Nocturnes (Satie)

The Nocturnes are a set of five piano pieces (initially planned as a set of seven, but left unfinished)[lower-alpha 1] by Erik Satie. They were written between August and November 1919. With the exception of the Premier Menuet (1920), they were his final works for solo piano, and are considered among his most significant achievements in the genre.[2]: 58 [3]: 142  The Nocturnes stand apart from Satie's piano music of the 1910s in their complete seriousness—lacking the zany titles, musical parody, and extramusical texts that he typically featured in his scores of the time. The completed set of five nocturnes takes about 13 minutes to perform.

Satie, c. 1919

Background

Much had transpired in Satie's personal and professional lives in the two years since his previous keyboard piece, the Neoclassical spoof Sonatine bureaucratique (1917). There was the fallout from the scandalous premiere of his ballet Parade (1917),[lower-alpha 2] including his conviction of criminal libel (from which he narrowly escaped imprisonment) for sending insulting postcards to one of its critics, Jean Poueigh; his bitter estrangement from longtime friend Claude Debussy, and Debussy's subsequent death; and the completion of the work which he believed represented the best of himself: the "symphonic drama" Socrate (1918). Ridiculed by the French press and dogged by chronic poverty, Satie fell into a depressed state that reached its nadir in August 1918, when he wrote to Valentine Hugo, "I shit on Art, it has 'cut me up' too often."[lower-alpha 3] He then proceeded to break with the Nouveaux jeunes group of musicians he had recently founded—an act that set the stage for their eventual regrouping as Les Six. By the summer of 1919, his creative energies had revived, though his spirits remained hard-bitten and gloomy: "I have changed a lot during these last months", he mused to singer Paulette Darty. "I am becoming very serious...too serious, even."[lower-alpha 4] Such feelings may have steered him to the nocturne form itself—the province of Chopin,[lower-alpha 5] evocative of the night, and usually quiet and introspective—and affected the way in which the project developed.

Composition

Satie's notebooks reveal that he initially intended to present the Nocturnes with the whimsical literary humor that the Parisian public had come to expect from him. The first piece had the working title Faux Nocturne and was accompanied by one of those little stories he enjoyed writing for the pianist's private amusement:[lower-alpha 6]

The night is silent
Melancholy is all-pervasive
The will-o'-the-wisp disturbs the peaceful landscape
What a bore! It's an old will-o'-the-wisp
Trust him to come
Let us resume our reverie, if you will[7]

But he soon abandoned the text and satirical nomenclature, choosing instead to let the Nocturnes stand as pure music. He also wrote them using conventional bar lines, a practice he had largely eschewed in piano music for nearly 30 years before returning to it—perhaps with a dash of irony—in his Sonatine bureaucratique.

On 24 August 1919, Satie informed Valentine Hugo: "I am coming to the end of my Third Nocturne. I am dedicating it to you. The three of them are not at all bad. The first serves as a prelude; the second is shorter and very tender—very nocturnal; the third, yours, is a more rapid and dramatic nocturne, a little longer than the first. Between the three of them they form a whole with which I am very pleased—though the first is the least good."[8] This assessment was premature; Satie was not satisfied with Nocturne No. 2 until the following month, and he continued to tinker with No. 3 until October—by which time he was developing ideas for additional pieces in the series. Nos. 4 and 5 are dated October and November 1919, respectively.

Publication and performance
A 1920 advertisement for Satie's Nocturnes, including the projected No. 6, which Satie never completed or published.

The printing of the Nocturnes was split between two of Satie's regular publishers; Rouart, Lerolle & Cie. issued Nos. 1–3 in late 1919, and E. Demets published Nos. 4 and 5 in 1920. Demets also advertised a Nocturne No. 6 without a price,[9] indicating it was a work in progress—but the piece would not appear in the composer's lifetime.

