully distributed between the two pianos, which share the music in a non-hierarchic way.

Steve Reich’s Piano Phase for piano duo, 1967, was the first piece in which the composer experimented with the phasing process. It could easily be called the “ultimate chamber music”, due to the fact that virtually no individual work on in is necessary, yet hours of practice as a duo are required in order to achieve satisfactory results. The piece demands formidable concentration and perfect sense of synchronization. It consists of three motifs (of twelve-, eight- and four-note length) the two pianists play in unison, after which piano one starts to phase, i.e. slightly raises the tempo, while piano two keeps the exact tempo, until the two instruments “click” in unison again. After the completion of the 24 phases, the piece ends.

John Adams’ Hallelujah Junction was written in 1996. The title refers to a small crossroads hamlet in eastern Sierra Nevada. The composer says:

“For years I would pass through it, wondering what piece of music might have a title like Hallelujah Junction. It was a case of a good title needing a piece, so I obliged by composing this work.”

Critics have called Hallelujah Junction’s music “divinely bizarre”. The two pianos’ dialogue is at times like a wild chase, at times phasing, interlocking, clashing, shimmering, bubbling or simply existing in peaceful harmony.

© 2006 Tzenka Dianova. Use by permission only.

School of Music Theatre, University of Auckland

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