A thread for haters of Erik Satie's Gymnopedies

I fucking hate the entire opus of Richard Strauss. I'm not going to post it here.

Gymnopedies' structure lulls humans into relaxation and reflection. It's beautifully done. You probably hate it for it's popularity, and I sort of can see that happening to people.

Someone left the cake out in the rain...

Good one, r1. I hate Strauss too. The romantics SUCK! Gymnopedies makes me depressed, not relaxed!

How can you hate Gymnopedies? I love them, so calming, and to me they sound just like Spring. Is it the little moments of dissonance? They are named after naked male dancing!

I loved Pachelbel's canon when I was a boy, hated it from teens to 50, now like it again.

Buck would never have hated Pachelbel's Canon.

Also, if I ever hear Vivaldi's Spring ever again, I'm going to start flinging my own feces!

Oh, this thread is going to be great, OP. You have invited everyone to expose their ignorance and the generally low level of their cultural competence.

Pass the popcorn. Let's watch this train derail!

I think OP's issue is the Gymnopédies are too short. He'd probably adore Satie's 28-hour "Vexations".

It's good that you are so competent, R9 - so competent indeed that you're not going to express an opinion of your own and thus dispel your aura of superiority. Right?

r6 just for you.

Philip Glass. It's not music.

R6 I'm wetting myself!!

OP, haters hate. Clearly the music isn't done to appeal to haters.

I usually love Tschaikovsky, but his 'Symphony for Strings' drives me crazy since my local classical music station plays it all the time. I feel the same way about Pachelbe's Canon. There's a reason pieces like that are called 'chestnuts'. I like Satie, though.

Sorry, Pachelbel's Canon.

No. 2 > No. 1 > No. 3

I always refer to it as Sad Clown Music (a la Emmett Kelly)

I'm honestly not a fan of most classical music. I've tried listening to almost every composers' works and few I would consider great tbh. The German canon especially (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) is ridiculously overrated.

[quote]There's a reason pieces like that are called 'chestnuts'.

Because they've been played so much that you want to roast them on an open fire?

Gah, lots of basic bitches with no taste here

The Gymnopedies and Pachelbel's Canon are two of my favorite pieces of music (I like the version of the latter on Eno's Discreet Music).

I don't really get a lot of 19th century classical music though. Large symphonic works often make me drowsy for some reason.

Wow, this thread is full of resentful black people. Classical music is the highest form of art, wheter woke twitter like it or not.

No wonder some people believe every negative rumor they hear about Walt Disney whether it's true or not.

In a year when Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Frank Sinatra all made movie musicals, they give the Best Song Oscar to this dreary schmaltz instead?

I hate this kind of music that's often so frequent in film. It's too formulaic and faux-epic sounding.

I love Satie. Gymnopedies is my relaxation go to. I can imagine that some would find it a little bit of a downer, but I love it.

[quote] Wow, this thread is full of resentful black people. Classical music is the highest form of art, wheter woke twitter like it or not.

Apart from racists, the trashiest kind of person is the one who lumps all classical music together and deems it the "highest form of art," simply because it's called "classical music."

R24, I'm a white guy who listens to classical music every day. I actually have a subscription to my local classical music station, which means I pay to support them every month. But I know when I've heard a piece of music too many times. I'm sorry that's it's so popular, but I would think they'd be a little more careful not to play the same piece of music nearly every day. They don't play Eric Satie very often, but I have a DVD of his work, if I want to listen to it. But the other pieces I mentioned are simply played too much. I think I would enjoy them much better if I didn't hear them so often.

I posted this on an earlier thread, but I HATE "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing." Hate, hate, [bold]HATE![/bold] I hate the lyrics, hate the melody, and DETEST the bourgie black people who just HAVE to insert it into every. fucking. program.

Church programs.

Black scholar awards programs.

Bible school programs.

Juneteenth programs.

Ribbon cuttings.

Black weddings.

Black funerals.

Black family reunions.

HBCU graduations.

Store openings.

Store closings.

Thank God for Datalounge, because irl I'm not allowed to say ANYTHING even *neutral* about that pos song, let alone go all the way to *HATE*.

So when I'm forced to be in a space where it's sung, I always insert my own disrespectful lyrics, and sing them at the top of my lungs.

In my mind, James Weldon Johnson should not be revered for the sappy, namby-pamby, execrable "LEVAS." He *should* be worshipped for "Under the Bamboo Tree," which he wrote with his brother.

I fucking LOVE that song.

R27 raises a good point about flimsy movie music.

Add pretty much all of John Williams to that. Empty bombast and it all sounds alike.

Am I the only one who wasn't really a fan of Gorecki's Symphony No.3? It's not bad, just sits there without much variation and gets boring.

Enya.

'nuff said.

It always reminds me of a rainy scene in a black and white 1960s French film. I love it.

Pair the music with Sir Fred's choreography. Paradise in music and dance. That's Monotones II.

