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The ''Avant-dernières pensées'' (''Next-to-last Thoughts'') is a 1915 piano composition by Erik Satie. The last of his humoristic piano suites of the 1910s, it was premiered by the composer at the Galerie Thomas in Paris on May 30, 1916, and published that same year. A typical performance lasts 3-4 minutes. ==Background== The outbreak of World War I in July 1914 was a setback for Satie just as he was gaining belated recognition as a composer. Although at age 48 he remained a civilian,〔In August 1914 Satie briefly served as a corporal in the Socialist militia of Arcueil-Cachan, whose duties consisted of patrolling these Paris suburbs at night "armed to the teeth". They were ordered to suspend their activities because they were preventing people from sleeping. See Ornella Volta, "Satie Seen Through His Letters", Marion Boyars Publishers, New York, 1989, pp. 103-104.〕 wartime conditions seriously disrupted French musical life. Publishers ceased commissioning his music and the pending publication of his 1914 compositions was suspended for two years or more.〔Of the 1914 works, ''Heures séculaires et instantanées'', ''Les trois valses distinguées du précieux dégoûté'', and ''Choses vues à droite et à gauche (sans lunettes)'' were published in 1916. ''Sports et divertissements'' would not see print until 1923.〕〔Satie's notebooks show he planned 9 additional piano suites through November 1914, with such titles as ''Venomous Obstacles'' and ''Boring Globules''. He abandoned this series due to the war. See Robert Orledge, "Satie the Composer", Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 306-308.〕 As he had renounced playing piano in Paris cabarets - his primary source of income for many years - Satie had only the generosity of friends and occasional private teaching to subsist on.〔One of his wartime pupils was the wealthy chemist and spare-time composer Albert Verley, whose ''Pastels sonores'' Satie arranged for orchestra and for piano 4-hands in 1916.〕 In August 1915 he appealed to Paul Dukas to help him get financial assistance from charitable organizations, remarking, "For me, this war is like a sort of Apocalypse, more idiotic than real."〔Quoted in Orledge, "Satie the Composer", p. 65.〕 Some aid must have been forthcoming, for he was soon at work on the ''pensées''. ==Description== Originally entitled ''Étrange rumeurs'' (''Strange Rumors''),〔Orledge, "Satie the Composer", pp. 310-311.〕 the three pieces comprising ''Avant-dernières pensées'' were completed between August 23 and October 6, 1915. Satie dedicated them to three important colleagues: :''Idylle'', for Claude Debussy :''Aubade'', for Paul Dukas :''Méditation'', for Albert Roussel Debussy was Satie's closest friend for over 20 years, but their relations were growing strained at this time and would end bitterly in 1917. Dukas was a faithful friend to both. Roussel was Satie's teacher of counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum (1905-1908) and guided him through the development of his mature contrapuntal style. In the 1920s Satie vociferously defended Dukas and Roussel against their critics in the French musical establishment.〔Erik Satie, "Place of Learning", ''Feuilles Libres'', 1922. Translated by Nigel Wilkins in "The Writings of Erik Satie", Eulenburg Books, London, 1980, pp. 93-94.〕 Unlike most of his other piano suites of the period, the ''pensées'' contain no musical quotations for parodic effect, nor does Satie attempt to pastiche his fellow composers. In each piece bitonal melodic phrases evolve over an unchanging ostinato played from beginning to end: an Alberti bass in the ''Idylle'', rapid triplets in the ''Méditation''.〔Allmusic review by Alexander Carpenter, http://www.allmusic.com/composition/avant-derni%C3%A8res-pens%C3%A9es-next-to-last-thoughts-pieces-3-for-piano-mc0002657941〕 In the ''Aubade'' it takes the form of two arpeggiated chords (the second played twice) that suggest the strumming of a guitar or mandolin.