Hervé Vanel
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037993
- eISBN:
- 9780252095252
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037993.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Psychology of Music
This chapter explores the furniture music of French composer Erik Satie (1866–1925). Satie's pieces of furniture music are each fundamentally based on a short musical fragment, to be repeated ad lib ...
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This chapter explores the furniture music of French composer Erik Satie (1866–1925). Satie's pieces of furniture music are each fundamentally based on a short musical fragment, to be repeated ad lib (at one's pleasure). As such, they are intrinsically monotonous and can retain the attention of the active listener for only a short span before boredom inevitably sets in. Vexations (1893), for instance, is a short piece consisting of four repetitive phrases to be repeated 840 times. Strictly speaking, three sets of furniture music by Satie exist. The first set, from 1917, is composed for flute, clarinet, and strings, plus a trumpet for the first piece. The second set, from 1920 and labeled Sons industriels [Industrial sounds], was performed at the Galerie Barbazanges. The last piece of furniture music for small orchestra from 1923, was commissioned by Mrs. Eugè ne Meyer Jr. of Washington, D.C. Tenture de cabinet préfectoral (approximately: Upholstery for a Governor's Office) was delivered by Satie to furnish the library of her residence.Less
This chapter explores the furniture music of French composer Erik Satie (1866–1925). Satie's pieces of furniture music are each fundamentally based on a short musical fragment, to be repeated ad lib (at one's pleasure). As such, they are intrinsically monotonous and can retain the attention of the active listener for only a short span before boredom inevitably sets in. Vexations (1893), for instance, is a short piece consisting of four repetitive phrases to be repeated 840 times. Strictly speaking, three sets of furniture music by Satie exist. The first set, from 1917, is composed for flute, clarinet, and strings, plus a trumpet for the first piece. The second set, from 1920 and labeled Sons industriels [Industrial sounds], was performed at the Galerie Barbazanges. The last piece of furniture music for small orchestra from 1923, was commissioned by Mrs. Eugè ne Meyer Jr. of Washington, D.C. Tenture de cabinet préfectoral (approximately: Upholstery for a Governor's Office) was delivered by Satie to furnish the library of her residence.
Robert Orledge
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780853236191
- eISBN:
- 9781846314445
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780853236191.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
The iconoclastic composer Erik Satie (1866–1925) has been fascinated by the relationship between words, spoken or unspoken, and music. In some of his Rose+Croix pieces of the 1890s, Satie derived the ...
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The iconoclastic composer Erik Satie (1866–1925) has been fascinated by the relationship between words, spoken or unspoken, and music. In some of his Rose+Croix pieces of the 1890s, Satie derived the musical form from literature. He wrote his first popular song, Je te veux, to words by his friend Henry Pacory in 1897 and began accompanying the pince-sans-rire cabaret artist Vincent Hyspa a year later. Satie also composed songs for Paulette Darty, known as ‘The Queen of the Slow Waltz’. This chapter examines Satie's compositions and his transition to surrealism, as well as the influence of Jean Cocteau in his life between 1915 and 1923.Less
The iconoclastic composer Erik Satie (1866–1925) has been fascinated by the relationship between words, spoken or unspoken, and music. In some of his Rose+Croix pieces of the 1890s, Satie derived the musical form from literature. He wrote his first popular song, Je te veux, to words by his friend Henry Pacory in 1897 and began accompanying the pince-sans-rire cabaret artist Vincent Hyspa a year later. Satie also composed songs for Paulette Darty, known as ‘The Queen of the Slow Waltz’. This chapter examines Satie's compositions and his transition to surrealism, as well as the influence of Jean Cocteau in his life between 1915 and 1923.
Paul Roquet
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816692446
- eISBN:
- 9781452953625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816692446.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
Chapter One traces how the ambient emphasis on private, reflective moods developed out of the unexpected alignment of postwar Japanese background music and the “environmental art” of the 1960s ...
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Chapter One traces how the ambient emphasis on private, reflective moods developed out of the unexpected alignment of postwar Japanese background music and the “environmental art” of the 1960s avant-garde, converging through Expo ‘70 into the “Erik Satie boom” and the emergence of ambient music in the late 1970s.Less
Chapter One traces how the ambient emphasis on private, reflective moods developed out of the unexpected alignment of postwar Japanese background music and the “environmental art” of the 1960s avant-garde, converging through Expo ‘70 into the “Erik Satie boom” and the emergence of ambient music in the late 1970s.
