Erik Satie, surrealist composer?

A portrait of Erik Satie by the artist Santiago Rusiñol.

When I recently read The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic by Alan Moore and Steve Moore, I was pleased but a bit surprised to see Erik Satie as practically the only composer who gets much attention in the book. Satie is described as a Surrealist composer and his music is recommended for one of the magical workings the authors describe.

Erik Satie (1866-1922), is a kind of ambiguous figure in the history of classical music. On the one hand, he isn't terribly famous. He doesn't get a huge amount of airplay on classical music radio. He is not an international superstar composer in the way that French contemporaries such as Debussy and Ravel were.

On the other hand, it is hard to exaggerate how influential he is on modern classical music. The Wikipedia bio gives some sense of this, but there is a good explanation in Virtual Music, a book that the modern American composer William Duckworth (1943-2012) gave to me years ago. Duckworth explains that Satie was a big influence on John Cage, who in turn influenced many other composers (such as Duckworth). 

Satie, for example, invented "furniture  music," music to be played in the background, rather like Brian Eno's ambient music. It was written for the two intermission of a play, and when members of the audience stopped talking and began to listen, Satie ran around saying, "Talk, keep on talking. And move around. Whatever you do, don't listen!"

Satie's titles for his music included "Desiccated Embryos," "Veritable Flabby Preludes (for a Dog)" and "Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear," the latter written after  his buddy Debussy told him his music lacked shape. Duckworth doesn't mention this, but doesn't that sound like the kinds of titles Frank Zappa has for much of his music?

Duckworth also relates that Satie wrote a short piano piece called "Vexations"  and directed it be played 840 times. John Cage organized the first concert to carry that out, in 1963; it took more than 18 hours. There have been other such concerts  since then, see this Alex Ross piece. 

Satie is mostly known for his piano music,  but he also also wrote a ballet called "Parade," which featured sets and costumes designed by Picasso. I saw a video clip when I attended a Picasso exhibition a few months ago at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the absurd costumes did give the performance a Surrealist air.

Bonus link: My new Substack piece on "Five modern composers you should know."  I mention Duckworth, and if you don't know what the "angel music" is that was used to comfort dying AIDS patients, you might want to read my article. 

A Picasso costume from "Parade"