Erik Satie: the hand on the head of his soul

Gymnopedies: heart in 3/4

They say that the day Satie died, some friends entered his room and found his remains. It was not his body that lay, for his body had been buried a few hours earlier in the Cimetière d'Arcueil. The remains consisted of six sheet music, dusty liquor bottles, a collection of umbrellas, newspaper advertisements and dozens of letters written to his only love: Suzanne Valadon.

Satie was a boy who played from time to time at Le Chat Noir, a silent soul who sat by the piano in the cabarets and played while people drank. He was also the man who composed the Gymnopedies, one of the most twisted and beautiful works of the 19th century, the work of small tremendous dissonances. By that time Satie's heart was beating in 3/4, and she translated it into two major seventh chords, into dissonances to be played “painfully”, “sadly”, “gravely”; that is to say, that was a fragmented work that meant the same as sadness, pain, gravity.

I make some notes:

0:14

0:49

0:57

1:34

2:20

2:45

2:55 (!)

I write down the seconds that I liked the most. I always do that. I suppose that composing is feeling and translating those seconds, writing them down painfully, sadly, seriously. I just write them down to remember later. I just remember.

There is a moment of Gymnopedies in which you think you're composing all that, that the music belongs to you, that you made it with other hands, that it hurts you exactly as it hurt Satie. It's not your pain. Your pain is small. It is his that encompasses you. You feel that you are someone else, that your heart beats at 3/4, that you have an arrhythmia, a heart attack, something.

So you get out of bed again. You turn off the player. It is too early to feel the pain of others. It gives you the urge to close the window, but you've already closed it before. You go back to bed and get ready to think about what you always think about before starting the day: buy something, let's say].

Bonjour, Biqui, bonjour…

The only love Satie had in his life was Suzanne Valadon, Renoir's model, the one who fed her cats caviar every Friday, the one who drank in the worst Parisian bars and allowed herself to be drawn in profile by Toulouse-Lautrec. Suzanne was a love for a few months in Satie's life and, of course, she was the owner of his most gloomy compositions. It aroused what brief and tremendous loves arouse: a creak, a bonjour of 28 seconds that would last all day for all the days of life.

The story began in 1893. At this time Satie composed the gothic dance, a kind of great musical prayer with which he had the faith to make peace return to his spirit, which was already being tormented by Suzanne's small feet, by her tremendous eyes.

He composed a very sweet work for her called bikini (That's what he called his friend. And he also called her friend, because she was so beautifully). The play lasts almost four minutes, the same four minutes it took for Satie to uselessly ask her to marry him. He told her no that time.

A few months later Suzanne left.

Satie put a sign in her room that read: "On Monday, January 16, 1893, my friend Suzanne Valadon came to this place for the first time in her life, and for the last time on Saturday, June 17 of the same year." .

Peace never returned to his spirit.

satie was a cold piece and a monkey that played the piano

The composers of the time said that he did not play well. Now he's the guy who composed the cold pieces, the Gymnopedies, the I see you, works without time. He died poor, he lived in a disgustingly small room, he died drunk, sad, with his COPD and his faith in a girl who painted his face, who came down Rue Cortot to kiss him. Satie was a monkey who played the piano to make Suzanne want to laugh.

And he's one of the best composers of all time, and that's as true as it is that sadness has to be removed from within, because once it settles, it buries us in a place that is not the Cimetière d'Arcueil. Nor does it remain in the soul, as can be believed. Sadness like that doesn't have time or need a place to settle [they walk around the room barefoot while you think about opening a window], they don't give common orders in the corners of a pentagram paper: and that's as true as once you loved a beautiful whore who could have been called Suzanne, but was called something else; that it lasted a few months, that you composed a symphony in your head, that you wanted to play the piano so that she, the woman who fed the cats, would stay forever in a cold room, so that this woman would not constitute your remains, those who even after death rest next to the powdered bottles, next to the useless dances that did not achieve their return.

Suzanne almost committed suicide for Toulouse-Lautrec, she slept with many men, she probably forgot Satie very soon; but he (shy and sick boy), luckily for the music and unfortunately for his own soul, never forgot her.

He was as crazy as can be. He made tremendous annotations on the staff.

It put:

With the hand on the head of your soul

With a deep relief of the present

Full of subtlety, trust me

Heavier still if possible

Moderate and very boring

Withdraw your hand and put it in your pocket

No noise, pay attention to me again

Those are the remains: scores written painfully, sadly, seriously. That cannot be buried in the Cimetière d'Arcueil or anywhere else.

The brief notes cannot be buried, the second 18 that you put in a notebook, the desire to go back in time to an afternoon in which someone came down a street to kiss you, to put his hand on the head of your soul. How do you bury the soul if some time later someone listens to it while you think about closing a closed window?

Now you feel a deep relief of the present.

You stand up. You think of her. You need to think about her now. It must hurt.

It gives you the urge to close the window, but you've already closed it before. You go back to bed and get ready to think about what you always think about before starting the day:

buy something, let's say].