Erik Satie: His Life and Works Quiz

Answer: Conservatoire de Paris

Satie went to the Conservatoire de Paris, but his time there was undistinguished - he was described as being "the laziest student in the Conservatoire". In 1882 he was expelled for his unsatisfactory performance and he wasn't awarded a diploma.
After a brief spell in the Army he moved to Montmartre and made a living by playing in the various nightclubs and bars in the area; he also started composing music.

Answer: Satie pushed her out of a window when he found out that she'd been seeing another man

It's said that Satie was furious when he found out about Valadon's relationship with another man and pushed her out of a first-storey window.
This incident did not dampen Valadon's love of painting, and she went on to have a long and productive career as an artist. She was the first woman artist to be admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, mainly on the strength of her paintings of unidealised female nudes. She was depicted dancing in "Dance at Bougival" (1883) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and she was also the mother of the painter Maurice Utrillo.

Answer: True

After 11 years' wear the seven suits must all have been falling to pieces, so he changed his outfit to formal dress with a bowler hat - which he wore every day until he died!

Answer: An ancient Greek festival with nude dancing

A Gymnopédie was an ancient Greek festival in which young men danced nude.
The work's three movements are slow and somewhat dissonant. The performance instructions are to play each movement "painfully", "sadly", or "gravely".
Soon after "Trois Gymnopédies" was written, Satie composed the three "Gnossiennes", similar solo piano works based on ancient Greek dances.
The "Trois Gymnopédies" are frequently heard in TV and film soundtracks, for example in the Woody Allen film "Another Woman" (1988).
Looking at the incorrect answers, Gymnophiona is an order of legless amphibians, the fear of nakedness is gymnophobia, and the foot disorder is nonsense.

Answer: Claude Debussy

Debussy was very influenced by Satie's work, and his arrangements show the respect he held for his predecessor. They are beautiful pieces of music, wistful and gentle.

Answer: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

"Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" ("Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un Faune") was composed by Claude Debussy; the three other works were all composed by Satie.

Answer: Pablo Picasso

"Parade" was a huge hit. Satie's music included jazz rhythms and instrumentation, and parts for typewriter, steamship whistle and siren. Léonide Massine's choreography was excellent, and the sets and costumes produced by Picasso were highly original. Satie's name was now well and truly established with the public, and henceforth his career was based upon commissioned work for the theatre.

He also developed a successful second string to his career bow by becoming a journalist; many French magazines published his articles, as did the English-language "Vanity Fair" and "The Transatlantic Review".

His articles were as eccentric as he was: he praised Beethoven's "sumptuous" (but non-existent) Tenth Symphony, and he wrote of instruments known cephalophones, "which have a compass of thirty octaves and are absolutely unplayable".

Answer: Cirrhosis of the liver

Satie had been a heavy drinker throughout his life, so it came as no surprise when he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver.

Answer: 840

Probably written as a piano piece in about 1894, "Vexations" consists of four presentations of a short bass motif, played alternatingly unaccompanied and played with chords above. The sheet music bears the instruction that the passage should be played 840 times, and that the performer would have to prepare themselves beforehand. The work was eventually published in 1949 and first performed in 1963 by a cadre of pianists directed by John Cage.

The entire 840 repetitions took 18 hours to perform.

However, in 2012 the French pianist Nicolas Horvath gave a non-stop solo version which lasted 35 hours. Since then the number of performances has steadily increased.

Answer: Blood, Sweat & Tears

Blood, Sweat & Tears' eponymous second album spent seven weeks at number one in the US album charts in 1969, going on to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1970. Featuring an amazingly tight horn section it contained the singles "And When I Die", "You've Made Me So Very Happy", and "Spinning Wheel", all of which got to number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. More to the point, however, was that the first and last tracks on the album were lovely variations on the 1st and 2nd Movements of "Trois Gymnopédies".
The incorrect answer options are all jazz-rock bands of that time.