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Home > 100 Best Adagios > 3 Gnossiennes
Classical Composer: Satie, Erik
Work: 3 Gnossiennes
Year Composed: 1893
Instrumentation:  pf
Publisher: Éditions Durand-Salabert-Eschig
Duration: 00:06:00
Period:  20th Century
Work Category:  Instrumental

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These equally famous pieces, with their haunting modal scales and regular accompaniment rhythms, are again meant to be flexible rather than in any way like dirges. As all three first appeared in print in 1893, Satie's memory may have played him false when they were republished in 1911 with an '1890' dating. To make matters even more confusing, the facsimile of Satie's manuscript of what he later published as the '2e Gnossienne' appeared in 1893 as the '6e Gnossienne'.

These were the first pieces to carry observations addressed to any pianist who might perform them, but by no means all of them relate to the music itself. Thus, in No. 3, 'Bury the sound' [ Enfouissez le son ] near the end does, but 'Alone, for a moment' [ Seul, pendant un instant ] does not. The melody shows the same chromatic surprises and acciaccaturas as No. 1 but its wide-ranging, wave-like accompaniment is quite different. Like many of Satie's early pieces, its final chord comes as a complete surprise.

Writer: Robert Orledge

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