Je te veux (I Want You)

Composer: SATIE, Erik
  • Satie originally wrote this little waltz as a song for voice and piano with words by Henry Pacory. It was published in 1902,1 but Satie may have written it a few years earlier than that.2
  • This is one of Satie’s cabaret songs. In the late 1880s he moved into an apartment in Paris near the Chat noir cabaret and began to frequent it. That was one of the first places he played his Gymnopedies. Satie had a great turn for writing cabaret music which sold well, but though he continued to churn out pieces like this for years, he professed to prefer writing in less commercial styles.3
  • Satie also arranged this piece for cabaret orchestra and for piano solo (both pub. 1904).4 He dedicated the piano solo version to the actress and cabaret singer Paulette Darty. A 1903 edition of the sheet music marketed the song version as “repertoire of Paulette Darty,” with her picture on the cover. 

Sources

  1. Erik Satie, Mélodies et chansons (Paris: Editions Salaber, 1988), 39.
  2. “Je te veux (Satie, Erik), IMSLP, accessed November 15, 2021, https://imslp.org/wiki/Je_te_veux_%28Satie,_Erik%29.  
  3. Robert Orledge, “Satie, Erik,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 15, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040105. 
  4. Ibid.

Cut IDs

11359 45168