Erik Satie
Erik Satie (May 17, 1866 - July 1, 1925) was a French composer and pianist. He is known for his minimalist, melancholic piano pieces, like Trois Sarabandes (1887), Trois Gymnopédies (1888), Trois Gnossienes (1890), Vexations (1893), Je Te Veux (1897), Parade (1917) and Entr'acte (1920). Some have humorous titles or are accompanied by ironic instructions for the performers.
During his lifetime, Satie was seen as a lonely eccentric and his humorous attitude and very simple melodies weren't taken very seriously. In the second half of the 20th century, though, he was reappreciated as a groundbreaking innovator, whose music was a forerunner to genres like Dadaism, Surrealism, minimalist classical music, muzak and ambient. His music was a strong influence on Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Maurice Ravel, Edgar Varèse, John Cage, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, John Adams,...
Frank Zappa and Erik Satie
In That Ol' "Fish Thing" (The Washington Post, 30 August 1984), it was mentioned that Zappa also listened to Satie.
Moon Zappa writes in her autobiography, Earth to Moon: A Memoir that Frank Zappa once showed her his record collection, which included Satie. [1]
Pierrejean Gaucher recorded a tribute concert Zappe Satie, in which he covered and combined music by Satie and Zappa, because he considered Zappa a spiritual forefather to Satie. [2] Gaucher considers Satie a spiritual forefather to Zappa. [3]
In his biography, Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa, Kevin Courrier explored the similarities between Satie and Zappa in one chapter.
Frank Zappa about Erik Satie
ICONOCLAST: Erik Satie, in his compositions, uses a lot of humor-e-a lot of facetious little verbal comments under his music. He did this as a defense, because of his lack of confidence in himself, and I was wondering if you...
Frank Zappa: "Was that referred to you by a book?"
ICONOCLAST: Yes, it was.
Frank Zappa: "Yeah, well, I've never read that, and I don't know anything about Satie’s life, and I wouldn't take that on faith that that's the reason he put humor into his music. There have been other composers who have put humor into music – in various different ways – and I really don't buy the defense mechanism ideas. In fact, the bravest thing that you can do is to do something humorous for an audience that can't compute humor. And take a classical music audience – there you have a prime example. There are only three things with less humor than a classical audience: there's a country and western audience, a rock and roll audience, and a jazz audience."
- Mark Roberts, Interview with Frank Zappa, Zappa: The Composer Speaks, Iconoclast, 15-22 March 1974. [4]
