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.