Carol J. Oja
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195058499
- eISBN:
- 9780199865031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195058499.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
The first period of the arrival of European modernism in New York City stretched from approximately 1914 to 1923. This was the time when Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford, Virgil Thomson, ...
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The first period of the arrival of European modernism in New York City stretched from approximately 1914 to 1923. This was the time when Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford, Virgil Thomson, and other American composers of the generation born around 1900 were adolescents. Their youth unfolded as modernism emerged. Even though so many of these figures eventually spent substantial residencies abroad, most of them first discovered the newest music from Europe while still at home, and the ways they did so depended on a blend of socioeconomic background, education, geographic location, and serendipity. For some, the newest works were readily accessible in the United States, while for others they were totally unknown. European modernism traveled through live performances, published scores, written accounts, and verbal testimony. Among those European composers who made an impact on New York's music scene were Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Alexander Scriabin, Erik Satie, and Manuel de Falla.Less
The first period of the arrival of European modernism in New York City stretched from approximately 1914 to 1923. This was the time when Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford, Virgil Thomson, and other American composers of the generation born around 1900 were adolescents. Their youth unfolded as modernism emerged. Even though so many of these figures eventually spent substantial residencies abroad, most of them first discovered the newest music from Europe while still at home, and the ways they did so depended on a blend of socioeconomic background, education, geographic location, and serendipity. For some, the newest works were readily accessible in the United States, while for others they were totally unknown. European modernism traveled through live performances, published scores, written accounts, and verbal testimony. Among those European composers who made an impact on New York's music scene were Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Alexander Scriabin, Erik Satie, and Manuel de Falla.
Justin Remes
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231169639
- eISBN:
- 9780231538909
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231169639.003.0002
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter analyzes furniture music and furniture films. Even though Erik Satie did not coin the term furniture music until 1917, it seems clear that the idea was already in its formative stages in ...
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This chapter analyzes furniture music and furniture films. Even though Erik Satie did not coin the term furniture music until 1917, it seems clear that the idea was already in its formative stages in 1893 when he composed Vexations, a delicate and haunting piece of music that would eventually be seen as his most radical composition. Satie was interested in music that was not meant to be closely listened to, but was instead designed to serve as a backdrop for other activities, such as conversing, eating, and drinking. Likewise, films by Andy Warhol such as Sleep (1963) and Empire (1964), are best understood as furniture films—works designed to be viewed partially and distractedly. One of the primary functions of Sleep and Empire is to direct the viewer's attention away from the screen, promoting a distracted, fragmentary, and unfocused mode of spectatorship.Less
This chapter analyzes furniture music and furniture films. Even though Erik Satie did not coin the term furniture music until 1917, it seems clear that the idea was already in its formative stages in 1893 when he composed Vexations, a delicate and haunting piece of music that would eventually be seen as his most radical composition. Satie was interested in music that was not meant to be closely listened to, but was instead designed to serve as a backdrop for other activities, such as conversing, eating, and drinking. Likewise, films by Andy Warhol such as Sleep (1963) and Empire (1964), are best understood as furniture films—works designed to be viewed partially and distractedly. One of the primary functions of Sleep and Empire is to direct the viewer's attention away from the screen, promoting a distracted, fragmentary, and unfocused mode of spectatorship.
Hervé Vanel
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037993
- eISBN:
- 9780252095252
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037993.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Psychology of Music
This book discusses the rise and spread of background music in contexts as diverse as office workplaces, shopping malls, and musical performance. The book examines background music in several guises, ...
