Erik Satie: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Satie is the hinge between Montmartre cabaret and the twentieth-century avant-garde: a Conservatoire failure who turned plainchant, fumiste humour and Rosicrucian mysticism into furniture music. This mix traces the cafés, occult salons and Parisian collaborators that made him, and the ambient and conceptual composers who finished his sentences.

The Kynda mix for Erik Satie

• Key Influence · Préludes, Op. 28 by Frédéric Chopin (1839). Satie's piano writing descends from Chopin's miniature: the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes adopt the prelude's logic of one mood, one gesture, no development. The debt is explicit and comic in 'Embryons desséchés' (1913), where Satie quotes the funeral march from Chopin's B-flat minor Sonata and footnotes it as a 'mazurka by Schubert' — a deadpan joke that only works if the source is intimately known. Paris's Chopin cult shaped his pianism from the Conservatoire years onward.ted
• Influencia Obscura · Le Vice suprême by Joséphin Péladan (1884). Péladan, the self-styled Sâr of the Ordre de la Rose+Croix du Temple et du Graal, recruited Satie as official composer around 1891. Satie wrote the Sonneries de la Rose+Croix and music for Péladan's play Le Fils des étoiles under his banner, absorbing the sect's taste for static ritual, Gothic archaism and bare fourths. The occult-decadent novels that launched Péladan's fame are the hidden doctrinal source behind Satie's most austere music.
• Local Roots · Divan Japonais (poster) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1893). Lautrec documented the Montmartre Satie lived in during the years he played piano at the Chat Noir and the Auberge du Clou — the same cabarets, singers and nocturnal economy. Both men turned commercial entertainment into formal invention: flattened space and hard outline in Lautrec, flattened harmony and repeated cells in Satie. The butte's poster art and its café-concert music were one scene with two outputs.
• Beyond the Medium · Phaedo by Plato (c. 380 BC). Socrate (1918) sets Plato directly: Satie worked from Victor Cousin's French translations of the Symposium, Phaedrus and Phaedo, ending with the death of Socrates in flat, unornamented recitation. He deliberately refused dramatic illustration, letting the philosophical prose dictate a white, measured surface. It is his most radical act — philosophy entering music not as subject matter but as a discipline of plainness.
• Peer · Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune by Claude Debussy (1894). Satie and Debussy met in the Montmartre years and remained close for decades, a friendship of mutual provocation: Debussy orchestrated two of the Gymnopédies in 1897, giving them their first wide audience, while Satie needled him about Wagnerian excess and later chafed at being treated as a precursor. Each claimed to have pushed the other toward a French music free of German developmental rhetoric.
• From the Canon · Socrate by Erik Satie (1918). Commissioned by Princesse Edmond de Polignac, this 'symphonic drama' for voices and small orchestra is Satie's purest statement: Plato in Cousin's translation, sung almost without inflection over an even, unshaded accompaniment. It abolished expression as a value and became the key text for Cage and the American experimentalists, who read its blankness as a new ethics of attention rather than a failure of drama.
• Key Collaborator · Les Enfants terribles by Jean Cocteau (1929). Cocteau conceived the scenario for Parade (1917), bringing Satie together with Picasso and Diaghilev and inserting typewriters, sirens and a pistol into the score's sound world. He then made Satie the figurehead of his manifesto Le Coq et l'Arlequin, the document that anointed Satie as master of Les Six. His novel shows the same clipped, cool, anti-sentimental modernism he brokered on Satie's behalf.
• Legacy · Sonatas and Interludes by John Cage (1948). Cage lectured on Satie at Black Mountain College in 1948, declaring him indispensable, and organised the marathon premiere of Vexations in 1963. He took from Satie the idea that structure could be measured in time rather than harmony, and he prepared the piano to produce exactly the kind of bell-like, unshaded surface Socrate implies. Nearly all American experimentalism reaches Satie through Cage's advocacy.

