| Birth: | May 17, 1866 | | Death: | Jul. 4, 1925 | 
French composer, primarily for the piano, known for his spare, unconventional, often witty style, and the eccentric names he gave some of his pieces (“Dried Embryos,” “Three Waltzes Distinguished by Their Disgusting Worth,” “Sketches and Irritations of a Big Wooden Fellow,” “Three Pieces in the Shape of A Pear,” “Three Flabby Preludes For A Dog”). His minimalist ideas were ultimately to have a great effect on 20th-century music, particularly through their impact on Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Darius Milhaud, and Igor Stravinsky. A weak early musical education delayed his development as a composer, but he buckled down in his forties and studied privately with Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931) and Albert Roussel (1869-1937). For a while he earned a living playing the piano and accordion in bars and cafes in Montmartre, where he also wrote a number of popular songs. He collaborated with Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau on two ballets, “Parade” (1917) -- the score called for typewriters, airplane propellers, sirens, ticker tape machines, and a lottery wheel -- and “Les Adventures de Mercure” (1925). His best known pieces today are probably the “Trois Gymnopédies” (#1 was scored by Debussy and has been used in numerous films -- “The Royal Tennenbaums,” “Chocolat,” “Corinna, Corinna” -- and recorded by the rock group Blood Sweat and Tears) and the “Gnossienes” (#4 was used in the score for the Jack Nicholson film “About Schmidt”). He remained a father-figure of the avant-garde until his death from cirrhosis of the liver. (bio by: Paul F. Wilson)
Cause of death: Cirrhosis of the liver
Search Amazon for Erik Satie | | | Burial:
Cimetiere d'Arcueil
Arcueil
Ile-de-France Region, France |
Maintained by: Find A Grave
Record added: Jan 27, 1999
Find A Grave Memorial# 4404 |
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(4.1 after 31 votes)
