Trois Morceaux en forme de poire (Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear) is a 1903 suite for piano four hands by French composer Erik Satie. A lyrical compendium of his early music, it is one of Satie's most famous compositions, second in popular recognition only to the Gymnopédies (1888).Mary E. Davis, "Erik Satie", Reaktion Books, 2007, pp. 71-72. The score was not published until 1911. In performance it lasts around 14 minutes.

It is typical of Satie's eccentric humor that the suite consists of seven pieces, not three.

Background

Satie composed the Trois Morceaux en forme de poire in Paris between August and November 1903, during a period of creative crisis. He was unhappy earning a meager living writing and performing cabaret music, and had abandoned his recent "serious" musical projects - the piano piece Le Poisson rêveur (1901) and the orchestral tone poem Le Bœuf Angora (c. 1901) - as failures.Both projects were to texts by Satie's longtime friend, the poet Lord Cheminot (Contamine de Latour). And the shock of hearing his friend Claude Debussy's landmark opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) led him to realize that experimenting with musical Impressionism was a dead end: "Nothing more can be done in this direction; I must search for something else or I am lost."Robert Orledge, "Satie the Composer", Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 55.

Legend has it the Trois morceaux was Satie's tongue-in-cheek response to Debussy's advice that he should "pay more attention to form" in his music.Frank N. Magill (ed.), "The 20th Century O-Z: Dictionary of World Biography", Routledge, 2013, p. 3332. Conductor Vladimir Golschmann recalled Satie telling him that "All I did...was to write Pieces in the Form of a Pear. I brought them to Debussy, who asked, 'Why such a title?' Why? Simply, my dear friend, because you cannot criticize my Pieces in the shape of a pear. If they are en forme de poire they cannot be shapeless."Vladimir Golschmann, "Golschmann Remembers Erik Satie", Musical America 22 (August 1972), p. 11. The italics are in Golschmann's original.This anecdote was first related during Satie's lifetime by critic Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi in his article "Erik Satie: A Few Recollections and Remarks", Monthly Musical Record, 55, 6, January 1925.John Williamson (ed.), "Words and Music", Liverpool University Press, 2005, p. 172. However the probity of this anecdote has been disputed in light of a letter Satie wrote to Debussy on August 17, 1903, when the suite was still in its early stages:Patrick Gowers and Nigel Wilkins, "Erik Satie", "The New Grove: Twentieth-Century French Masters", Macmillan Publishers Limited, London, 1986, p. 139. Reprinted from "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", 1980 edition.Olof Höjer, notes to "Erik Satie: The Complete Piano Music, Vol. 6", Swedish Society Discofil, 1996, pp. 20-21.

"I am working at the present time on a delightful work entitled Deux morceaux en forme de poire. Monsieur Erik Satie is crazy about this new invention of his mind. He talks about it a lot and says very good things about it. He believes it superior to everything he has written up to now; perhaps he's wrong, but we musn't tell him so: he wouldn't believe it."Orledge, "Satie the Composer", p. 55. This is one of only three Satie letters to Debussy that survive.

These original two pieces were probably Morceaux I and II,The MS of the Trois morceaux is incomplete, but Patrick Gowers and Steven Moore Whiting believe Morceaux I-III were written in sequential order. Robert Orledge maintains that I and III were written first. See Steven Moore Whiting, "Satie the Bohemian: From Cabaret to Concert Hall", Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 264, note 37, and Orledge, "Satie the Composer", pp. 56-57. and the work expanded outwards from there. Morceaux I is the only piece in the set consisting entirely of new music; the rest were largely recycled from older material. To the core group of Morceaux I-III Satie added two introductory and two concluding pieces, with headings that spoofed academic teaching of the kind he loathed during his studies at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1880s.Höjer, notes to "Erik Satie: The Complete Piano Music, Vol. 6", pp. 20-21.

The title Trois Morceaux en forme de poire prefigures those of Satie's humoristic piano suites of the 1910s and reflects his fondness for puns and ironic ambiguity. The word "poire" was time-honored French slang for "head", meaning "fool" or "simpleton". In the 1830s caricaturist Honoré Daumier satirically defined the reign of French King Louis Philippe by drawing the monarch with a pear-shaped head, and the insult became entrenched in the popular lexicon.Davis, "Erik Satie", p. 71. This subversive meaning is frequently cited by Satie biographers and researchers,Höjer, notes to "Erik Satie: The Complete Piano Music, Vol. 6", pp. 20-21. with differing opinions over whether the composer intended it to mock Debussy, himself, or both.Orledge, "Satie the Composer", p. 56.Davis, "Erik Satie", p. 76.Williamson, "Words and Music", p. 172.Rollo H. Myers, "Erik Satie", Dover Publications, Inc., NY, 1968, p. 75. Originally published in 1948 by Denis Dobson Ltd., London.Höjer, notes to "Erik Satie: The Complete Piano Music, Vol. 6", pp. 20-21. "Poire" was also a nickname for a child's spinning top, and the oscillating, repetitive material of the outer pieces of the Trois morceaux has been likened to the toy's movement.Williamson, "Words and Music", p. 172.