Satie dedicated each of the completed five to a patron or proponent of his music:

  1. Doux et calme (Soft and calm), to Marcelle Meyer
  2. Simplement (Simply), to André Salomon[lower-alpha 7]
  3. Un peu mouvementé (A bit hectic), to Valentine Hugo
  4. eighth note = 92, to Countess Étienne de Beaumont[lower-alpha 8]
  5. dotted quarter note. = 60, to Madame Georges Cocteau[lower-alpha 9]

Nocturne No. 1 was premiered by Jane Mortier at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on 18 March 1920; Nos. 1–3 were performed by Ricardo Viñes during an all-Satie concert at the Salle Érard on 7 June 1920. Nocturne No. 4 was not heard until 4 January 1923, when it was played by Jean Wiener at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Nocturne No. 5 was performed sometime in 1921 by Marcelle Meyer.[6]: 306–307 

Reception

The Nocturnes caused no immediate stir, although at the Viñes performance, Jean Cocteau and Les Six members Darius Milhaud and Louis Durey expressed their enthusiasm.[1]: 356  Given Satie's reputation as a musical humorist, the audience may have been unsure if it was having its leg pulled.[lower-alpha 10] But they have long been prized by Satie aficionados. John Cage championed them in the United States after World War II, and they inspired choreographer Merce Cunningham's ballet Nocturnes (1956), in which the dances were created using chance procedure.[12] Rollo Hugh Myers, Satie's first English-language biographer (1948), ranked the Nocturnes with a handful of Satie compositions that are "outstanding and cannot be ignored by any student of contemporary music." He continued: "The Nocturnes are in a sense the natural corollary of Socrate, which preceded them by a year, and are conceived in the same gravely austere mood. The style is chastened, simplified, uncompromising in its rejection of any sensuous appeal, but the music is strangely impressive in its bleakness and almost inhuman detachment."[2]: 92  The Nocturnes have never enjoyed the mainstream popularity of the Gymnopédies or other Satie piano works; although they have been recorded by such artists as Aldo Ciccolini, Pascal Rogé, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, they remain—according to John Keillor's AllMusic review—"among the undiscovered masterpieces of the twentieth century."[13]

Posthumous Nocturnes

Shortly before his death in 1925, Satie told Robert Caby that the manuscript of his Nocturne No. 6 was virtually complete and might be published someday.[6]: 306  Six decades later, musicologist Robert Orledge examined Satie's notebooks from the period and discovered a single, full draft of a piano piece, missing only two bars of the left-hand part.[lower-alpha 11] Orledge completed a performance version, and it was published as Satie's Nocturne No. 6 in 1994. Speculative versions of a Nocturne No. 7, based on a 12-bar sketch in Satie's notebooks,[lower-alpha 12] have been created by Orledge and others.

Recordings
Artist Nocturne(s) Album Label Year
Aldo Ciccolini Nos. 1–3 Piano Music of Erik Satie, Vol. 1 Angel Records 1968
Nos. 4, 5 Piano Music of Erik Satie, Vol. 5 Angel Records 1971
Nos. 1–5 Das Klavierwerk HMV 1971
Frank Glazer Nos. 1–5 Piano Music Vox 1968
Jean-Joël Barbier Nos. 1–5 Œuvres pour piano Accord 1971
Yūji Takahashi Nos. 1–5 L'oeuvre pour piano Denon 1976
Daniel Varsano No. 1 Œuvres pour piano Columbia 1979
France Clidat Nos. 1–3 Erik Satie Forlane 1980
Nos. 1–5 L'œuvre pour piano Forlane 1982
Klára Körmendi Nos. 1–5 Piano Works Vol. 1 Naxos 1993
Bojan Gorišek Nos. 1–5 Complete Piano Works Volume 7 Audiophile Classics 1995
Pascal Rogé No. 4 3 Gymnopédies & Other Piano Works Decca 1984
Nos. 1–3, 5 Piano Works Decca 1989
Nos. 1–5 Après la pluie... Decca 1995
Olof Höjer Nos. 1–5 Olof Höjer Plays Erik Satie Malmö Audio Production 1986
Nos. 1–6 The Complete Piano Music Vol. 6 Swedish Society Discofil 1999
Jean-Yves Thibaudet Nos. 1–6 The Complete Solo Piano Music Decca 2003
Cristina Ariagno Nos. 1–6 Piano Works (Complete) Brilliant Classics 2006
Satsuki Shibano No. 4 Erik Satie Sound Process 1984
Nos. 1, 4 Satsuki Plays Satie II Firebird 1987
Nos. 1–6 Belle de nuit Les Disques Des Chainons 2012