〔Robert Orledge, liner notes to Eve Egoyan's Satie album "Hidden Corners", 2002, http://eveegoyan.com/EveEgoyan/hiddennoteseng.html〕 The conclusions of the outer two movements are quietly punctuated with a single chord; the strumming ostinato has the final say in the ''Aubade''. The whimsy of Satie's extramusical commentaries is somewhat subdued here. Each concerns a poet, further described in the ''Aubade'' as an "old" poet, calling to mind how Satie categorized composers as either "poets" or "pundits."〔Erik Satie, "Not To Be Confused", ''Le Coq'', No. 3, July-September 1920. Wilkins, "The Writings of Erik Satie", p. 84.〕 Robert Orledge has proposed that the texts for the first two pieces are "observations" of the dedicatees.〔Orledge, "Satie the Composer", p. 102.〕 The nature-loving poet of ''Idylle'' contemplates a tree-lined creek under sun and moonlight but takes no pleasure in it because, he confesses, "my heart is very small."〔http://imslp.org/wiki/File:Avant-dernieres.pdf〕 The morning serenade of ''Aubade'' originally bore the subtitle "A fiancé beneath the balcony of his fiancée",〔Orledge, "Hidden Corners".〕 and could well allude to Dukas' courtship of Suzanne Pereyra, 18 years his junior, whom he finally married in 1916.〔Bibliotheque nationale de France database, http://data.bnf.fr/14792048/suzanne_pereyra/〕 Orledge further writes that the ''Méditation'', despite the dedication to Roussel, is a self-portrait: A poet is locked in a tower, where he is beset by winds that are manifestations of the devil (which he mistakes for the spirit of genius) and indigestion brought on by "bitter disappointments."〔Orledge, "Satie the Composer", p. 102.〕 ------- Satie's fortunes improved significantly in 1916 with the gradual resumption of cultural life in Paris. He gave a "run-through" of the ''Avant-dernières pensées'' during a concert of the Société Lyre et Palette on April 18 before the official premiere at the Galerie Thomas.〔Orledge, "Satie the Composer", p. 311.〕 The latter was part of a benefit "for artists affected by the War" sponsored by Germaine Bongard, sister of fashion designer Paul Poiret, and with a programme designed by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Thanks in part to Satie's patron Misia Sert the event attracted ''Le Tout-Paris''.〔In a letter dated May 15, 1916, Satie asked Sert if she could bring her influence to bear on the Galerie Thomas event, as she had on previous occasions. See Volta, "Satie Seen Through His Letters", p. 112.〕 Biographer Mary E. Davis noted, "For Satie the evening chez Bongard marked a significant career juncture, establishing him firmly as a darling of the creative set and laying the groundwork for his entrée into the city’s loftiest artistic domains."〔Mary E. Davis, "Erik Satie", Reaktion Books, 2007, pp. 104-105.〕 By then he was moving on to bigger things: his ballet ''Parade'' (1917) was in the planning stage and towards the end of the year he would receive the commission for ''Socrate'' (1918). The one-off Neoclassical parody ''Sonatine bureaucratique'' (1917) provided what Steven Moore Whiting called "the culmination and also the end of Satie's humoristic piano music."〔Steven Moore Whiting, "Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall", Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 488.〕 His final solo keyboard compositions, the ''Nocturnes'' (1919) and ''Premier Menuet'' (1920), were of a markedly serious character.〔Satie considered adding ironic titles and texts to the ''Nocturnes'' but rejected this plan in the early stages of composition. See Olof Höjer's notes to "Erik Satie: The Complete Piano Music, Vol. 6", Swedish Society Discofil, 1996.〕 In his essay "The Erik Satie Case" (1938) pianist Alfred Cortot found the ''Avant-dernières pensées'' "curiously insignificant," an opinion shared by Rollo H. Myers in his 1948 biography of the composer.〔Alfred Cortot, "Le cas Erik Satie", ''La Revue musicale'', No. 183, April-May 1938. Cited by Rollo H. Myers, "Erik Satie", Dover Publications, Inc., NY, 1968, p. 58. Originally published in 1948 by Denis Dobson Ltd., London.〕 But the suite has since become one of the more frequently performed of Satie's later piano works. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Avant-dernières pensées」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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