Erik Satie
Erik Satie, what could the work of this, one of the most progressive composers of the late 19th and 20th centuries, this champion of the French Avant-Garde possibly have to do with chant? Well according to Hungarian musicologist András Wilheim perhaps more then may at first seem apparent.
Surprising as the parallel may seem, there has been wide discussion in print of a supposed relationship between Satie’s music and Gregorian chant or plainsong. In one study a Gregorian influence is seem primarily in the prosody of the vocal works, since it traces his modal harmonies to Gregorian. (András. 1983. 231)
How strong are the forces of these ancient chants then that they have made their presence felt all the way into this, the age representing the beginnings of modern music as we recognize it today? While perhaps not thought of as being as important as let us say a Debussy or a Ravel, it is no overstatement to say that Satie’s influence was in no way unimportant for his works have endured, stood the test of time. Wilheim makes the distinction between neoclassicism and a mere influence, the former being more direct and purposeful in nature. He points to three relatively early Satie works Trois Sarabandes, Gnossiennes and the Trois Gymnopédies as exhibiting neoclassical tendencies in the tradition of music from ancient Greece as illustrated by the titles of the last two would indicate. According to Wilheim the Gregorian influence in Satie’s music is clear but from what source did Satie receive the inspiration to the point that it becomes incorporated into his own music?
“We know that Satie, like Debussy, visited the Abbey of Solesmes, where he heard Gregorian chant that accorded with the local reforms. But considering the period in question, this answer is unsatisfactory; certainly an earlier influence must be presumed, and we think we have found this is the singular Gregorian practice current in mid 19th-century France, since a direct connection between Erik Satie and this practice cannot be proved satisfactorily.” (András. 1983. 231)
What he discovered was extremely interesting and it is that Satie had as his firs piano teacher one Vinot. Mr. Vinto had studied in turn with a Louis Niedermeyer. Niedermeyer had devised a chant-based pedagogy, a system that was entirely based on ancient plain-song. I was both pleased and dismayed upon learning this for I have been mulling the same possibility and planned on presenting it as something I thought “unique.” How silly of me to be that naive! Niedermeyer’s methods include re-harmonizing note for note the chants of the entire mass.
Although Niedermeyer knew that Gregorian chant was essentially a melodic system, he professed, like Abbot Petit, that to provide it with a chordal accompaniment was “one of the finest discoveries of modern times”. (András. 1983. 231)
He authored a theory book that dealt precise with this issue in 1857 and set out to harmonize al the chants he could find but all he actually finished were the graduals. The preface to this is interesting in that he says, “harmonization of Gregorian that follows the natural development of its melodic laws” seeming to indicate a suggestion of some deeper underlying melodic power of chant. Wilheim upon comparing Satie’s harmon-izations with those of Niedermeyer asserts that there is certainly evidence that Satie was indeed thinking in terms of chant when for instance he wrote the Kyrie movement in his Messe des pauvres.
“one encounters in it’s full abundance a forming principle that could scarcely had come about had the composer not had a knowledge of Gregorian: short melodic sections are repeated in a somewhat irregular series (one hears altogether ten different lines in various trans-positions), and with a single exception there is no symmetrical division into periods within these lines. Indeed the composer almost seems to parade his flexibility ………” (András. 1983. 235)
The benefit to Satie in borrowing from chant according to Wilheim is that, as I have been suggesting throughout this paper, it increased his pallet choices so to speak. This ancient style, homophonic and modal allows total freedom in harmonization. These chants are so strong melodically but they are of irregular shape and lend themselves so well to innovative harmonic processing. They are not symmetrical in the way that we have become accustomed to hearing music and therefore I feel that is a encouragement of sorts to let the imagination run wild, there are endless possibilities in the treatment of these wonderful melodies and they are so strong in their utter simplicity that they somehow always retain their character regardless of the harmonic or rhythmic treatments applied to them. It has been pretty well established that Satie was well versed in Niedermeyer’s methods and concepts and that he probably applied some of these concepts in his own works, Through this application of chant to his compositions he was able to effect a sound and style that is recognizable as “Satie.” When considering plainsong as a model for modern application Benjamin Rajeczky states in his treatise on chant, “it delivered fresh energies to a new music realm based on historical tradition.” (Rajeczky. 1981. 156)
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