Gymnopédie No. 3

Background

The third Gymnopédie closes the set of three slow pieces that Erik Satie wrote in 1888. Its French marking is Lent et grave, "slow and solemn", and it is the most serious of the three. All of them share one plan, a gentle three-beat sway of bass note and chord with a melody floating above, but each has its own colour, a little like the same scene seen in a different light.

Much of that colour comes from the scale. The music sits around A minor, yet the melody never uses the G sharp that A minor usually leans on. Without it, the harmony has an old, modal sound, close to the church music of the Middle Ages, which suits Satie's interest in an imagined ancient world. In the 1890s Claude Debussy chose this piece and the first Gymnopédie to orchestrate, leaving the second as a piano piece only.

How to practise it

As in the other Gymnopédies, each bar begins with a low bass note on beat 1, followed by a soft chord on beat 2 that is held through beat 3. Pianists usually play both with the left hand, which means a leap in every bar.

Spend your first sessions on bars 1 to 4 alone, where only this pattern sounds, alternating between the A minor chord and a chord over a low D. Move to each chord early and rest your fingers on the keys before you press, so the chord sounds calm rather than snatched.

The melody enters in bar 5, on the first beat:

Play these quarter notes completely evenly, joined as smoothly as you can, with a slight swell towards the middle of each phrase. In bar 7 a B flat appears in the chord underneath, darkening the harmony for one bar; listen for it.

From bar 9 the melody moves more slowly and the chords shift on every bar. Around bars 15 to 20 the bass drops to a deep G, the lowest note in the piece. Look down to find it, then look back up before the chord.

A plan:

1. Left hand alone, bars 1 to 8, at 44 beats a minute, with the pedal changing on every beat 1.
2. The melody alone, in four-bar phrases.
3. Hands together at 44, then 56, then the full 66.
4. Learn the later phrases the same way, marking the passages that repeat.

Listen for three distinct layers: a soft, deep bass, even softer chords, and the melody just above them. Change the pedal exactly as each new bass note sounds, and keep a strict, slow pulse; the solemn mood depends on not hurrying.

The first piece of the set has its own notes on the Gymnopédie No. 1 page.