Description
The third of the Gnossiennes, the largest of the three and the one with the clearest rise and fall. Like the first two it is written without bar lines or a time signature, and the score is scattered with words that read less like performance directions than like precepts. Satie never gave up this kind of wordplay, and it is part of the work itself.
Centred on A minor, a modal scale containing an augmented second gives the melody its eastern colouring. The left-hand figure repeats unchanged while only the melody above it alters shape. Around 600 notes fill more than five minutes, and the scarcity of notes is felt directly as spaciousness.
Its intermediate rating is about length and concentration rather than technique. The same accompaniment runs for five minutes, and it has to hold its tempo without turning monotonous. With no bar lines, where the music divides and where it pauses is the player's decision. Played as a set of three, how the one real swell — which arrives here — is handled decides how the whole closes.
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Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
What this piece teaches
Gnossienne No. 3, the largest of the three at over five minutes: the accompaniment runs on unchanged while only the melody above it alters. The lesson is the concentration to hold a long piece at one tempo without letting it turn monotonous.
How to practise it
- Listen first for where the piece's one real swell arrives, and plan the volume of the whole around it.
- It is long: finish it section by section with the A-B loop, and log your sessions in the practice journal as you go.
About the Composer
Erik Satie (1866-1925)
Erik Satie was a French composer from Honfleur who worked in Montmartre's cabarets while pursuing a highly individual musical aesthetic. Known for spare, understated music and whimsically titled works, he later influenced minimalist and ambient music. This site includes the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes, along with "Danse maigre."
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