Most often these days Erik Satie’s music is used either to lull people into a stupor or to sell expensive chocolates. Here’s some Satie that can wake you up, even though it is a bit on the slow side. The great Vienna Art Orchestra put Satie through their filter on this 1983 record The Minimalism of Erik Satie, released on the venerable HatHut label. Some of the CD has the full big-band, but this is just Roman Schwaller on sax and Woody Schabata on vibes. It’s supposedly still in print, but I couldn’t find it available anywhere.
The Vienna Art Orchestra site is here, and HatHut is here.
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I think you’re right that Satie would have appreciated the appropriation of his music, but I also think there’s irony in how *safe* his music has become - particularly the Gymnopedies. Satie’s music was quite transgressive when conceived, but by now has joined the ranks of ultimate safety - advertising fodder. This is, of course, the tendency of all cultural products which intend to shock.
On the other hand, much early 20th century music still has the ability to raise the hair on the back of people’s necks. Stravinsky, Varèse, even Ives… they can still clear a room. Consonance and dissonance are always very subjective, I guess…
Comment by Blake 04.04.05 @ 1:10 pmLeave a comment
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I think Satie would have loved that his music was used to put people in a stupor and also sell expensive chocolates. His ideas about “furniture music” predate Brian Eno’s many “Ambient” musings. Story has it that Satie put together a group to perform background music during an intermission at a Parisian theater production. When people started paying attention to the music, Satie was shooing them away, imploring them not to listen.
Comment by Nick Francis 04.04.05 @ 11:05 amWonderful track by the way. Thanks.