Home 1. Introduction 2. Markers 3. Archive 4. Audible Markers 5. Visible Markers 6. Notational Markers 7. Conclusion
3.1. Integrated Silences 3.2. Inherent Silences 3.3. Silent Discourse 3.4. Meta-Silences 3.5. Silencings
French composer Erik Satie was fond of leaving secret messages in his scores: written instructions or sketches indicating feelings, emotions, or sometimes complete nonsense.
Figure 13: Erik Satie: Avant-Dernières Pensées, first line with sarcastic Dadaist text (“Moderately, I pray you,” “What do I see?”, “The bass is legato, isn’t it?”, “The stream is all wet”) (Satie, 1915) (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52500023h/f8.item)
Musicologist Ornella Volta (Satie & Volta, 1989) maintains that these aphoristic memos were not intended to be performed, yet they are very much notes to the performer, and Satie might have intended them to merit extra attention, even if the texts were not directly read during the performance. He deliberately fomented silent thoughts—a piece of mental music to be “interpreted” parallel to the notes written on the page.
Here, Satie writes, “la basse liée, n’est-ce pas ?” (“The bass is legato, isn’t it?”), thus suggesting a direct and intimate connection between the composer and performer. The pianist implicitly (though silently) might reply, “Of course it is.” Whether or not the audience knows this is happening, it creates an interrelationship, a different kind of knot that binds composer and performer in a secret.