Gymnopédie No. 1

Background

Erik Satie wrote his three Gymnopédies in 1888, when he was in his early twenties and earning a living as a pianist in the cabarets of Montmartre in Paris. The first was published that same year. The word comes from the gymnopaedia, a festival in ancient Sparta at which young men danced. Satie never explained exactly why he chose it, and the music does not try to describe a scene; it simply suggests something slow, calm and ancient.

Each piece is marked with an unusual instruction in French. No. 1 reads Lent et douloureux, "slow and sorrowful". The pieces made little impression at first. Their reputation grew after Claude Debussy, a friend of Satie, orchestrated Nos. 1 and 3 in the 1890s. In the twentieth century they became some of the most played piano pieces of all.

How to practise it

The whole piece rests on a gentle three-beat sway: a low bass note on beat 1, then a soft chord on beat 2 held through beat 3. For the first four bars that pattern is all you hear, alternating between two chords: G with B, D and F sharp above it, then D with A, C sharp and F sharp.

Most pianists play both the bass note and the chord with the left hand, which means a leap of more than an octave in every bar. Practise just the first four bars until the leap is calm and sure. Play the bass, keep it sounding with the pedal, and move to the chord early, so you are resting on the keys before beat 2 arrives. Look at the chord, and let your hand learn the distance back down to the bass by feel.

In bar 5 the melody enters on beat 2:

The melody moves only in quarter notes and long held notes, but it must sing above the chords without ever sounding loud. Play it with a slightly firmer touch than the accompaniment and let the long notes fade naturally.

A plan:

1. Left hand alone, bars 1 to 8, at 50 beats a minute, with the pedal changing on every beat 1.
2. Right-hand melody alone, phrased in four-bar breaths.
3. Hands together at 50, then 58, then the full 66.
4. Learn the later phrases the same way. Much of the music returns, so mark the repeats.

Listen for three levels of sound: the bass deep and soft, the chords softer still, and the melody just above them. Change the pedal exactly as each new bass note sounds, so each bar is clean but nothing goes dry. Keep a strict, slow pulse; the calm of this piece comes from not hurrying.

Steady counting in three beats is the focus of the pulse and rhythm unit.