Abstracts of issue 5-6 (1987)

Monsieur Eric Satie, Gymnopédiste

The paper – written by a connoisseur and performer of Satie’s “strange” work in the history of the French and world music – is about this historically unique personality. Without entering into analytical technicalities, this paper was originally intended to introduce the general aesthetic dimensions that are necessary for understanding such a work of “archaic” frugality. Nevertheless, the paper yields the historical and hermeneutical context of Satie’s work in the conditions created by contemporary French symbolism and surrealism of the twentieth century first decades and of the specific aesthetic attitude of a “populisme musical parisien”. It also underlines the originality of Yesterday as a precursor and as an utopia of Today.

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