What influenced Erik Satie

• Maurice Ravel (1875). The cited assessment identifies traces of Ravel in Satie's work. (also via Miroirs) “During his lifetime, he influenced Maurice Ravel , Claude Debussy , and Francis Poulenc , and he is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as John Cage and John Adams .” (Wikipedia)
• Le Vice suprême by Joséphin Péladan (1884). Le Vice suprême (Joséphin Péladan) — ghost for Erik Satie “At the Auberge du Clou Satie first encountered the flamboyant, self-styled "Sâr" Joséphin Péladan, for whose mystic sect, the Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, he was appointed composer.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• À se tordre by Alphonse Allais (1891). À se tordre (Alphonse Allais) — ghost for Erik Satie “His friend Alphonse Allais later dubbed him "Esotérik Satie".” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Phaedo by Plato. Phaedo (Plato) — culture for Erik Satie “A chamber oratorio, it is a musical setting of excerpts from Plato's Socratic dialogues in the eclecticist philosopher and Hegel popularizer Victor Cousin's somewhat lyrical translation.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry (1896). Ubu Roi (Alfred Jarry) — culture for Erik Satie “The Banquet Years: The Arts in France, 1885–1918: Alfred Jarry, Henri Rousseau, Erik Satie, Guillaume Apollinaire.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Paris Conservatoire. Satie studied at the named conservatoire. “He studied at the Paris Conservatoire but was undistinguished and did not obtain a diploma.” (Wikipedia)
• Schola Cantorum de Paris. Satie enrolled at the Schola Cantorum. “Following a period of sparse compositional productivity, Satie entered Paris's second music academy, the Schola Cantorum , as a mature student.” (Wikipedia)
• Gustave Vinot. Satie took music lessons from Vinot. “In 1874 he began taking music lessons with a local organist, Gustave Vinot, a former pupil of Louis Niedermeyer .” (Wikipedia)
• Albert Lavignac. Satie studied solfeggio with Lavignac. “He studied solfeggio with Albert Lavignac and piano with Émile Decombes , who had been a pupil of Frédéric Chopin .” (Wikipedia)
• Émile Decombes. Satie studied piano with Decombes. “He studied solfeggio with Albert Lavignac and piano with Émile Decombes , who had been a pupil of Frédéric Chopin .” (Wikipedia)
• Georges Mathias. Satie entered Mathias's piano class. “In 1885, he was readmitted to the Conservatoire, in the intermediate piano class of his stepmother's former teacher, Georges Mathias .” (Wikipedia)
• Albert Roussel. Satie studied counterpoint with Roussel. “Satie studied counterpoint with Albert Roussel and composition with d'Indy, and was a much more conscientious and successful student than he had been at the Conservatoire in his youth.” (Wikipedia)
• Vincent d'Indy. Satie studied composition with d'Indy. “Satie studied counterpoint with Albert Roussel and composition with d'Indy, and was a much more conscientious and successful student than he had been at the Conservatoire in his youth.” (Wikipedia)
• Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy. Hearing Debussy's opera prompted Satie to reconsider his music. “A decisive change in Satie's musical outlook came after he heard the premiere of Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902. He found it "absolutely astounding", and he re-evaluated his own music.” (Wikipedia)
• Oliver Cromwell. Satie named Cromwell as the major influence on his humour. “He claimed the major influence on his humour was Oliver Cromwell , adding "I also owe much to Christopher Columbus , because the American spirit has occasionally tapped me on the shoulder and I have been delighted to feel its ironically …” (Wikipedia)
• Christopher Columbus. Satie explicitly said he owed much to Columbus. “I also owe much to Christopher Columbus , because the American spirit has occasionally tapped me on the shoulder and I have been delighted to feel its ironically glacial bite” (Wikipedia)
• Préludes, Op. 28 by Frédéric Chopin (1839). Préludes, Op. 28 (Frédéric Chopin) — titan for Erik Satie “He studied solfeggio with Albert Lavignac and piano with Émile Decombes, who had been a pupil of Frédéric Chopin.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Messe solennelle de Sainte-Cécile by Charles Gounod (1855). Messe solennelle de Sainte-Cécile (Charles Gounod) — titan for Erik Satie “For his revival Diaghilev commissioned Erik Satie to compose recitatives to replace the original spoken dialogue, and that version is sometimes used in the occasional modern productions of the piece, such as that by Laurent Pelly at the …” (en.wikipedia.org)
• España by Emmanuel Chabrier (1883). España (Emmanuel Chabrier) — titan for Erik Satie
• Notre-Dame de Paris (cathedral) by Maurice de Sully (1163). Notre-Dame de Paris (cathedral) (Maurice de Sully) — culture for Erik Satie