[quote] Apart from racists, the trashiest kind of person is the one who lumps all classical music together and deems it the "highest form of art," simply because it's called "classical music."

I wonder what the Venn Diagram overlap between the two is. I bet most of them couldn't tell the difference between music from the Baroque period and that of the Renaissance period.

Louis Malle's Le Feu Follet R35. One of my favorites.

Blacks are apes. THEY BELONG IN AFRICA.

God i can't stand these niggers lovers. Go to Africa if you love them so much.

And yes honey, Michelle Obama looks like an ape. An ape on wheels, that ugly niggerella.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Go visit your grandma and grandpa in Buenos Aires, R39. I'm sure they've been lonely ever since they managed to escape war crimes tribunals.

Thanks, r38. I've been kind of neutral on the Gymnopedies since Blood, Sweat, and Tears, but I love Gnossienne No. 1. Here's another version.

Thanks, r38. I've been kind of neutral on the Gymnopedies since Blood, Sweat, and Tears, but I love Gnossienne No. 1. Here's another version.

R45's mother is so fat, her birth canal is a major throughway on I-5.

Sorry, thought you were the racist.

Va te faire foutre, Francophobe r47.

I despise any version of "Hallelujah." Actually, I can deal with the original Leonard Cohen version of the song, but it's become such an overwraught maudlin piece of shit. It makes me want to scream, it's like nails on a chalkboard now. It makes me hate music.

R49 That was horrific. This is the kind of stuff that appeals to fraus and teens who listen to 'deep meaningful music'.

Amazing Grapes, how sweet the taste

OP = Tara Lipinski. Hater with no taste for beauty or grace!

@ R52 I clearly hear riffs of Satie's Gymnopédie No. 3 around the two minute mark, yet the music in the video is credited as William Alwyn's "Lyra Angelica." Was that supposed to be a medley?

R53 the program is made up of Lyra Angelica and Gymnopedie.

I wonder whether Burt Bacharach used it as inspiration for his more depressing breakup songs.

r31 don’t like the “Negro National Anthem?” then you shouldn’t join my church choir. I select it every year for MLK Jr. weekend just to make our all-white group sing it (and they like it).

R56, that's awesome, honestly.

But perhaps you can shake things up one year, and have them do "So Glad, Done Got Over." Now THAT'S a powerful song in the Black American canon.

And it does lend itself quite well to multipart harmony.

If you approach them without context they're arid and frivolous. If you are in on the fact that Satie was a Dadaist with a hilarious sense of humor you can hear that in them.

R31 I feel the same way about Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah -- EVERYONE loves it and it's got to be in the top ten of most boring melodies and lyrics ever. Maybe if he had kept it to one verse and one chorus but it goes on endlessly.

DADA is my favourite 20th Century art movement and it didn't produce any art!

[quote] If you are in on the fact that Satie was a Dadaist with a hilarious sense of humor you can hear that in them.

This is why the Gnossiennes were so perfect for Chauncey Gardner's theme music.

R59 Apparently Cohen wrote EIGHTY versus for it in the first draft.

R59 I know you meant 'verses'. I swear I've heard all of them at various funerals. Always sung very sincerely and slowly...until you just want to break the acoustic guitar over the coffin.

I wish someone would care to explain to me the appeal of Puccini. Always found him dreary and tedious, especially Tosca. I feel like I'm missing out on something so I really want to understand.

If only there was an explanation somewhere.

R65, tsk. You could say the exact same things about literally any major opera composer of the same age.

I like Gymnopedies well enough, though agree with those who feel it can come off as depressing.

I wouldn't call Satie's Gymnopédies exactly "calming." Their elegiac undertone is in ironic counterpoint to the simple(minded) surface; it's satisfyingly uneasy-making in the fin-de-siècle style.

R64, there’s a lot of morbid S&M overtones in Puccini (particularly Tosca)

Now that's really interesting, R69! Will try to listen to it with that in mind. Thanks!

Puccini hater, one of my favorite Christmas records is [italic]La Boheme[/italic]. I didn't like anything else by Puccini as much, nor anything by Verdi as much as La Traviata. I thought I might have been an opera queen, but I was not, much as I like those two (and the stray "big hit" aria from other operas). And please do not come near me with anything by Wagner but Tristan and Isolde's love theme.

WTH, R1 & R4? Who hates Strauss? Maybe some people aren’t into opera, so they gravitate toward his tone poems, or perhaps vice versa. I’ll even admit that all of his operas after Elektra were kinda ‘meh’ melody-wise, but his use of powerful, emotionally stirring chords represented the peak of tonal music.

I don't like Strauss much, either, r72. And I love classical music. At least half of my CDs are classical. But Strauss left me...wanting something more.

The sounds coming from Strauss's orchestra are quite unlike any other. Shimmering walls of silvery sound that melt the soul.

