During 1899-1900, Satie served as both accompanist and arranger for the popular Montmartre chansonnier Vincent Hyspa. Most of Satie’s cabaret chanson arrangements are found in two music notebooks; one currently in Harvard University library, the other in the Bibliothèque nationale in France. On the surface, Satie’s musical arrangements differ greatly from his original cabaret chansons. While both the Rêverie du Pauvre and Petite musique de clown triste were identified and published as Satie’s original compositions, they were in fact chanson arrangements. The Rêverie du Pauvre features a piano accompaniment to a mélodie by Jules Massenet, Les Enfants. The Petite musique de clown triste is an arrangement of “C’est la fille de ma tante” from Louis Varney’s operetta La Femme de Narcisse. Hyspa also did textual parodies of both melodies for cabaret performances. Satie’s arrangements should thus be studied as examples of compositional techniques that he later applied to his own works, most notably his humorous piano suites. In some later compositions, most notably in Celle qui parle trop, Satie employed techniques derived from Hyspa’s ironic art, but extended it significantly. While Hyspa gave a sarcastic twist to a familiar operetta refrain, Satie created an original refrain and treated it like a musical object that is isolated from its original function and context. By subjecting Hyspa’s parodistic technique to his own subjective means, Satie places an increased demand on his listeners. The success of Satie’s parodies relies on listeners’ familiarity with the sources of his quotations.

Works: Satie: La Marseillaise des épiciers (217), Président aux Concours des animaux gras (217), La Triste fin du Taureau Romito aux courses de deuil (217), Rêverie du Pauvre (225), Petite musique de clown triste (226), Chapitres tournés en tous sens (232).

Sources: Alphonse Varney: Chœur des Girondins (217); Offenbach: La Vie parisienne (217); Bizet: Carmen Suite No. 2 (217); Massenet: Les Enfants (225); Louis Varney: La Femme de Narcisse (226); Louis Maillart: Les dragons de Villars (232).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Jingyi Zhang