Tout Satie! Complete Works

CD1

1. Gymnopedies Nos.1 & 3 (orch. Debussy) (2005 Digital Remaster): No. 1  
2. Gymnopedies Nos.1 & 3 (orch. Debussy) (2005 Digital Remaster): No. 3  
3. Le Piccadilly  
4. En habit de cheval (2005 Digital Remaster): Choral  
5. En habit de cheval (2005 Digital Remaster): Fugue litanique  
6. En habit de cheval (2005 Digital Remaster): Autre choral  
7. En habit de cheval (2005 Digital Remaster): Fugue de papier  
8. La Belle excentrique (2005 Digital Remaster): Grande ritournelle  
9. La Belle excentrique (2005 Digital Remaster): Marche franco-lunaire  
10. La Belle excentrique (2005 Digital Remaster): Valse du Mysterieux baiser dans I'oeil  
11. La Belle excentrique (2005 Digital Remaster): Can-can grand-mondain  

CD2

1. Relâche, Ballet - Deuxième Partie : XII - Rentrée Des Hommes
2. Relâche, Ballet - Deuxième Partie : XIV - Les Hommes Se Dévêtissent
3. Relâche, Ballet - Deuxième Partie : XIX - Le Danseur
4. Relâche, Ballet - Deuxième Partie : XX - La Femme
5. Mercure - Poses Plastiques En Trois Tableaux - 1er Tableau : Ouverture
6. Mercure - Poses Plastiques En Trois Tableaux - 1er Tableau : La Nuit
7. Mercure - Poses Plastiques En Trois Tableaux - 1er Tableau : Danse De Tendresse
8. Mercure - Poses Plastiques En Trois Tableaux - 1er Tableau : Signes Du Zodiaque
9. Les Pantins Dansent : Presque Lent 

CD3

1. Satie : 3 Gymnopédies : II Lent et triste
2. Satie: L'Enfance de Ko-Quo (Recommandations maternelles) : I. Ne bois pas ton chocolat avec tes doigts
3. Satie: L'Enfance de Ko-Quo (Recommandations maternelles) : II. Ne souffle pas dans tes oreilles
4. Satie: Gambades
5. Satie: Nocturne No. 6
6. Satie : 6 Gnossiennes : No. 1 Lent  
7. Satie: Six Gnossiennes: No. 3 Lent  
8. Satie: Gnossienne No. 7
9. Croquis Et Agaceries D'un Gros Bonhomme En Bois : I Tyrolienne Turque  
10. Croquis Et Agaceries D'un Gros Bonhomme En Bois : IIII Espanana (Sorte De Valse)  
11. Descriptions Automatiques : I Sur Un Vaisseau  
12. Descriptions Automatiques : II Sur Une Lanterne  
13. Descriptions Automatiques : III Sur Un Casque  

CD4

1. Satie : Sonatine bureaucratique : I Allegro
2. Satie : Sonatine bureaucratique : II Andante
3. Satie : Sonatine bureaucratique : III Vivace
4. Satie : Caresse

CD5

1. Trois Nouvelles Enfantines : I Le Vilain Petit Vaurien  
2. Trois Nouvelles Enfantines : II Berceuse  
3. Trois Nouvelles Enfantines : III La Gentille Toute Petite Fille  
4. Menus Propos Enfantins : I Le Chant Guerrier Du Roi Des Haricots  
5. Menus Propos Enfantins : II Ce Que Dit La Petite Princesse Des Tulipes  
6. Menus Propos Enfantins : III Valse Du Chocolat Aux Amandes  
7. Enfantillages Pittoresques : II Berceuse  
8. Enfantillages Pittoresques : III Marche Du Grand Escalier  
9. Peccadilles Importunes : II Lui Manger Sa Tartine  
10. Peccadilles Importunes : III Profiter De Ce Qu'il A Des Cors Aux Pieds Pour Lui Prendre Son Cerceau  
11. Passacaille (Oeuvre Posthume)  
12. Allegro  
13. Satie: The Angora Ox
14. Satie: Fugue-valse
15. Premier Menuet  
16. Vexations  

CD6

1. Sonneries De La Rose+Croix : I Air De L'Ordre  
2. Sonneries De La Rose+Croix : III Air Du Grand Prieur  
3. Jack In The Box : II Entracte  
4. Jack In The Box : III Final  
5. Les Pantins Dansent  
6. Satie: Chanson andalouse pour "Pousse l'amour"
7. Satie / arr Ourdine: Rag-time Parade

CD7

1. Satie: Uspud, Act 1: La Vocation
2. Satie: Uspud, Act 2: L'Initiation
3. Satie: Uspud, Act 3 L'Incantation
4. Satie / Arr Ourdine: La Diva de l'Empire