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This book discusses the rise and spread of background music in contexts as diverse as office workplaces, shopping malls, and musical performance. The book examines background music in several guises, including Erik Satie's “Furniture Music” of the late 1910s and early 1920s, which first demonstrated the idea of a music not meant to be listened to, and the Muzak Corporation's commercialized ambient music that became a predominant feature of modern life in the 1940s. Different kinds of music were developed to encourage or incite greater productivity in the workplace, more energetic shopping, or more animated socializing. The book's discussion culminates in the creative response of the composer John Cage to the pervasiveness and power of background music in contemporary society. Cage neither opposed nor rejected Muzak, but literally answered its challenge by formulating a parallel concept. Forty years after Satie presented his work to general critical puzzlement, Cage saw how background music could be combined with mid-century technology and theories of art and performance to create a participatory soundscape on a scale that Satie could not have envisioned, reconfiguring the listener's stance to music. By examining the subterranean connections existing between these three formulations of a singular idea, this book analyzes and challenges the crucial boundary that separates an artistic concept from its actual implementation in life.Less
This book discusses the rise and spread of background music in contexts as diverse as office workplaces, shopping malls, and musical performance. The book examines background music in several guises, including Erik Satie's “Furniture Music” of the late 1910s and early 1920s, which first demonstrated the idea of a music not meant to be listened to, and the Muzak Corporation's commercialized ambient music that became a predominant feature of modern life in the 1940s. Different kinds of music were developed to encourage or incite greater productivity in the workplace, more energetic shopping, or more animated socializing. The book's discussion culminates in the creative response of the composer John Cage to the pervasiveness and power of background music in contemporary society. Cage neither opposed nor rejected Muzak, but literally answered its challenge by formulating a parallel concept. Forty years after Satie presented his work to general critical puzzlement, Cage saw how background music could be combined with mid-century technology and theories of art and performance to create a participatory soundscape on a scale that Satie could not have envisioned, reconfiguring the listener's stance to music. By examining the subterranean connections existing between these three formulations of a singular idea, this book analyzes and challenges the crucial boundary that separates an artistic concept from its actual implementation in life.
Hervé Vanel
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252037993
- eISBN:
- 9780252095252
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252037993.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Psychology of Music
This introductory chapter discusses composer John Cage's views about Muzak and his interest in the work of French composer Erik Satie. Muzak is a company that provides functional music as a tool of ...
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This introductory chapter discusses composer John Cage's views about Muzak and his interest in the work of French composer Erik Satie. Muzak is a company that provides functional music as a tool of management in environmental situations. The term has nonetheless a double entendre: muzak (lower case) refers to the genre of background music in general, while Muzak (with a capital) refers specifically to the trademarked product. For Cage, Muzak's discourse clarified the stakes of a competition in which both the arts and the products of industry were engaged. His comparative evaluation of furniture music and muzak may have stressed the possibility of separating one from the other, but by the same token it also indicated that they share a parallel if irreconcilable ambition.Less
This introductory chapter discusses composer John Cage's views about Muzak and his interest in the work of French composer Erik Satie. Muzak is a company that provides functional music as a tool of management in environmental situations. The term has nonetheless a double entendre: muzak (lower case) refers to the genre of background music in general, while Muzak (with a capital) refers specifically to the trademarked product. For Cage, Muzak's discourse clarified the stakes of a competition in which both the arts and the products of industry were engaged. His comparative evaluation of furniture music and muzak may have stressed the possibility of separating one from the other, but by the same token it also indicated that they share a parallel if irreconcilable ambition.
Christian Wolff
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199558551
- eISBN:
- 9780191808432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199558551.003.0015
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The intersections of twentieth-century music with ancient Greek tragedy are many and various, reflecting the exceptional stylistic and ideological heterogeneity of twentieth-century culture. This ...
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The intersections of twentieth-century music with ancient Greek tragedy are many and various, reflecting the exceptional stylistic and ideological heterogeneity of twentieth-century culture. This chapter singles out four examples taken from Darius Milhaud's music for Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (1915–16), Erik Satie's Socrate (1919), Harry Partch's adaptation of Euripides' Bacchae, Revelation in the Courthouse Park (1961), and Iannis Xenakis's music for Aeschylus' Oresteia (1965–66, with additions in 1987 and 1992). The differences between these four composers' music illustrate the fragmentation of twentieth-century musical culture. That they all, in various degrees, came to work with ancient Greek material does partially connect them. The chapter discusses how this happens, with consideration of some possible reasons for it.Less
The intersections of twentieth-century music with ancient Greek tragedy are many and various, reflecting the exceptional stylistic and ideological heterogeneity of twentieth-century culture. This chapter singles out four examples taken from Darius Milhaud's music for Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (1915–16), Erik Satie's Socrate (1919), Harry Partch's adaptation of Euripides' Bacchae, Revelation in the Courthouse Park (1961), and Iannis Xenakis's music for Aeschylus' Oresteia (1965–66, with additions in 1987 and 1992). The differences between these four composers' music illustrate the fragmentation of twentieth-century musical culture. That they all, in various degrees, came to work with ancient Greek material does partially connect them. The chapter discusses how this happens, with consideration of some possible reasons for it.
