The Gymnopédies have rightly been described as very slow waltzes whose suspension in time borders on its dissolution. It's worth noting that Satie, after having been a pianist at the cabaret Le chat noir, was a "tapper for hire" at L'auberge du clou, where he met Debussy, and although he didn't "commit" his own waltzes Je te veux, Poudre d'or and Tendrement until 1900, he knew the throbbing vertigo of the three-beat rhythm like the back of his hand, to the point of nausea. That the Gymnopédies may have been born under the slowed-down fingers of the exhausted pianist one particularly long, boring evening has always seemed to me the most likely hypothesis for their nostalgic slowness.

More exotic, the Gnossiennes may have been inspired by some of the music at the 1889 Exposition Universelle. While Debussy's attention to the Javanese kampong was noted there, the influence of the musicians in the Romanian pavilion on the composer of the Gnossiennes is too little known. Like him and before him, they "enjoy these slow movements, which lend themselves so well to the expression of the contemplative, dreamy feelings they seem to carry within them. Often, the song of the violin or flute, sustained by prolonged minor chords, sometimes for a very long time without changing, has the character of a very free and barely drawn improvisation: the result is a vague and monotonous impression, with a lullaby-like and captivating charm. [...] The tonality is almost always minor, or at least belongs to the different varieties of the minor world; the influence of oriental scales, with their very characteristic augmented intervals, can be felt; or there are bizarre cadences, like that of such a major melody concluding in the relative minor. [Whatever the case, it is delicate and full of charm".

And then there are the titles, so deliberately precious and rare that they could be mistaken for neologisms. Satie didn't invent them, however, borrowing them from his erudite reading of Greek authors and other archaeological works that attest to their existence in ancient Greece.
"The gymnopédies were an annual festival celebrated by the Spartans in the month of Hecatombaion (2nd half of July and 1st of August) in honor of the warriors who died at Thyréa. They consisted of dances performed by two troops of naked men and children."
As for the Gnossiennes, they refer to the inhabitants of Knossos, but probably also evoke, for Satie's penchant for "spiritual" wordplay, gnosis (from the Greek gnôsis, knowledge, but also a religious philosophy close to Platonism and Manichaeism).
A spiritual evocation, then, a journey in time beyond even his beloved Middle Ages, but also a disorientation in space towards the birthplace of humanity, that ancient Greece which, in his sometimes pagan, sometimes Christian mind, joins Chaldea in the East of his dreams, the artistic materialization of the original paradise where "all is order and beauty, luxury, calm and pleasure".

Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes are in the form of epures in which naked thought is captured and revealed by the piano, the most objective of instruments, which, by its very unsuitability to their writing of melodies with long, impossible holds, steps aside before them. In this way, untouched by any color, the composer seems to achieve his ideal of purity, of aesthetic innocence (combining extreme economy of means and modesty of expression favored by a certain neutrality of execution): a "white music".
This first, essential version of these pages was to be accompanied by a "colorized" version of the 3rd and 1st Gymnopédies, which Debussy presented to his friend in 1897. Pale Greco-Antique colors that Debussy restores with tact and orchestral artistry in the service of a profound understanding of the work, like an archaeologist's brush on a long-buried fresco. Our version follows in this historical footsteps, offering a contemporary equivalent to the aulos and zither duet of the Spartan gymnopedias.

Frédéric Cellier - 2002

Along his university studies (DEA in musicology, University of Paris IV-Sorbonne), Frédéric Cellier was awarded three first prizes and a development prize at the CNR of Nice and won first prize at the International Competition of Musical Execution - soloist category – of Stresa (Italy).
He is the laureate of the Fondation de France and the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation and accredited teacher at the CNR of Nice, the CNR of Marseille, and at the CRR Olivier Messiaen of Avignon (France).
Frédéric Cellier is the interpreter of Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet Bb and piano with Jean-Michel Damase, Jean Françaix or Gabriel Tacchino, but also performs his own version for clarinet, piano and string orchestra of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in blue for Wynton Marsalis or under the baton of Adrian Gershwin, grandson of the composer.
Founder and artistic director of STRADIVARIUS Editions, he is the author of pieces of light music and a considerable number of arrangements in all styles and for all instruments acclaimed by numerous personalities in the music world:

"Frédéric Cellier has produced a number of adaptations of Georges Auric's works with such talent and precision that I consider them a natural addition to his chamber music catalogue."
Michèle AURIC - Georges Auric's widow

"To Frédéric Cellier, excellent musician and tireless arranger."
Jean FRANÇAIX - Composer and pianist

"Arranging a musical work is always a delicate and risky exercise, because it requires both modifying it so that it can be played by the desired instruments and preserving its very essence. But that is exactly what Frédéric Cellier has done, preserving the nuances, subtleties and soul of the original works while breathing new life into them.
His arrangements give all the musicians the chance to perform these compositions specially revisited for their instrument, and make music lovers rediscover them in a new light."
Adrian GERSHWIN - George Gershwin’s grandson

"Congratulations for your beautiful new orchestration and rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in blue."
Wynton MARSALIS - Trumpet player, composer, bandleader, general and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York

"It is outstanding that Frédéric Cellier has managed to transpose Saxophone Marmalade from the saxophone to the clarinet. I thank him for it and wish its great and deserved success. "
Manuel ROSENTHAL - Conductor, composer and Maurice Ravel’s pupil

"I am very happy to tell you how much I appreciated your transcription of the Capriccio, based on Francis Poulenc's Le Bal Masqué. It perfectly reflects the spirit and verve of the score for two pianos that I had the opportunity to play and record with Jacques Février, and it was a great pleasure for me to premiere it in Montpellier."
Gabriel TACCHINO - Pianist, Francis Poulenc’s specialist

"I must tell you that I really like your transcriptions and that I think the tone of the instruments you have chosen suits perfectly our beloved composer."
Ornella VOLTA - Musicologist, president of the Erik Satie’s Foundation