Peers and kindred spirits

• Pablo Picasso. Picasso designed for Parade, a ballet by Erik Satie. (also via Parade) “Picasso married Olga Khokhlova , a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Erik Satie's Parade , in Rome” (Wikipedia)
• Sergei Diaghilev. Satie is listed among the composers from whom Diaghilev commissioned ballet music. “Parade was first staged by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, in 1917. It had a libretto by Jean Cocteau, music by Erik Satie, costumes and sets designed by Pablo Picasso and choreographed by Leonide Massine.” (Victoria and Albert Museum)
• Paul Poiret (1879). Poiret hosted concerts featuring the music of Erik Satie at his gallery events. “performances of work by Erik Satie , Darius Milhaud , Igor Stravinsky and Georges Auric” (Wikipedia)
• George Balanchine (1904). Collaboration with composer Satie. “he worked with rising young composers such as Sergei Prokofiev , Igor Stravinsky , Erik Satie , and Maurice Ravel” (Wikipedia)
• Les Enfants terribles by Jean Cocteau (1929). Les Enfants terribles (Jean Cocteau) — collaborator for Erik Satie “A meeting with Jean Cocteau in 1915 led to the creation of the ballet Parade (1917) for Sergei Diaghilev, with music by Satie, sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso, and choreography by Léonide Massine.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Entr'acte by René Clair (1924). Entr'acte (René Clair) — collaborator for Erik Satie “In 1924 the ballets Mercure, with choreography by Massine and décor by Picasso, and Relâche ("Cancelled"), in collaboration with Francis Picabia and René Clair, both provoked headlines with their first night scandals.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Eglise Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur. Satie founded the named organization. “Between 1893 and 1895, Satie, wearing quasi-priestly dress, was the founder and only member of the Eglise Métropolitaine d'Art de Jésus Conducteur .” (Wikipedia)
• Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal. Satie was appointed composer to Péladan's named sect. “At the Auberge du Clou Satie first encountered the flamboyant, self-styled "Sâr" Joséphin Péladan , for whose mystic sect, the Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, he was appointed composer.” (Wikipedia)
• Parade by Pablo Picasso (1917). Satie composed the music for Parade. “It was produced by Diaghilev , with sets by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire and the music by Erik Satie .” (Wikipedia)
• Rue Saint-Rustique, Montmartre by Maurice Utrillo (1922). Rue Saint-Rustique, Montmartre (Maurice Utrillo) — geography for Erik Satie (wikidata.org)
• Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune by Claude Debussy (1894). Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Claude Debussy) — peer for Erik Satie “During his lifetime, he influenced Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Francis Poulenc, and he is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as John Cage and John Adams.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Miroirs by Maurice Ravel (1905). Miroirs (Maurice Ravel) — peer for Erik Satie “During his lifetime, he influenced Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Francis Poulenc, and he is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as John Cage and John Adams.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Les Noces by Igor Stravinsky (1923). Les Noces (Igor Stravinsky) — peer for Erik Satie “Igor Stravinsky, whom Satie admired, praised the work.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Udnie by Francis Picabia (1913). Udnie (Francis Picabia) — collaborator for Erik Satie “In 1924 the ballets Mercure, with choreography by Massine and décor by Picasso, and Relâche ("Cancelled"), in collaboration with Francis Picabia and René Clair, both provoked headlines with their first night scandals.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Divan Japonais (poster) by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1893). Divan Japonais (poster) (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec) — geography for Erik Satie
• Dans la rue by Aristide Bruant (1889). Dans la rue (Aristide Bruant) — geography for Erik Satie
• Arthur Penn (1922). Penn directed Erik Satie's play at Black Mountain College. (via Le piège de Méduse)

