"Taking the works of Satie chronologically
(1886-1925), successive ones often appear as completely new departures. Two
pieces will be so different as not to suggest that the same person wrote them.
Now and then, on the other hand, works in succession are so alike, sometimes nearly identical, as
to bring to mind the annual exhibition of painters, and to allow musicologists
to discern stylistic periods"
(John Cage)
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"Show me something new and I'll begin all over
again", Satie used to say. He did. He
was an early exponent of several
important trends and development in the twentieth century
music: bitonality,
politonality, non triadic harmony, jazz, music as furniture (musique d'ameublement).
He also adopted a defiantly modernistic technique and attached whinmsical
titles to his compositions.
"Is Satie relevant? To be interested in Satie, one must be
desinterested to begin with ,
accept that a sound is a sound and a man is a
man, give up illusions about ideas of order, expressions of sentiment, and
all the rest of our inherited aesthetic claptrap. It's not a question of
relevance. Satie is indispensable"
(John Cage)
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