Socrate is a work for voice and small orchestra (or piano) by Erik Satie. The text is composed of excerpts of Victor Cousin's translation of works by Plato, all of the chosen texts referring to Socrates.
The work was commissioned by Princess Edmond de Polignac in October 1916. The Princess had specified that female voices should be used: originally the idea had been that Satie would write incidental music to a performance where the Princess and/or some of her (female) friends would read aloud texts of the ancient Greek philosophers. As Satie, after all, was not so much in favour of melodrama-like settings, that idea was abandoned, and the text would be sung — be it in a more or less reciting way. However, the specification remained that only female voices could be used (for texts of dialogues that were supposed to have taken place between men). Satie, at the time, probably did not understand why the Princess was so attached to female voices: it was not until 5 years later that a first (and all in all minor) press scandal would reveal the Princess's lesbian nature.
Satie composed Socrate between January 1917 and the spring of 1918, with a revision of the orchestral score in October of that same year. During the first months he was working on the composition, he called it Vie de Socrate. In 1917 Satie was hampered by a lawsuit over an insulting postcard he had sent, which nearly resulted in prison time. The Princess diverted this danger by her financial intercession in the first months of 1918, after which Satie could work free of fear.
The piece is written for voice and orchestra, but also exists in a version for voice and piano. This reduction had been produced by Satie, concurrently with the orchestral version.
Each speaker in the various sections is meant to be represented by a different singer (Alcibiades, Socrates, Phaedrus, Phaedo), according to Satie's indication two of these voices soprano, the two other mezzo soprano.
Nonetheless all parts are more or less in the same range, and the work can easily be sung by a single voice, and has often been performed and recorded by a single vocalist, female as well as male. Such single vocalist performances diminish however the effect of dialogue (at least in the two first parts of the symphonic drama - in the third part there is only Phaedo telling the story of Socrates' death).
The music is characterised by simple repetitive rhythms, parallel cadences, and long ostinati.
The first (private) performance of parts of the work had taken place in April 1918 with the composer at the piano and Jane Bathori singing (all the parts), in the salons of the Princess de Polignac.
Several more performances of the piano version were held, public as well as private, amongst others André Gide, James Joyce and Paul Valéry attending.
The vocal score (this is the piano version) was available in print from the end of 1919 on. It is said Gertrude Stein became an admirer of Satie hearing Virgil Thomson perform the Socrate music on his piano.
In June 1920 the first public performance of the orchestral version was presented. The public thinks to hear a new musical joke by Satie, and laughs - Satie feels misunderstood by that behavior.
The orchestral version was not printed until several decades after Satie's death.
GENEVIEVE DE BRABANT (OEUVRE POSTHUME)
"Genevieve de Brabant," Satie's miniature opera for marionettes. Written for a pantomime destined for the Comedie Parisienne, the manuscript was discovered after Satie's death, behind one of the pianos in his tiny room in Arcueil.
In his witty article "Erik Satie, the Velvet Gentleman", George Auriol explains that this "English lord" called himself "Condamine (sic) de Latour" when he arrived in Paris incognito. According to the code of in-jokes in force at the Chat Noir (of which Auriol was one of the pillars), this information should be read backwards. Because it was in fact J.P. Contamine de Latour, or rather Patrice Contamine, who signed the name Lord Cheminot to his literary output around 1900. Satie had carried on a very intense friendship with him, from the time of his first songs (1887) until Uspud (1892) at least.
In his memoirs, Contamine said that at any given time, circumstances would separate them, only to reunite them temporarily a bit later, even though Satie had already left Montmartre for Arcueil. We have seen the name "J. P. Contamine de Latour" attached to works which Satie composed, as we have just seen, between 1887 and 1892, then again for two songs in 190510. In 1900 and 1901, Satie collaborated with "Lord Cheminot" instead
Geneviève de Brabant premiered on May 17, 1926, for the sixtieth anniversary of Erik Satie's birth, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, which had just become an "Opera/Music Hall", conducted by Daven and directed by Rolf de Maré. This performance took place, a year after the death of the composer, during a Festival organized, in tribute to Satie's memory, by the Comte Etienne de Beaumont.
On that evening, the name of Lord Cheminot didn't figure in the program or the posters. Looking for all the world like Patrice Contamine, he would disappear forever from the scene only a week later - and not just figuratively.
The original text of Genevieve of the Brabant was recently rediscovered after a long time of forgetfulness. In 1983 the first performance of the complete version reconstructed by Ornello Volta was given at the Teator la Fenice in Venice.
The French text was published by Universal as an annex to its latest edition of the piano score, in 1986.
ERIC SATIE (1808-1925)
Complete Piano Works Vol. 10
Piano – Bojan Gorišek
Soprano – Jane Manning
[1995] Audiophile / CBR320 / scans
O Púbis da Rosa
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