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Erik Satie, Socrate If Debussy's Two Piano Sketches Are in Black and White, Erik Satie's Most Extended Composition Dating from the Same Period Is "Tout Blanc

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Erik Satie, Socrate If Debussy's Two Piano Sketches Are in Black and White, Erik Satie's Most Extended Composition Dating from the Same Period Is , Donald F. Cook Recital Hall M.O. Morgan Building SI Friday, 24 March 2006 at 8:00 p.m. Black and White ... and Red All Over En blanc et noir . .. et toute colorie Jane Leibel, Lisa Roy and Caroline Schiller sopranos Richard Boulanger and Tom Gordon . pianos En blanc et noir pour deux pianos Claude Debussy A vec emportement Lent. Sombre Scherzando Socrate; Drame symphonique en trois parties Erik Satie sur des dialogues de Platon traduits par Victor Cousin Portrait de Socrate (le banquet) Bards de l 'Jlissus (Phedre) Mort de Socrate (Phedon) Intermission L 'embarquement pour Cythere Francis Poulenc Valse-Musette pour deux pianos Hotel Francis Poulenc Reine de mouettes Les chemins de/ 'amour Francis Poulenc Violon La Reine de coeurs Francis Poulenc Le chapelier Erik Satie La diva de I 'empire Scaramouche; Suite pour deux pianos Darius Milhaud Vif Modere Brazileira ~..... ~ .~<:"::-<,.,, University of Newfoundland ' ,. "Nothing dearer to the poet than the gray song In which the vague and the precise meet. " - Paul Verlaine, Art poetique (1882) Claude Debussy, En Blanc et noir pour deux pianos Debussy the symbolist was the most important composer to harken to Verlaine's injunction to eschew colour in preference to nuance. Across his works from the early L 'apres-midi d'une faune to his last songs and piano pieces, Debussy located his shimmering resonances in the infinite shades of gray. In the company of both the symbolist poets and the impressionist painters, he preferred nuanced monotone to bright primary colours. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in his final essay for piano En blanc et noir, completed in the summer of 1915. The title refers both to the black and white keys of the piano -- this score for two performers is quintessentially pianists -- as well as to the palette of the citation from symbolist poetry which prefaces each movement. The first movement waltzes with abandon through a rush of motives and figures that are at once impelling and easily forgotten. A monochrome portrait of dancers, the musical image is as though it were cut into the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and then reassembled out of order and yet the compulsive waltz rhythm never misses a step. Qui reste a sa place Whoever remains seated Et ne danse pas And does not dance De quelque disgrace Makes a quiet confession Fair l'aveu tout bas Of some misfortune. J. Barbier & M Carre from Romeo et Juliette From its opening marked "sombre" to the macabre superimpositions of the Luthern choral tune Einfeste Burg and snippets of the Reveille, the second movement is a kaleidoscope of musical images rich in symbolic association. Distant drumrolls, marching troops, the heroic climax locate this musical canvas at the centre of the First World War. Debussy's dedication to "Lieutenant Jacques Chariot, killed by the enemy, March the 3rd 1915" reveals the source of his intentions as does the citation from Fran9ois Villon's Ballade Against the Enemies ofFrance which prefaces the movement. Prince, porte soit des serfs Eolus Prince, let Aeolus be borne by slaves En la forest ou domine Glaucus. To the forest where Glaucus rules Ou prive soit de paix et d'esperance Or be deprived of peace and hope Car digne n'est de posseder vertus Since those are not worthy to possess virtues Qui mal vouldroit au royaume de France. Who would wish ill of the kingdom of France. The third movement, an interrupted scherzo, is dedicated to Igor Stravinsky - perhaps the inspiration for the interruptions. Its motives are fleet, delicate and fragmentary: evocative of the "dancing snow" of an earlier Debussy opus - only somehow whiter. The citation comes from Charles d'Orleans. Yver, vous n'este qu'un vilain ... Winter, you are but a rogue. * * * * * Erik Satie, Socrate If Debussy's two piano sketches are in black and white, Erik Satie's most extended composition dating from the same period is "tout blanc ... et tout simple." Erik Satie's Socrate, a "symphonic drama" in three parts defies comfortable classification. Originally called Vie de Socrate, it was commissioned by Princess Edmond de Polignac in October 1916. The composition of the work was soon derailed as Satie waged legal battles with a Paris critic over an inflammatory volley of public insults. The Princess intervened with sufficient financial aid to end the squabble allowing Satie to return to composition, finishing Socrate in the spring of 1918. It was the Princess de Polignac who had