How Erik Satie helps (and confuses) performers
One of my favorite things about Erik Satie has nothing to do with his music - it has to do with the little interjections he writes in the scores.
Most composers do this with tempo markings (“Allegro assai e lusingando” from Kabalevsky, for example, which can be translated to “very fast and coaxing”) and with the usage of terms such as “cantabile” (“singing”) as expression marks within the score. Satie technically does these things, but he takes it to a level that most other composers don’t come close to. Here are some examples, all from one set of pieces - the Sept Toutes Petites Danses Pour le “Piege de Meduse:”
“Le singe danse, avec gentillesse, cette figure” (“The monkey dances this air gracefully”)
“Silencieusement, je vous prie” (“Silently, please”)
“Suivant le cas on peut finir ici” (“If necessary, you can finish here”)
“Il se gratte avec une pomme de terre” (“He scratches himself with a potato”)
“Dur comme le diable” (“Tough as the devil”)
As mentioned before, these are all from the same set of seven very short pieces - each is only one page long! That’s a lot of descriptive language for a comparatively small amount of music. For the performer, this is a good thing, and I’m surprised that such a useful idea is not more common in modern art music than it is.