Oh, dear God in heaven. R74, what you just described is Mahler.

R75... No.

No composer is as overrated as Mahler, imo. He became "cool" in the 1970s, in no small measure due to "Death in Venice" but most of his work is far from the quality of the Adagietto.

Yes, r77. Most of it is better, particularly Symphonies Nos. 2, 3, 6, 8, and 9.

Let’s Be A Two-Hander Dialogue-only Scene between the Crane Brothers in an Episode of FRASIER!

After 200+ years of “The More Instruments and Notes the Better” - think Bach to Haydn to Mozart to Beethoven to Berlioz to Wagner to Bruckner to Mahler - Satie was the first composer to say “Enough of this overblown noise!”

He did exactly the opposite with his compositions, using only the bare minimum of notes required to make the piece effective and affective. He inspired the generation of composers after him to follow suit, and made works like THIS (Federico Mompou, 1914) possible:

For me, it’s Handel’s Messiah, and the ubiquitous ‘ Spring’ from the Four Seasons.

I could listen to Faure’s Requiem forever though, especially the exquisite In Paradisum. I once went to a performance in St Paul’s - I was seated under the dome and the acoustic was astonishing. It was like an out of body experience.

Unlike previous OPs I love all those great 19thc symphonies. ( The ones with too many notes 😀) Am fortunate enough to live close to the home base of one of the world’s finest orchestras, so feel very lucky.

Easy: Ravel's (FUCKING! UNENDING! BORING! ) 'BOLERO'. Pachelbel's Canon: A hobo's idea of something really meaningful and 'classy'. Little DRUMMER BOY (See: Ravel). MUSKRAT LOVE. (For the love of PETE, who wrote this fetid shlock!?)

You’re right R 82, those two also. Is it simply the over exposure that kills them?

I like the mininalist music Satie inspired, I just hate his music.

I find it weird that JS Bach is worshiped so much in classical circles. He just borrowed heavily from those before him and, I guess this is subjective, his music came across as stiff and cold to me.

It’s the crowd that gets off snubbing romantic music.

I've developed (to my surprise) a loss of respect for Mozart's music in recent years. I just don't enjoy it anymore, though I still like the Sinfonia Concertante. Most of his work (in all the genres I've heard it in) now seems polite and boring to me.

I dislike Leonard Cohen's music, too, and the song "Amazing Grace." I guess I've grown immune to things that move the masses, which isn't meant as a statement of my superiority.

R85, take that back! TAKE THAT BACK!!!!

Believe it or not, Gymnopedies was sampled in 4/4 time in the choruses of the Janet Jackson hit “Someone to Call My Lover”.

TOTALLY AGREE with R85! Bach and Rachmaninov are practically identical twins in that they both took the best of the music that came before them and amalgamated those elements into a “perfect” but completely unoriginal composite that somehow seems ideal but is not.

If spontaneous originality is what you seek, may I recommend Couperin, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Chopin, and Prokofiev.

BRAVO, R85! You understand the BIG picture.

R87 Oh yes, Amazing Grace makes me CRINGE.

R90 - pseudo intellectual troll with no taste

[quote]MUSKRAT LOVE. (For the love of PETE, who wrote this fetid shlock!?)

America, the same band who came up with "A Horse With No Name". They pawned it off on Captain and Tennille when they couldn't do anything with it.

R92 - A Philistine if ever there was one.

R94, a Philistine for loving Bach? Okay.

R85 I was taught the orchestral flute as a preteen, by a woman who insisted that the only way to learn the instrument and to play/appreciate classical music in general was to focus only on Bach. I always wanted to play sparser simpler pieces by eclectic musicians or riff on some Jazz or even noodle around with folk songs but Frau Teacher was not having any of it.

Consequently I did not ever enjoy listening to Bach nor playing any of his endless exercises, and do not to this day. I respect how prolific he was and I’m sure there’s a reason for revering him, but honestly I don’t know what “genius” it is that people see in him. What is it that he did that was so great? Perhaps it went over my head at age 10 and continues to do so, I’m willing to own that. I love Debussy and French balletic opera above trad. Baroque/Renaissance, so I’m probably too trashy to post here.

You are just fine, R96. The composers of the Impressionist period, sometimes French, but not always French, are absolutely worthy of your love and devotion.

Champion the music that you love. Bach's reputation is set. It will be neither enhanced nor diminished by your personal choice. Nor by anyone else's. Bach has no need for fangurrls at this point.

I'm sick of Satie too but the Gymnopedies are brilliant and express a time and place more perfectly than whole novels of the time.

I had a friend that developed Gymnopedies. Then she died. Everyone was sick of her, anyway!

I listen to this a few times a year every year. I have maybe 500 opera recordings and its been 15 years I don't listen to much opera anymore. But this recording is like an old friend.

Oh wrong picture. The complete version.

Good for an evening cooking and drinking and taking a bath.