French composer Erik Satie (1866 - 1925) was born a bit too early to have written for the theremin, but if he had been born 10 years later I think he would have been intrigued with the instrument and perhaps he would have composed something for it.
So……..I decided, just for fun, to write my own little composition “à la Satie” and here it is.
https://youtu.be/ZGFqCkpqLZg
I like the snatched phrase from the theme from "The Twilight Zone" in the first 4 Theremin notes...
Was that done consciously?
Actually its a half step off from being the Twilight Zone four note motive. Peter uses an augmented second (minor third) as the final interval of the four note motive - which gives it that ethnic feel.
Bernard Hermann ends his famous motive with a major third. Sounds similar, but all the difference in the world when you are only talking about four notes.
But the connection is tempting - as guess who wrote one of the most iconic scores for the theremin for "The Day the Earth Stood Still"?
Rich
Oops - only half right. Actually, I misspoke.
Bernard Hermann wrote the original theme and a lot of other material for the show, but it was replaced with the now famous one for the second season (I thought he wrote it - good thing the Internet settles all disputes).
Marius Constant wrote the now famous theme.
Rich
Yea. But he did write the original theme for the Series! Hermann is one of my favorite composers. What an original mind.
And this is what is so great about music. Two different people can hear only four notes and each take away something completely different. I didn't even remotely make the connection that Elmo7#9 did. I heard those four notes and instantly got transported to some far away place but I also instantly understood the Twilight Zone connection once it was mentioned even though it was not your intent at all.
Now you got the Satie bug in me. Funny you did this. I wrote an homage piece to him years ago and recently wanted to do it up for theremin. Maybe one day.
For all the Satie lovers, much of his music is public Domain and available at the link below (quite a bit not public domain in the US unfortunately). Looks like almost everything is home free in Canada.
Funny thing about Satie's music is that everyone knows the Gymnopedies which are among the simplest and also most amazingly beautiful pieces imaginable (and to a lesser extent the Gnossiennes). But that is not Satie's music in general. He didn't write that much and some of it is darned strange and certainly incomprehensible for his time (a lot being very minimalistic and much in advance of his time). Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of some of it. Very enigmatic. I do believe with you that he would have liked the theremin very much - and would have come up with some really insane titles for pieces as he was want to do.
My band had a go at Gnossienne No. 3 for slide guitar and grunge bass,
intending to blow minds during a live Blues set.
There's nothing technically difficult in executing the NOTES...
But even with just 2 players, agreeing on the ponderous timing was hit-and-miss.
For me, the Gnossiennes always conjure up a disturbing vision of a mental hospital in a totalitarian state.
That must have been something to hear! I can see how the melodic repetitiveness on all those minor chords with little metric underpinning could get you in that mindset (Satie's music does not really develop themes, yet it's not really impressionistic either - it's just totally unique).
I assume many have seen this (looks like he's done #1-3):
Once again, here's the link to Peter's piece:
And Peter's Gnossienne #3 on the Hakken Continuum for comparison here in one place:
Gnossienne #3 on Hakken Continuum
I wonder how many people get the Satie musical reference in Peter's piece (in addition to the unique title - and no one wrote pieces with more unique/strange names in the history of music than Satie). Very interesting that you picked the Gnossienne #3 as that actually sounds like part of the inspiration for Peter's piece (but only the composer can verify that). Both are chocked full of augmented seconds/minor thirds in a repetitive phrase structure that gives an ethnic feel, but Peter also injects a more Gymnopedie-like flowing melody with some very nice modal chord changes that you might hear from Satie - typically chords changing from major to minor or chords moving by second or third but not in a traditional key - like Peter's opening progression (F#m-Eb-F#m-Eb-Ebm-Bbm-dm-Bbm). The Gnossienne #3 doesn't shift around quite so much tonally (am-em-am-em-dm-E-dm-am-em-bm) but I defintely can hear what Peter is trying to do here.
As for your comment on the rhythm, I totally understand that one. Satie's music is often devoid of meter (at least notated meter). Very often the sound just kind of flows like water in an unending and often totally repetitive motion. Here's what Elmo7#9 is talking about.
The beginning of Gnossienne #3 (public domain score):
No meter indication but the bigger issue is that most of his piano music has no barlines. You might imply it from the whole notes and pattern in the bass clef here, but I can see how it could create issues arranged as a group piece. And some of his music really has little hint of meter at all.
This interesting example is from one of his later set of 21 very short pieces "Sports et Divertissements" - here's a fascimile of his autograph of #10 ("La Carnaval") - it's the entire piece. He seems to have had very nice penmanship as well. But try easily inferring a meter from this .
His music was often criticized for its lack of form. In 1903 he wrote "Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear". When he was asked why that title, he said something like "Well if they are in the shape of a pear how they can be without form?". Gotta love that guy!
Not sure but there was a popular poetic movement in France called "Vers libre" in the late 1800s early 1900s that stressed free meter - perhaps that had some influence on Satie - either way very forward thinking and any way you cut it, Satie's music is totally unique (except perhaps some of his songs that get pretty tuneful and are more traditional - after all he was a cabaret pianist to help pay the rent and likely some of that rubbed off in his songs). Maybe Peter will sing us one sometime and play along a bit on "La boîte électronique".
This one could be nice.
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