The Humourist

Donald Macleod explores five aspects of Satie. Today, his sharp, quirky, magical, satirical, absurdist sense of humour, which he once credited to Cromwell and Christopher Columbus.

Satie’s humour permeated everything he did – his music, his performance indications, his correspondence, his dress-sense, the whole tenor of his life. When asked to write a few biographical lines about himself for his new publisher, Eduard Demets, he included the insight: “Before I compose a piece, I walk around it several times, accompanied by myself.” On publication of his Sports et divertissements (Sports and amusements) he advised the pianist to turn each page “with a tolerant thumb and a smile”. His score for Parade, a collaboration with Jean Cocteau, Leonid Massine and Pablo Picasso that became his greatest succès de scandale, included parts for bouteillophone (a row of fifteen tuned bottles), revolver-shots, two sirens, a lottery wheel, “splashy puddles” and a typewriter. Music critic Jean Poueigh gave an unflattering review of the première; Satie responded by calling him “an arse”, for which he received a fine, a sentence of eight days in prison, and, so far, more than a century’s worth of excellent publicity.

Embryons desséchés (No 1, ‘d’Holothurie’ – Allez un peu)
Aldo Ciccolini, piano

Parade (ballet réaliste)
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire
Louis Auriacombe, conductor

Sports et divertissements
Aldo Ciccolini, piano

La Belle Excentrique – fantaisie sérieuse
Ensemble Die Reihe
Friedrich Cerha, conductor

Cinéma – entr’acte symphonique de Relâche (reduction for piano duet by Darius Milhaud)
Alexandre Tharaud, Éric Lesage, piano 4 hands

Produced by Chris Barstow