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Satie's Trois Gnossiennes and Trois Gymnopedies


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Ashton apparently was immediately influenced by Merce Cunningham's Nocturnes but I think Cunningham's Satie is closer to the mark (although I have difficulty reading English tone and humor and may not be seeing Monotones correctly). Anyway Satie has been terribly sentimentalized over the years - his music is really supposed to be banal, satirical, slight dreary - a little like Andy Warhol.

Added: Ashton probably knew Satie through Constant Lambert who early on brilliantly championed his music - whose form, he writes, consisted of

"a series of interrupted and overlapping recapitulations which causes the piece to fold in on itself as it were ... and even succeeds in abolishing our time sense." Also " It does not matter which way you walk around a statue and it does not matter in which order you play the three Gymnopédies."

Via "Cages Place in the Reception of Satie" : Matthew Shlomowitz

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Ashton apparently was immediately influenced by Merce Cunningham's Nocturnes but I think Cunningham's Satie is closer to the mark (although I have difficulty reading English tone and humor and may not be seeing Monotones correctly). Anyway Satie has been terribly sentimentalized over the years - his music is really supposed to be banal, satirical, slight dreary - a little like Andy Warhol.

Absolutely agree about the sentimentalizing, especially because it's a real temptation for me. I do think that Cunningham got closer to what I think Satie might have wanted, but I do love the English restraint in Monotones.

3Gs 1922 - Few details but great Satiean costumes by Brancusi on Lizica Codreanu

http://felicecalchi.blogspot.pt/2013/08/who-would-not-wanted-to-be-there.html

"Who would not wanted to be there?" indeed! Some spectacular costumes. I don't know the dancer at all -- anyone here have any knowledge?

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Absolutely agree about the sentimentalizing, especially because it's a real temptation for me. I do think that Cunningham got closer to what I think Satie might have wanted, but I do love the English restraint in Monotones.

"Who would not wanted to be there?" indeed! Some spectacular costumes. I don't know the dancer at all -- anyone here have any knowledge?

Lizica Codreanu was by all accounts a wonderful romanian avantgarde dancer. She was born in 1901 and as far as I know she studied ballet in Paris (I heard that she studied also under Nijinska) but she didn't like the constraint and the order of classical ballet. Constantin Brancusi appreciated her a lot and loved her innovative approach to dancing so he made some costumes for her like the one above. He called her "Tiganca" (which means "the gipsy"). She married some journalist at the end of the '20s, divorced and opened a Hatha Yoga school in Paris. She died in the '90s. happy.png

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Unfortunately I can't find anything about her in english or french and even the romanian articles don't contain much information...

Too bad -- there are so many artists in that position -- part of the development of the work, but unacknowledged in the written record.

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Here's something from Radio Romania about a recent attempt to recreate the studio dance to Satie recordings and also some background on Codreanu -

Doina Lemny: Her son tried to talk me out of it, telling me that Lizica did not have a dance career proper. Which is true. She was like a falling star. She used to dance mostly in Brancusi's studio and caught the eye of very well known artists, like Sonia Delaunay, who at that time was a costume designer. She drew the attention of Fernand Leger, but Lizica did not want to wear an outfit designed by him. Leger designed costumes for ballet performances, but his approach was rather rigid. As for Lizica, once she reached Paris, she quickly understood what was going on in the artistic circles and simply put ballet aside. She never went to a ballet school. Quite the contrary, she took up circus trainingshe used to chat with artistsShe practically immersed herself in a creative atmosphere. An artistic and resourceful personality, she used to train in Brancusis workshop, and this fascinated him.

http://www.rri.ro/en_gb/world_of_culture-2526498

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