CD8

1. Satie: Mercure, poses plastiques - Premier tableau: Marche-Ouverture
2. Satie: Mercure, poses plastiques - Premier tableau: La nuit
3. Satie: Mercure, poses plastiques - Premier tableau: Danse de tendresse
4. Satie: Mercure, poses plastiques - Premier tableau: Signes du zodiaque
5. Satie: Mouvement
6. Satie: Petite sonate  - Various Artists - Satie: The Complete Works
7. Satie: Tendrement, valse  - Various Artists - Satie: The Complete Works
8. Choses Vues Droite Et Gauche (Sans Lunettes), Choral Hypocrite - Fugue Ttons - Fantaisie Musculaire

CD9

1. Ludions (Lon-Paul Fargue) : Air Du Rat  
2. Ludions (Lon-Paul Fargue) : Spleen  
3. Ludions (Lon-Paul Fargue) : La Grenouille Amricaine  
4. Ludions (Lon-Paul Fargue) : Chanson Du Chat  
5. La Statue De Bronze (Lon-Paul Fargue)  
6. Tendrement, Valse Chante (Vincent Hyspa)
7. Hymne Pour Le "Salut Au Drapeau" Du "Prince De Byzance", Du Sr Peladan (Rvision Robert Caby)
8. Je Te Veux, Valse Chante (Henry Pacory)
9. Trois Mlodies De 1886 (J.P. Contamine De Latour) : Sylvie  
10. L'omnibus Automobile (Vincent Hyspa)  
11. Chez le Docteur (Vincent Hyspa)  
12. Allons-y Chochotte (D. Durante)  
13. Satie: J'avais un ami
14. Satie: Le veuf  - Anne-Sophie Schmidt

CD10

1. Satie : Messe des pauvres : Kyrie eleison
2. Satie : Messe des pauvres : Dixit Domine
3. Satie : Messe des pauvres : Commune qui mundi nefas

A collection of unrivalled completeness, Tout Satie proves that the music of Erik Satie (1866-1925) remains as provocative, delightful – and surprising – as ever. These 10 CDs, featuring artists with impeccable credentials in French repertoire, draw together his works for piano, orchestra, chamber ensemble and voice. They constantly remind us that Satie was not just a maverick or an eccentric: he was a true original.

With his unfailingly immaculate detachable collar and his brilliant conversation, Satie delighted the salons of Parisian society and gathered around his bowler-hatted figure with umbrella several generations of musicians from Claude Debussy to Henri Sauguet. His personality quickly took precedence over his music in the public’s perception. Is the situation different ninety years after his death? This box set pleads in favour of the affirmative answer.

Satie was born at Honfleur on the 17th of May 1866. His mother was of Scottish origin, and his father was a shipping agent; they were Anglican Christians. Torn between Normandy and Paris, the family settled in Paris in 1870. Two years later, Satie’s mother died and his father placed the young boy into the hands of his parents (Satie’s grandparents). He was now back in Honfleur where his grandparents immediately arranged his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Six years later, in 1878, his grandmother was found dead on the beach in Honfleur, and so now the twelve year old Satie returned to live in Paris with his father, who married a young pianist by the name of Eugénie Barnetche. There he took lessons in piano playing, distinguishing himself, despite some talent, as a bad student and displaying an equal dislike for his mother-in-law, the instrument and the music.

His disquiet did not prevent him from entering the Paris Conservatoire through a back door in 1879 but only two years elapsed before he escaped with a dismissal: «untalented» grumbled his teachers, who nevertheless readmitted him to the respectable institution at the end of 1895. There is a somewhat comical trait about this coming and going, rather like a hesitating waltz, that presaged the start of something. In 1884, he composed what appeared to be his first piano piece with the simple title of Allegro - his teachers had been seriously mistaken when they thought the young man definitely had no future in music. However, Satie decided to take up military service, a blunder that he was soon able to rectify when he developed a serious congestion of the lungs brought on by a deliberate exposure of his naked torso to the cold. It was now 1887, Satie was 21 and he settled in Montmartre. He spent time in cabarets, rubbed shoulders with Verlaine and Mallarmé, composed his Ogives written without bar lines, a style that was to remain one of his signature characteristics, as well as three pieces for piano which were to become the sonic symbol of his work: the Gymnopédies.

Then came the decisive encounter. At the Chat Noir Café-cabaret, he became friendly with Claude Debussy. The first years after 1890 were blessed times: Satie became the «official» composer and choirmaster of the Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique. He started to become known and he took Debussy along with him on his sweet pseudo-mystical journey. Faith but also love revealed themselves to him in the features of Suzanne Valadon: she was to sketch her lover with a beard and long hair in a touching portrait. The end of this relationship, unequally shared, was to leave Satie far more broken-hearted than he wanted to admit to himself. Something snapped suddenly in him. Vexations – a short and dry piece « to play 840 times in a row » –might have been a vain outlet.

