1. ‘Before I compose a piece, I walk round it several times, accompanied by myself’.
- Author
-
Hodge, Stephen
- Subjects
CONTEMPORARY classical music ,MUSICAL composition ,WALKING - Abstract
Erik Satie (1866-1925), referred to as a ‘gentle mediaeval musician’ by Claude Debussy and ‘indispensable’ by John Cage, is often reduced to a single work, Gymnopédie No.1. A solitary and eccentric figure, Satie has proved to be a significant influence on modern music and artistic thought. In 1994, I visited Satie's environs to inform a piece of work I was making for the National Review of Live Art. In 1997, working as a core member of the artists’ collective Wrights & Sites, I turned to walking as both a research tool and an outcome in its own right. In 1997 and 2003, I started to follow in Satie's footsteps, retracing parts of his long daily walks into and out of central Paris. For ‘On Foot’, I returned to Paris in September 2011 and attempted to piece together his nocturnal 10km walk home from Montmartre to Arcueil, walking and pausing, in Satie-fashion, under streetlights and in bars and cafés to compose my contribution. There are five pathways through the following artist's pages: my previous encounters with Satie; musings on walking and drinking with Satie by his contemporaries; thoughts about the spatial/architectural properties of Satie's music; Satie in his own words; and, my recent pilgrimage. All touch on the relationship between walking and composition. We think of much music (in both its transcription and performance) as ‘fait main’ (made by hand), but in Satie's case might we just as easily suggest his work be ‘fait pied’ (made by foot)? ‘Listen to his music and you will hear his footsteps.’ [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2012
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