Who Erik Satie influenced

• John Cage. Cage cites composer Erik Satie's remark on experience as influential to his philosophy. (also via Vexations, Sonatas and Interludes) “it’s by the composer Erik Satie and it’s related to that remark that I just quoted from Char – he checked his version. Satie says experience is a form of paralysis.” (Fresh Air (NPR))
• Claude Debussy. The article states that Satie influenced Debussy. (also via Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Pelléas et Mélisande) “During his lifetime, he influenced Maurice Ravel , Claude Debussy , and Francis Poulenc , and he is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as John Cage and John Adams .” (Wikipedia)
• Jean Cocteau. Parade (Erik Satie) — titan for Jean Cocteau (via Parade, Les Enfants terribles) “It was produced by Diaghilev, with sets by Picasso, the libretto by Apollinaire and the music by Erik Satie.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Aaron Copland (1900). Satie's music was among the contemporary French music that engaged Copland. “During his studies with Boulanger in Paris, Copland was excited to be so close to the new post-Impressionistic French music of Ravel , Roussel , and Satie” (Wikipedia)
• Music in the Shape of a Square. The piece is described as an homage to Satie. “Music in the Shape of a Square (for two flutes, composed in May 1968, an homage to Erik Satie )” (Wikipedia)
• Sonatas and Interludes by John Cage (1948). Sonatas and Interludes (John Cage) — legacy for Erik Satie “During his lifetime, he influenced Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Francis Poulenc, and he is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as John Cage and John Adams.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Ambient 1: Music for Airports by Brian Eno (1978). Ambient 1: Music for Airports (Brian Eno) — legacy for Erik Satie “No longer is it just a passive medium through which they communicate their ideas but itself a new instrument with seemingly endless possibilities." According to Vinyl Me, Please writer Jack Riedy, Eno's peak as an artist coincided with t…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Francis Poulenc. The article states that Satie influenced Poulenc. “During his lifetime, he influenced Maurice Ravel , Claude Debussy , and Francis Poulenc , and he is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as John Cage and John Adams .” (Wikipedia)
• John Adams. The article identifies Satie as an influence on Adams. “During his lifetime, he influenced Maurice Ravel , Claude Debussy , and Francis Poulenc , and he is seen as an influence on more recent composers such as John Cage and John Adams .” (Wikipedia)
• Century Rolls. Adams's work contains a specific homage to Satie's music. “John Adams included a specific homage to Satie's music in his 1996 Century Rolls .” (Wikipedia)
• Black Mountain College. Trois morceaux en forme de poire (Erik Satie) — culture for Black Mountain College (via Trois Morceaux en forme de poire) “The piece is a chance-controlled reworking of Erik Satie's Socrate, and, as both listeners and Cage himself noted, openly sympathetic to its source.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Sinking of the Titanic by Gavin Bryars (1975). The Sinking of the Titanic (Gavin Bryars) — legacy for Erik Satie (musicbrainz.org)
• Piano Phase by Steve Reich. Piano Phase (Steve Reich) — legacy for Erik Satie
• Georges Braque (1882). Trois Morceaux en forme de poire (Erik Satie) — culture for Georges Braque (via Trois Morceaux en forme de poire)
• Marcel Duchamp. Parade (Erik Satie) — culture for Marcel Duchamp (via Parade)