3 mélodies

Le chapelier (1916)

Daphénéo (1916)

Je te veux (1901)

The master of comedy in song is, of course, Erik Satie, who found his inspiration in unlikely places. Le Chapelier, from his Trois mélodies, is based, textually, on René Chalupt’s interpretation of the mad hatter’s tea party in Alice in Wonderland and, musically, on a tune from Gounod’s Mireille. It is a bizarre combination but one with a comic potential Satie did not fail to realize. Daphénéo is a setting of words by no other than “M. God” – or Mimi Godebski who, with her brother Jean, had inspired Ravel’s children’s piano duets Ma Mère l’Oye in 1910. As the daughter of Cipa and Ida Godebski, who cultivated a wide artistic circle, Mimi was the little favourite of several musicians – not least perhaps because she was also the niece of the highly influential Misia Sert, who held even Diaghilev in thrall. Certainly, in 1916 when Satie set Mimi’s Daphénéo he and Cocteau were hoping to get Diaghilev interested in Parade, which was duly first performed by the Ballets Russes a year later. A virtuoso of the straight face, Satie approached Daphénéo in childish innocence risking nothing that might prejudice textual clarity: in a song that depends on the distinction between “un noisetier” and “un oisetier” he had little alternative.

In the period before he changed direction as a musician and bravely (at the age of 39) enrolled at the Schola Cantorum to study counterpoint with Roussel and composition with d’Indy, Satie had earned his living as a cabaret pianist and composer. “Degrading” though he considered this kind of work to be, it produced some delightful songs, not least those associated with Paulette Darty “the Queen of the slow waltz.” Je te veux is a particularly seductive example.