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The Gymnopédies (French pronunciation: [ʒim.nɔ.pe.di]), or Trois Gymnopédies ("Three Nude Dances"), are three piano compositions written by French composer and pianist Erik Satie. He completed the whole set by 2 April 1898, but they were at first published individually: the first and the third in 1888, the second in 1895.

History

The work's unusual title comes from the French form of gymnopaedia, the ancient Greek word for an annual festival where young men danced either naked or, perhaps figuratively, simply unarmed. The source of the title has been a subject of debate. Satie and his friend Alexis Roland-Manuel maintained that he adopted it after reading Gustave Flaubert's novel Salammbô, while others see a poem by J. P. Contamine de Latour as the source of Satie's inspiration, since the first Gymnopédie was published in the magazine La Musique des familles in the summer of 1888 together with an excerpt of Latour's poem Les Antiques, where the term appears.

It remains uncertain, however, whether the poem was composed before or after the music. Satie could have picked up the term from a dictionary such as Dominique Mondo's Dictionnaire de Musique, where gymnopédie is defined as a "nude dance, accompanied by song, which youthful Spartan maidens danced on specific occasions", following a similar definition from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Dictionnaire de Musique.

In November 1888, the third Gymnopédie was published. The second Gymnopédie did not appear until 1895, and its impending publication was announced in several editions of the Chat Noir and Auberge du Clou magazines. As a whole, the three pieces were published in 1898.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes' symbolist paintings might have been an inspiration for the atmosphere Satie wanted to evoke with his Gymnopédies.

Music

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These short, atmospheric pieces are written in
₄ time, with each sharing a common theme and structure.

1. Lent et douloureux (D major / D minor)
2. Lent et triste (C major)
3. Lent et grave (A minor)

The melodies of the pieces use deliberate, but mild, dissonances against the harmony, producing a piquant, melancholy effect that matches the performance instructions, which are to play each piece "painfully" (douloureux), "sadly" (triste), or "gravely" (grave). The first few bars of Gymnopédie No. 1 (shown below) consist of an alternating progression of two major seventh chords, the first on the subdominant, G, and the second on the tonic, D.

Reception

By the end of 1896, Satie's popularity was waning and financial situation deteriorating. Claude Debussy, a friend of Satie's whose popularity was on the rise, helped draw public attention to Satie's work. In February 1897, Debussy orchestrated the third and first Gymnopédies.

Legacy

As of the second half of the 20th century, the Gymnopédies have often been erroneously described as part of Satie's body of furniture music, perhaps because of how John Cage has interpreted them. Collectively, the Gymnopédies are regarded as an important precursor to modern ambient music.

The first and second Gymnopédies were arranged by Dick Halligan for the group Blood, Sweat & Tears under the title "Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie" on the group's eponymous album, released in 1968. The recording received a Grammy Award the following year for Best Contemporary Instrumental Performance.

In 1980, Dame Cleo Laine and Sir James Galway released a version for jazz vocalist and flute entitled "Drifting, Dreaming (Gymnopédie No.1)", with lyrics by Don Read.

Also in 1980, Gary Numan produced a track called "Trois Gymnopedies (First Movement)", which appeared on the B-side of the single "We Are Glass".

A sample of Gymnopédie No. 1 is featured in the Janet Jackson single "Someone to Call My Lover" (2001), which peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Gymnopédies have been heard in numerous movies and television shows, such as the documentary Man on Wire, Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, and Community Season 2 Episode 19 "Critical Film Studies".

The Woody Allen film Another Woman (1988) and the Louis Malle film My Dinner With Andre (1981) both use Gymnopédie No. 1 in their soundtracks.

The Japanese animated drama film The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya (2010) prominently features all three Gymnopédies, and they are included in the film's soundtrack release as a bonus disc, including Satie's Gnossiennes and his composition "Je te veux".

Mother 3 features Gymnopédie No. 1 in its soundtrack as Leder's Gymnopedie.

In 2007, Wilhelm Kaiser-Lindemann  [de] arranged the first and the third Gymnopédie for The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic. Jack DeJohnette included a tribute to Gymnopédies in his 2016 album Return.

In 2018, Fernando Perdomo included a portion of Gymnopedie No. 1 on his album Out to Sea.

In 2021, violinist Fenella Humphreys released an arrangement of Gymnopédie No.1 for violin. Stephan Koncz, cellist in the Berlin Philharmonic and the Made in Berlin quartet, wrote a string quartet piece called A New Satiesfaction (a portmanteau of "Satie" and "satisfaction"), based on Gymnopédie No.1, which was recorded by the quartet for their first violinist Ray Chen's album The Golden Age.

Notes

1. When Debussy published the scores two years later, he reversed the numbering, with Satie's first becoming Debussy's third, and vice versa.

References

1. ^ Davis, Mary E. (2007). Erik Satie. Reaktion Books. p. 31. ISBN 9781861896025.
2. Robert Orledge, Satie the Composer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 207, ISBN 978-0-52135-037-2
3. Satie, Erik; Volta, Ornella (2000), Correspondance presque complète, Paris: Fayard/Imec, p. 936, ISBN 978-2-213-60674-3
4. Whiting, Steven Moore (1999). "Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall". Clarendon Press. p. 129. ISBN 0191584525.
5. Shlomowitz, Matthew (1999), Cage's Place in the Reception of Satie, archived from the original on 2005-10-26
6. Mark Prendergast, The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Moby – The Evolution of Sound in the Electronic Age, London: Bloomsbury, 2000, p. 6 ISBN 0-7475-5732-2
7. "12th Annual Grammy Awards". Grammy Award. 2017-11-28.
8. "Drifting, Dreaming". Sometimes When We Touch. It appeared as the first track on the album.
9. "Gary Numan – We Are Glass". Discogs. 1980. Retrieved 2019-10-21.
10. "Someone to Call My Lover by Janet Jackson". WhoSampled.com. Retrieved 2022-03-09.
11. "Man on Wire Soundtracks". IMDb. Retrieved 2015-03-18.
12. "The Royal Tenenbaums Soundtracks". IMDb. Retrieved 2017-01-20.
13. "Community" Critical Film Studies (TV Episode 2011) - Soundtracks - IMDb. Retrieved 2024-05-07 – via www.imdb.com.
14. Another Woman (1988) – Satie's "Gymnopedie No. 1" (aka "Marion's theme"). YouTube. 2011-06-17. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12.
15. My Dinner with Andre (1981) - Soundtracks - IMDb, retrieved 2024-02-07
16. "Lantis web site" 映画『涼宮ハルヒの消失』オリジナルサウンドトラック [Film The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Original Soundtrack] (in Japanese). Lantis. Archived from the original on 2012-05-04. Retrieved 2010-01-13.
17. Leder's Gymnopedie – Mother 3. YouTube. 2012-10-11. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12.
18. "Fleur de Paris". Prestoclassical.co.uk. EMI Classics.
19. "Jack DeJohnette – Return". Newvelle Records. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
20. "Round Revue – Fenella Humphreys – Music for Violin". Round Revue. Retrieved 2021-05-29.
21. Homfray, Tim (2018-09-07). "Ray Chen: The Golden Age". The Strad. Retrieved 2023-11-03.

Bibliography

External links

• Gymnopédies: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free sheet music of 3 Gymnopédies from Cantorion.org
• Public Domain sheet music of the Gymnopédies, Mutopia Project

• Classical music

• Gymnopédies
• 1888 compositions
• Compositions by Erik Satie
• Compositions for solo piano
• Ancient Greece in art and culture