Soundtracks:
Another Woman
My Dinner with Andeé
Corrina Corrina
Redwood Curtain
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Gymnopédies
Erik Satie was dissatisfied with the musical atmosphere of his time.
Grand, long classical pieces developed short melodies for half an hour
and longer, long symphonies and operas that lasted many hours - all these
troubled this young gifted man. But instead of protesting and screaming
his criticism, Satie developed an innovative form of critique. He would
write short, beautiful pieces of music and give them ridiculous titles
such as "Flabby Preludes for a Dog", or "a Piece in the
Shape of a Pear".
"The Gymnopédies" are included among those little, adorable
pieces. The three of them are similar in nature, and they were meant to
describe the subtle beauty of ancient Greek sculpture. All the impressionists,
including Satie, were meticulous observers of visual art, and always attempted
to emphasize elements of painting and sculpture in a unique, musical manner.
Thus, Satie was interested in describing the art of nude Greek sculpture
(a 'Gymnopédie' is a "nude boy" in the composer's quasi-Greek
language). And indeed, the floating, hypnotic music he wrote succeeds in
entering the listener into a world of all beauty and aesthetics, with no
content external to art - just like the Greek sculpture he loved so much.
The pianistic description of the "Gymnopédies" is typical
of Satie's impressionism. Music that almost touches, and yet doesn't, not
as directly connected to emotions as in Chopin's style, or to the tempest
of the soul as in Liszt or Beethoven, but rather introduces pure beauty
whose affect can only be reached with attentive listening.
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