Sarabandes (Satie)

For the dance form, see Sarabande.

Monocrome, low-resolution detail of PD color work of art (1893)
Erik Satie in army uniform, 1893 painting by Marcellin Desboutin[1]

The Sarabandes are three dances for solo piano composed in 1887 by Erik Satie. Along with the famous Gymnopédies (1888) they are regarded as his first important works, and the ones upon which his reputation as a harmonic innovator and precursor of modern French music, beginning with Debussy, principally rests.[2] The Sarabandes also played a key role in Satie's belated "discovery" by his country's musical establishment in the 1910s, setting the stage for his international notoriety.

French composer and critic Alexis Roland-Manuel wrote in 1916 that the Sarabandes represented "a milestone in the evolution of our music...pieces of an unprecedented harmonic technique, born of an entirely new aesthetic, which create a unique atmosphere, a sonorous magic of complete originality."[3]

  1. ^ This is one half of a "before-and-after" portrait by Desboutin. The other half shows Satie as the bearded, long-haired Bohemian he was in 1893.
  2. ^ Rollo H. Myers, "Erik Satie", Dover Publications, Inc., NY, 1968, p. 19. Originally published in 1948 by Denis Dobson Ltd., London.
  3. ^ Quoted in Alexander Carpenter's Allmusic review Erik Satie / Sarabandes (3) for piano