Satie’s soul was dead but the composer in him continued to live for thirty two more years. Obdurately self-willed, his multi-faceted oeuvre was to be characterized by a modal grammar and white colour that lay outside any established trends, but created a trend of its own that was to marginally influence young people: it was to be a constantly present «elsewhere» in the musical landscapes that followed in Paris at the start of the 20th Century. Meanwhile, in 1895 he received a small inheritance that quickly melted away between his fingers, dispersed in editions of his music. It was the only real moment of relative opulence in a life that was soon reduced to poverty, forcing him to remain a cabaret pianist for a long time and attend social dinners in town by paying with his fine words. So it was that he would go from the cafes in Montmartre to the tiny room in Arcueil where he finally settled in 1897. Here he composed his works ranging from melodies that he called « thorough rubbish », such as Je te veux, to piano pieces with convoluted and hilarious titles such as Embryons desséchés and other Peccadilles importunes. His scores abound with performance markings swinging between poetic and humorous comments that are intended for the sole enjoyment of the interpreters. Even so, Satie felt that his compositional technique was not yet fully fledged, and so in the autumn of 1905 he became a pupil of Vincent d’Indy and Albert Roussel at the Schola Cantorum. His friends thought that he was having one of his funny turns, but under his « good masters » Satie blithely learned the strict academic technique of counterpoint. He dressed it up in his own way and Debussy made fun of it by calling him « Mister Counterpoint ». So now he was a perfect musician! Was this needed for his music? A student of the Schola and a protégé of the very conservative d’Indy, Satie’s admission of being a socialist was probably his decision to counterbalance all of that. The assassination of Jaurès on 31 July 1914 at the Café du Croissant impelled him to send a vindictive letter to SFIO (the French Section of the Workers’ International). In the meantime, he became a member of the Communist party of the Arcueil wing.

The First World War now introduced Satie to a new generation. In 1915, through Valentine Gross he met Jean Cocteau, who became a kind of mascot for him. Undoubtedly the poet had some affection for the future composer of Parade, although correspondence that is often coloured with spiteful remarks and clashes over “matters of principle” reveals that the idyll was more often than not a bitter one. But this did not really matter in the long run, since on the one hand Satie became the idol of the young musicians – it was around his small goatee beard that le Groupe des Six was gathered together, he became both their backbone and their catalyst – and on the other hand he also became the composer of Parade.

Up to now, the musician of Arcueil had carved his own way mainly with the piano. Parade inspired the fortification of his art. Could Roussel have ever imagined that his orchestration pupil would write a ballet with a siren, a gun and a typewriter! Parade was Cocteau’s conception – he « sold » the design of the stage set to Picasso before Satie had composed a single note – but it was Satie’s music that was to create the ‘scandale’. On the 18th of May 1917, Picasso’s stage curtain, which had fallen into water during its transportation and was left as it was, diluted, rose on a hilarious show where a universe of pure poetry was in confrontation with the barbarity of the modern world. And this was happening in the middle of the Great War, in a period of patriotic exaltation that had even taken hold of Debussy, a time when there was no room for any distraction and certainly not any form of humour. There was indeed a scandal and for Satie this ultimately spelled out a glorious success but also eight days in a detention cell for having called the critic Jean Pouiegh an «unmusical ass ». And finally on this subject of Parade, Guillaume Apollinaire should have the last word: in the premiere’s programme, he noted the « surrealist » quality of the show.

Satie had taken a leap forward with his ballet. Well aware of the journey he had taken from the Montmartre cabarets to the European avant-garde, in 1919 he became friends with Tristan Tzara, Man Ray, André Derain, and Marcel Duchamp. There was not a single musician friend on the horizon: instead he formed an allegiance with the Dadaists. Taking sides with Tzara in 1922 during the famous discord between the poet and André Breton, he had become so indispensable to the futurist movements that Breton, despite his anathema, decided not to break the ties.

In the short time that Satie had left to live, such notoriety did not bring him the financial relief that he could have hoped for. Poverty continued, but his music made a quality out of it: the whiteness of timbre, the sparseness, the economy, the writing so modest that it became a quasi abstraction: these were the culminating attributes of what constitutes after Gymnopédies and Parade his third masterpiece. In 1918, The Princess of Polignac commissioned him to write what would become Socrate, a triptych full of bare and unchecked emotion. Probably for the first time, Satie was completely happy with his work. The laughter he had to endure at the premiere of the orchestrated version in 1920 left him speechless but yet did not destroy his will to compose. With Jack in the Box, and Mercure, he sought in vain to recreate the success of Parade. He was also not left without friends: in 1923 a group from the School of Arcueil brought him a few young people that were followers of Max Jacob, among them Henri Sauguet and Roger Désormière.

In January 1925, Satie fell ill. It was to be a fatal disease. He died on the 1st of July, in the private room of Count Etienne de Beaumont at the Hospital Saint Joseph, a relative luxury for the last moments of a life of penury that only came to light to his friends after his death. What a surprise for Milhaud when he entered Satie’s Arcueil lodging for the first time to find two pianos tied together by a rope and the room full of unsealed letters testifying to a life of sinister misery. Here, after the composer’s death, they miraculously found Geneviève de Brabant, a score Satie had pretended to have lost– a final jest of his destiny unless, in keeping with his fabled hoaxing, he might have quietly put it away pending its improbable survival.