100 Years After His Death, Will We Ever Understand Satie?

If you’ve ever looked up a playlist to help you relax, focus or fall asleep, you’ve probably come across the music of Erik Satie.

Most likely, you will have heard his “Gymnopédie No. 1”: a swaying foundation of chords that seem to step forward yet stay in place, somehow both independent of and supporting an instantly alluring melody.

This piece’s popularity transcends genre, exemplifying the composer Virgil Thomson’s idea that Satie is the only composer “whose works can be enjoyed and appreciated without any knowledge of the history of music.”

But Satie, while one of the most popular composers, is also one of the most enigmatic. He was a mystery to many during his lifetime and, a century after his death, remains elusive: a house of mirrors full of tricks, distortions and dead ends.

The more you try to understand Satie, the more difficult it becomes. His “Gymnopédies” are just a taste of a much bigger, stranger collection of works that are rarely heard. They were composed outside any fashion, and beyond traditional forms like the symphony and concerto, with scores idiosyncratic to the point of absurdity. To some they are a joke; to others they are disarming, a way to clear your mind and allow it to question the nature of music and performance.