Gnossienne No. 1
Erik Satie 1866–1925
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Themes & character
Invented word, invented form·No bar lines or key signature·Whimsical instructions·Exotic modality
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About the piece
The first of Satie's Gnossiennes, composed around 1890. Gnossienne is a word Satie invented himself, likely evoking the ancient Cretan palace of Knossos, and the pieces that carry it are as unconventional as their name: Satie wrote them without bar lines or a time signature, drifting freely from measure to measure.
He also filled the score with strange, whimsical performance instructions never meant to be spoken aloud, such as "question yourself" and "with astonishment," part of his lifelong habit of undercutting musical seriousness with dry humor.
The composer
Erik Satie
1866–1925
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie, better known as Erik Satie, was a French composer and pianist. The son of a French father and a British mother, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire but was undistinguished and did not obtain a diploma. In the 1880s he worked as a pianist in café-cabarets in Montmartre, Paris, and began composing works, mostly for solo piano, such as his Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes. He also wrote music for a Rosicrucian sect to which he was briefly attached.
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