 One pianist show
The Alliance Francaise of Madras presents 'Satie - Intelligence and Musicality in Animals', a unique theatre-music show, at Top Storey, AFM, in Chennai on August 26th, 2006.
L'intelligence et la musicalite chez les animaux (entre autres choses) /
Intelligence and musicality in animals (amongst other things).
Text and music by Erik Satie
Interpreted by Christine Chareyron
Directed by Brigitte Foray
Only Erik Satie could dare think of such a title. In Intelligence and Musicality in Animals (amongst other things), the pianist Christine Chareyron weaves together musical and literary texts of the composer into a video composition. A unique, artistic event full of originality.
Christine Chareyron moves about, gets up from the piano stool, faces the public, addresses them with an ingenious air. How does one inform a pig that he is heading for the slaughter house? She heads back to the piano. The hall is filled with a shower of notes that are harmonious and discordant. At the back, a black and white, silent video film is running. A man is strolling peacefully about the streets of Paris. This bearded man with pince-nez is Erik Satie and to get to know his strange world, means an atypical kind of show. With Intelligence and musicality in animals (amongst other things), Brigitte Foray stages a one-pianist-show, a performance that is between a one-woman show, a piano recital and a literary encounter.
Satie's music is an experience that is more profound than a concert. Intelligence and musicality in animals... reveals to the spectator, the multiple dimensional talent of the composer. On stage, Christine Chareyon alternates the lesser known texts of Satie with the unpredictable melodies of Gnossiennes or even Trois valses distinguees du precieux degoute. One is delightfully immersed in this world of lighthearted, childlike humor.
What are the musical qualities found in animals? What is a typical day in the life of a composer? Satie is amused.
Impassive on screen, he follows his daily route between Montmartre and the small town of Arceuil laughing at his own witticisms.
Erik Satie was never like everybody else. Mocking, dissatisfied, out of sync, this composer and French pianist who died in 1925, left behind a body of work that was as fantastic as his personality. Portrait of an avant garde yet damned genius.
He was born in 1866 in Honfleur, Normandy. At the age of 20, he composed his first works for piano, Les Ogives. The piece consisted merely of parallel chords put together. In 1988, his three Gymnopedies made him famous. From 25 to 29, Satie belonged to the Pink Rose movement that was a secret society whose members aspired to esoteric wisdom. It was during this period that he composed Sonneries de la Rose-Croix and Danses gothiques without any tempo. The musician-magician went so far as to establish his own order l'Eglise metropolitaine d' art de Jesus conducteur. Since he was its treasurer, grand priest and only adherent, he was obliged to abandon it.
Erik Satie played piano at a cabaret in Montmartre. For the most part he plays light melodies amusing himself. He, however, does not hesitate to parody the work of Debussy, Schubert, Chopin, Saint-Saens. Inventor of 'the burlesque musical', he gives his pieces names like Embryons desseches, Pieces froides - trois airs a fuir, or 4 Preludes fIasques (pour un chien). He amuses himself by covering his scores with crazy annotations.
Towards 1910, he approached innovators like Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Serge Diaghilev, the impresario of the famous Ballet Russes. In 1917 he composed Parade, a 'realistic ballet' based on a premise by Cocteau and costumes designed by Picasso. In 1918, Erik Satie put to music several pages of the Dialogues by Plato translated by Victor Cousin. He titled this work Socrates. Many believe this 'symphonic drama' to be his real masterpiece.
Satie died in hospital in 1925. His friends broke into his studio to which they had been forbidden to enter. They found a modest room furnished with an un-tuned piano and a closet full of identical grey suits. The artist died in misery that he characterised as 'a little girl with big green eyes'. All his life he had tried to be different from other artistes of his time, to free him from the canons of estheticism, from the rules of harmony and all convention. He invented a music that was free and creative in keeping with his bohemian life.
R Rangaraj
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