The suite was Satie's first composition for piano four hands,Höjer, notes to "Erik Satie: The Complete Piano Music, Vol. 6", pp. 20-21. a genre he would subsequently enrich with original works (Aperçus désagréables, En habit de cheval) and arrangements (Parade, La Belle Excentrique). Keyboard duets were a popular form of home music-making in the years before World War I, but as Satie made no immediate attempt to publish the Trois morceaux it is possible he chose this form simply because it provided him and Debussy with an opportunity to play together.Höjer, notes to "Erik Satie: The Complete Piano Music, Vol. 6", pp. 20-21. What Debussy thought of the work is not known, though he retained enough interest to help Satie correct the proofs for its initial publication eight years later.Orledge, "Satie the Composer", p. 56.

In a bizarre, self-aggrandizing text scribbled on the verso of the manuscript, Satie heralded the Trois Morceaux as "a prestigious turning point in the History of My Life."Orledge, "Satie the Composer", p. 56. But beneath the braggadocio and jesting over matters of form was Satie's growing sense that his technique was inadequate, and hindering his progress as a composer.On his deathbed Satie told Robert Caby that "there is a musical language and one must learn it." See Davis, "Erik Satie", p. 76. Robert Orledge noted that the sheer amount of self-borrowing in the Trois Morceaux was "not a healthy sign" for a musician dedicated to looking towards the future.Orledge, "Satie the Composer, p. 81. Satie later admitted to his brother Conrad that he grew "tired of being reproached with an ignorance of which I thought I must be guilty, since competent people pointed it out in my works."Erik Satie, letter to Conrad Satie dated January 17, 1911. Published in Ornella Volta (ed.), "Satie Seen Through His Letters", Marion Boyars Publishers, London, 1989, pp. 27-28. The Trois Morceaux en forme de poire would be his last important composition for nearly a decade. In 1905 Satie began seven years of study at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where he would acquire the technical assurance to pursue his mature style.

Music

The Trois Morceaux is an unorthodox retrospective of Satie's early creative evolution. Dispensing with a chronological scheme, Satie variously dips into the music of his youthful Chat Noir days, his "Rosicrucian" phase, and his gradual (if seemingly reluctant) embrace of popular influences, culminating in his "café-concert" style of the early 1900s. Although the prevailing tone is that of melancholy, the work is tuneful, often lively, and (apart from some occasional disruptive chords) easy to listen to.

These are seven separate pieces, musically unrelated to each other but given a semblance of formal cohesion by Satie's less-than-serious headings. Steven Moore Whiting noted that "The core pieces of the morceaux each present a distinctive synthesis of Satie's various styles", while the framing numbers are straightforward presentations of earlier material with little alteration of the originals.Whiting, "Satie the Bohemian", pp. 265-267. Nothing about the music suggests a relationship to the pear of the title.Davis, "Erik Satie", p. 71.

The pieces and their provenance are as follows:

Manière de commencement (A Way of Beginning) – Allez modérément (moderately) English translations of the titles are from Whiting, "Satie the Bohemian", p. 263.See also original edition of the score (1911) available at IMSLP, http://imslp.org/wiki/3_Morceaux_en_forme_de_poire_(Satie,_Erik)An unpublished Gnossienne originally written as part of Satie's incidental music for Joséphin Péladan's play Le Fils des étoiles (1892)Orledge, "Satie the Composer", p. 273. Prolongation du même (More of the Same) – Au pas (walking pace)A march based on Satie's unfinished cabaret song Le Roi soleil de plomb (c. 1900) Morceau 1 (Piece I) – Lentement (slowly)The only newly composed whole piece in the set, it recalls the structural procedures of Satie's "esoteric" music of the early 1890s (e.g., the Prélude de la porte héroïque du ciel) but is harmonically closer to the parody songs he wrote for entertainer Vincent Hyspa at the turn of the 20th centuryWhiting, "Satie the Bohemian", pp. 265-266. Morceau 2 (Piece II) – Enlevé (detached)An ebullient march and trio based on two of Satie's cabaret songs, Impérial-Napoléon (1901) and Le Veuf (1899) Morceau 3 (Piece III) – Brutal (brutally)An ABA structure. Whiting called the jarring, newly composed 21-bar introduction "possibly the most forward-looking music in the whole work."Whiting, "Satie the Bohemian", p. 266. In the central section Satie evokes the style of his Pièces froides (1897), incorporating 25 bars of a rejected draft for the second of the Danses de travers Whiting, "Satie the Bohemian", p. 264. En plus (What's More) – Calme (calmly)A literal transcription of Satie's Danse for chamber ensemble (1890), his earliest known attempt at orchestral composition Redite (Rehash) – Dans le lent (slowly)Uses material from the abandoned music for Le Bœuf Angora (c. 1901) and alludes to the popular slow waltzes Satie was writing at the time (e.g., Je te veux).

Publication and performance