specified that female voices should be used. Her wish was that Satie would write incidental music to a performance where the Princess and her circle of lesbian friends would read aloud texts of the ancient Greek philosophers. Not drawn to melodrama and oblivious of the Princess's social circle, Satie set the texts to be sung. Nevertheless, he did adhere to the stipulation of female voices for these dialogues between Socrates and his disciples. Satie chose his text from the stiffly out-dated translation of Victor Cousin. It was in this version of the text that he found what he sought most: simplicity, clarity and beauty. Satie described the music of Socrate as "pure white." Indeed while working on Socrate, he quipped to his friend Valentine Hugo "I only eat white foods" to remain in the right mood. His goal was to create music that was as white and pure as antiquity. Elsewhere he said "In writing this work I never wished to add anything to the beauty of the Platonic dialogues: this is only an act of admiration, only about the fantasy of the artist, only a modest homage." Its whiteness consists in an unsuspected static quality, often engaged by drawing snippets from the most banal popular music and employing them like tape loops. Notorious in his lifetime as the inventor of "furniture music" - music to inhabit a room like furniture - Satie dresses the stage for Plato's dialogues with music of unsurpassed neutrality which nonetheless attains a pure dignity in its bareness. The three parts of the composition are: Portrait de Socrate ("Portrait of Socrates"), text taken from Plato's Symposium Les bards de l'llissus ("The banks of the Ilissus"), text taken from Plato's Phaedrus Mort de Socrate ("Death of Socrates"), text taken from Plato's Phaedo Part I - Portrait of Socrates Pars I - Portrait de Socrates (Le Banquet) [From Symposium, 32-33-35] [de Symposium, 32-33-35] Alcibiades: Alcibiade: And now, my boys, I shall praise Socrates in Or, mes chers amis, afin de louer Socrate, a figure which will appear to him to be a J'aurai besoin de comparaisons: Lui croira caricature, and yet I speak, not to make fun peut-etre que je veux plaisanter; mais rien of him, but only for the truth's sake. I say, n'est plus serieux, Je dis d'abord qu'il that he is exactly like the busts of Silenus, ressemble tout a fait aces Silenes qu'on voit which are set up in the statuaries' shops, exposes dans les ateliers des sculpteurs et holding pipes and flutes in their mouths; and que les artistes representent avec une flute they are made to open in the middle, and OU des pipeaux a la main, et dans l' interieur have images of gods inside them. I say also desquels quand on les ouvre, en separant les that he is like Marsyas the satyr. [ ... ] And are deux pieces dont ils se composent, on trouve you not a flute-player? That you are, and a renfermees des statues de divinites. Je perfarmer far more wonderful than Marsyas. pretends ensuite qu'il ressemble au satyre He indeed with instruments used to charm Marsyas ... Et n'es-tu pas aussi joueur de the souls of men by the power of his breath, flute? Oui sans doute, Et bien plus etonnant and the players of his music do so still: for que Marsyas. Ce lui-ci charmait les hommes the melodies of Olympus are derived from par les belles chaises que sa bouche tirait de Marsyas who taught them [ ... ] But you ses instruments et autant en fait aujourd-hui produce the same effect with your words quiconque repete ses airs; en effet ceux que only, and do not require the flute: that is the jouait Olympos, je les attribue a Marsyas son difference between you and him. [ ... ] And if maitre. La seule difference Socrate qu'il y I were not afraid that you would think me ait ici entre Marsyas et toi, c' est que sans hopelessly drunk, I would have sworn as instruments, avec de simples discours, tu well as spoken to the influence which they fais la meme chose ..... Pour moi, mes have always had and still have over me. For amis, n'etait la crainte de vous paraitre my heart leaps within me more than that of totalement ivre, je vous attesterais avec any Corybantian reveller, and my eyes rain serment l' effect extraordinaire que ses tears when I hear them. And I observe that discours m'ont fait et me font encore. En many others are affected in the same l'ecoutant, je sens palpiter mon coeur plus manner. ( ... ]And this is what I and many fortement que si j 'etais agite de la manie others have suffered from the flute-playing dansante des corybantes, ses paroles font of this satyr. couler mes larmes, et j 'en vois un grand nombre d'autres ressentir les memes emotions. Tels sont les prestiges qu'exerce et sur moi et sur bien d'autres la flute de ce satyre .... Socrates Socrate: [... ]you praised me, and I in turn ought to Tu viends de faire mon eloge: c'est praise my neighbour on the right [ ..
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