Gnossiennes

Composer: SATIE, Erik
  • Satie’s Gnossiennes is a set of six piano pieces written between 1889-97:
    1. Lent (Slow)
    2. Avec étonnement (With surprise)
    3. Lent
    4. Lent
    5. Modéré
    6. Avec conviction et avec une tristesse rigoureuse (With conviction and with rigorous sadness)
  • The first three Gnossiennes were written and published first, while Nos. 4-6 were written afterward and not even published until 1968.
    • Nos. 4-6 actually weren’t titled “Gnossiennes” by the composer but were later included with Nos. 1-3 by publishers.1
  • The musical genre of “Gnossiennes” was invented by Satie. They’re highly unusual for the 19th century in that they lack both time signatures and bar lines: “The pianist is liberated to experiment with and explore to create his/her own interpretation of this music.”2
    • There’s much debate around the meaning of “Gnossienne,” a word made up by the composer. Some musicologists speculate that the word derives from “Knossos,” and the music was inspired by the slow dances of the Ancient Greeks.3

Sources

  1. Gnossiennes (Satie, Erik), IMSLP, accessed October 11, 2024, https://imslp.org/wiki/Gnossiennes_(Satie,_Erik).
  2. Frances Wilson, “Satie’s Gnossiennes,” Interlude (2019), accessed October 11, 2024, https://interlude.hk/saties-gnossiennes/.
  3. Ibid.

Cut IDs

45162 10707 14527 22270 44631 10709 24564 10711 22268 18991 13867