Satie and his Sense of Shoelaces (1996)
a mini music drama in the form of three songs
Duration: 9:00

Music : Christina Viola Oorebeek
Text : John Cage

First performance : May 12th, 1996 in the English church in Amsterdam
commissioned and performed by Brian Galliford, tenor and Marien van Nieukerken, piano

Revision 2003 : Walter Butt, tenor and Michael Blake, piano
at the New Music Indaba in Grahamstown, South Africa

Program Notes

The text of these songs is borrowed from “ James Joyce, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie: An Alphabet”, a acrostic poem, (in which the letters of words are aligned vertically to form a word) by John Cage, most well known as one of the key figures in the musical history of the 20th century. Using his chance theory principles for determining key words used in the piece, he described imagined scenes in which some of his favorite artists play roles.

Although the text of the three songs are comprised of two non-consecutive verses,together they form a fantastical story, rich with musical associations.

The central figures in the two verses are Erik Satie and Conlon Nancarrow, an American composer much admired by John Cage. Nancarrow has written music exclusively for player pianos and recently gained wide recognition as an important 20th century composer. Louise Nevelson, also mentioned, is a famous American sculptress.

In the music of the three songs, I sought connections with the musical associations in the text in the work of Cage, Noncarrow and Satie. In the second song, “Flat on the floor”, for example, the singer joins the pianist playing a quote from one of the piano studies by Noncarrow. Much of the melodic material refers to permutations on melodies from “Gymnopedes” en “Gnossiennes” by Satie. In the first song, “Satie is having trouble”, pitch materiaal was adapted from the First String Quartet by Cage.

The spoken parts of the text should be enunciated as naturally as possible in the notated rhythm. The piano part for the tenor consists of one melodic fragment which is tranposed. If necessary, the fragment can be played from memory and the pianist can cue the timing. The request that the pianist sings a part in the third song is an vital part of the piece. However, if playing and singing simultaneously present insurmountable difficulties, it would be better not to do the vocal part. The pitches are almost doubled in the piano part.