Notes and references

Notes
  1. Satie planned to write at least seven nocturnes (with No. 4 serving as an "interlude" between two sets of three) based on material in the composer's notebooks at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.[1]: 194–195, 318 
  2. "Parade separated me from a great many friends. This work is the cause of many misfortunes. I have against me a thousand unpleasant people who have more or less abused and mistreated me. Too bad!" Satie in a letter to Henry Prunières, dated 14 September 1917.[4]: 149 
  3. Letter dated 23 August 1918.[5]
  4. Letter dated 22 November 1919, around the time Satie completed Nocturne No. 5.[1]: 356 
  5. Satie greatly admired Chopin, referring to him as a "poet" and "prodigious creator" in his journalistic writings (e.g., his February 1923 Vanity Fair article on Stravinsky titled Igor Stravinsky). Myers, for one, found "Chopinesque" qualities in Nocturne No. 4.[2]: 92  Satie would have also known the Nocturnes of Debussy, another fan of Chopin.
  6. From his manuscript, BNF 9609 (2) pp. 2–6, Bibliothèque nationale de France.[6]: 306 
  7. Salomon was a French-Jewish pianist and teacher associated with Satie's music of the World War I era, including performances of the musique d'ameublement ("furniture music"). He perished in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz during World War II.[10]
  8. Édith de Beaumont (1877–1952), wife of Count Étienne de Beaumont, both of whom were among Satie's chief benefactors after World War I.
  9. Eugénie Cocteau, née Lecomte (1855–1943), Jean Cocteau's mother.
  10. This same concert saw the premiere of Socrate in its version for chamber orchestra, and its second public performance overall. It overshadowed the Nocturnes, though for reasons that the composer found unwelcome. Satie was exasperated by critics who, refusing to take him seriously, imagined that Socrate was the driest musical "joke" he had ever perpetrated.[11]: 557–559 
  11. From his manuscript, BNF 9609 (2) pp. 15–18, Bibliothèque nationale de France.[6]: 306 
  12. From his manuscript, BNF 9609 (4) pp. 6–8, Bibliothèque nationale de France.[6]: 306 

References
  1. Orledge, Robert (1990). Satie the Composer. Cambridge University Press.
  2. Myers, Rollo Hugh (1968) [Originally published in 1948 (first edition) by Dennis Dobson Ltd., London]. Erik Satie (2nd (illustrated and reprinted) ed.). New York City: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-21903-5.
  3. Gowers, Patrick; Wilkins, Nigel E. (1986) [Reprinted from "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", 1980 (first) edition]. "CHAPTER TWO: Works". The New Grove Twentieth-century French Masters (Erik Satie). New York City: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-02284-1.
  4. Volta, Ornella (1989). Satie Seen Through His Letters. Translated by Bullock, Michael Hale (Reissued ed.). London; New York City: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7145-2811-3.
  5. Volta, Ornella (2003). Erik Satie: Correspondance presque complète (in French). Paris: Fayard. ISBN 978-2-213-60674-3.
  6. Orledge, Robert (2013). "Appendix: Chronological Catalogue of Satie's Compositions and Research Guide to the Manuscripts". In Potter, Caroline (ed.). Erik Satie: Music, Art and Literature (1st ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1-4094-3421-4.
  7. Quoted in Olof Höjer's notes to "Erik Satie: The Complete Piano Music, Vol. 6", Swedish Society Discofil, 1996.
  8. Nye, James; Orledge, Robert (2010-04-18). "Erik Satie: Autour des Nocturnes". The Frogweb. Erik Satie – Six Nocturnes – and a trio of Sevens. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  9. "File:SIBLEY1802.20119.78d4-39087012833523score.pdf - IMSLP: Free Sheet Music PDF Download" (PDF). imslp.org. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
  10. "André Salomon (1881-1944)". data.bnf.fr. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  11. Whiting, Steven Moore (1999). Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall. Oxford University Press.
  12. "Home - Merce Cunningham Trust". www.mercecunningham.org. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  13. "Nocturnes (5) for piano | Details". AllMusic. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
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