John T. Lysaker
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- November 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190497293
- eISBN:
- 9780190497330
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190497293.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Chapter 4 explores and theorizes Eno’s approach to ambient music. It begins with a clear precursor, Erik Satie’s musique d’ameublement—furniture music. Like Satie, Eno sought sounds that could blend ...
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Chapter 4 explores and theorizes Eno’s approach to ambient music. It begins with a clear precursor, Erik Satie’s musique d’ameublement—furniture music. Like Satie, Eno sought sounds that could blend into and color various situations without commanding the attention of the hearer. But he also wanted music that could engage listeners who elect to attend to the activity of the assembled sounds, which distances it from other background music like Muzak. Because “ambient” has exploded into a diverse musical genre, Music for Airports is contrasted with other ambient works from the like of Aphex Twin, Moby, Gas, and Thomas Köner. What seems to distinguish Music for Airports is its ability to elicit our attention without captivating it through musical developments. Instead, it initiates a kind of reverie, opening spaces for thought in ordinary living environments.Less
Chapter 4 explores and theorizes Eno’s approach to ambient music. It begins with a clear precursor, Erik Satie’s musique d’ameublement—furniture music. Like Satie, Eno sought sounds that could blend into and color various situations without commanding the attention of the hearer. But he also wanted music that could engage listeners who elect to attend to the activity of the assembled sounds, which distances it from other background music like Muzak. Because “ambient” has exploded into a diverse musical genre, Music for Airports is contrasted with other ambient works from the like of Aphex Twin, Moby, Gas, and Thomas Köner. What seems to distinguish Music for Airports is its ability to elicit our attention without captivating it through musical developments. Instead, it initiates a kind of reverie, opening spaces for thought in ordinary living environments.
Paul Roquet
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780816692446
- eISBN:
- 9781452953625
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816692446.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
Contemporary life is increasingly shaped through attunement to the atmospheric affordances of the media environment. Ambient Media delves into the use of music, video, film, and literature as tools ...
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Contemporary life is increasingly shaped through attunement to the atmospheric affordances of the media environment. Ambient Media delves into the use of music, video, film, and literature as tools to tune this atmospheric self. The book traces the emergence of mood-regulating media in Japan from the environmental art and Erik Satie boom of the 1960s and 70s to the more recent emphasis on “healing” styles. Focusing on how ambience reshapes those dwelling within it, Ambient Media explores the working of atmospheres designed for affective calm, rhythmic attunement, embodied security, and urban coexistence. The book argues for understanding ambient media as a specifically neoliberal response to mood regulation, serving as a way to atmospherically shape collective behavior while providing resources for emotional autonomy and attention restoration at the individual level. Ambient Media considers the adaptive side of atmosphere as an approach to self-care and social mobility. At the same time, the book considers the limits of mood regulation and the low-affect lifestyle when it comes to interpersonal life. Musicians, video artists, filmmakers, and writers in Japan have expanded on Brian Eno’s original idea of a style affording “calm, and a space to think,” providing materials to cultivate sensory serenity within the uncertain horizons of the contemporary social landscape. Offering a new way of understanding Japanese social demands to “read the air,” the book documents both the adaptive and the alarming sides of this turn to mediated moods.Less
Contemporary life is increasingly shaped through attunement to the atmospheric affordances of the media environment. Ambient Media delves into the use of music, video, film, and literature as tools to tune this atmospheric self. The book traces the emergence of mood-regulating media in Japan from the environmental art and Erik Satie boom of the 1960s and 70s to the more recent emphasis on “healing” styles. Focusing on how ambience reshapes those dwelling within it, Ambient Media explores the working of atmospheres designed for affective calm, rhythmic attunement, embodied security, and urban coexistence. The book argues for understanding ambient media as a specifically neoliberal response to mood regulation, serving as a way to atmospherically shape collective behavior while providing resources for emotional autonomy and attention restoration at the individual level. Ambient Media considers the adaptive side of atmosphere as an approach to self-care and social mobility. At the same time, the book considers the limits of mood regulation and the low-affect lifestyle when it comes to interpersonal life. Musicians, video artists, filmmakers, and writers in Japan have expanded on Brian Eno’s original idea of a style affording “calm, and a space to think,” providing materials to cultivate sensory serenity within the uncertain horizons of the contemporary social landscape. Offering a new way of understanding Japanese social demands to “read the air,” the book documents both the adaptive and the alarming sides of this turn to mediated moods.
