Erik Satie

Full biography Erik Satie

Erik Satie was a French composer and pianist born on May 17, 1866, and passed away on July 1, 1925. He was a highly influential artist whose innovative compositions inspired many of the twentieth century's most important musical movements, including impressionism, surrealism, and minimalism.

Satie studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but he eventually left without graduating, feeling uninspired by its curriculum. He began composing his own work, notably the haunting "Gymnopedies" and "Gnossiennes" piano pieces that would become his most celebrated compositions.

Satie's music has been described as simple, light, and often humorous. His minimalist approach to composition, which emphasized silence and simplicity, was a stark contrast to the excesses of the Romantic era. Satie's music eschewed traditional harmonic structures and instead relied on dissonance and unconventional scales to create a unique, other-worldly sound.

In addition to his musical contributions, Satie was a key figure in the Parisian avant-garde art scene of the early twentieth century. He collaborated with a number of artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and Francis Picabia, and his work was a significant influence on the surrealists.

Although Satie was not widely recognized during his lifetime, his music's influence would continue to resonate long after his death. His minimalist techniques would prove to be foundational to the development of ambient and experimental music, and his work remains a significant influence on contemporary classical composition to this day.