In 1905, at the age of 39, he became a student again and studied music at the Schola Cantorum. Late at night he walked home again or took the last train back.
He also carried a hammer in case anyone attacked him. If it was raining he kept his umbrella underneath his coat to keep it dry. He wore a bowler hat, wing collar and always carried a rolled-up umbrella. Every morning he walked the 10 kilometres into Paris, stopping on the way at cafés to drink or compose. He stopped performing in public and earned money by playing the piano in cafés and pubs. He started a church called Église Métropolitaine d’Art de Jésus Conducteur (Metropolitan Church of Art of Conductor Jesus), but nobody belonged to the church except himself.Īt the end of 1898 he moved to Arceuil, a suburb of Paris. He inherited a small amount of money with which he bought himself seven velvet suits which were all exactly the same: one for each day of the week. He tried to compose in a simple style and became interested in mystical religion and Gothic art. In 1890 he moved to new rooms on a top floor of a house so that people to whom he owed money could not get at him. He became friends with Debussy who was one of the only people who understood the serious reasons for Satie’s unusual behaviour. He wrote a ballet which most people found shocking. He grew his hair long and wore a frock coat and a top hat. Satie soon got to know many people in the famous cabaret Chat Noir. However, he did not get on well with his family and he left home in 1887.
His father published a few songs he had written. While he was getting better he started to compose. In fact, he did less than a year in the army because he deliberately got himself ill with bronchitis. He was bad at sight-reading, but he continued with his lessons because this would make it possible for him to do just one year of military service instead of five. His teacher said that he was the laziest pupil in the Conservatoire. His new wife was a pianist and sent young Eric to have piano lessons at the Paris Conservatoire. However, his grandmother drowned, so he was sent back to Paris again where his father taught him. He was still quite young when his mother died and he was sent back to his birthplace, Honfleur, to be brought up by his father’s parents. His father had been in the shipping business, but the family then moved to Paris. He was born Alfred Eric Leslie Satie, but as a grown-up he always spelled his name “Erik”. He was also interested in other arts such as literature and painting and he was associated with the new ideas called esprit nouveau (new spirit) which was fashionable in France around the time of World War I.
Satie was not a brilliant composer, but he was happy to compose well in a simple way. These ways of writing music became more common later in the century. Satie used ways of composing such as very chromatic music and Minimalism before many other people. He was important because of the ideas he had, and many people were influenced by him. He was very important in the development of music in France in the late 19th and early 20th century. Satie sometimes used unusual instruments such as sirens and typewriters. The first of these pieces is a very famous piece of music: it is a simple tune over a gentle accompaniment. His best known musical compositions are the three piano pieces which he called Gymnopédies. He often gave his music unusual titles such as Piece in the form of a pear. He is mainly remembered today for his music and the strange ways he behaved. Erik Alfred Leslie Satie (born Honfleur ( France), died Paris, 1 July 1925) was a French composer.
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