Cinq grimaces pour Le songe d'une nuit d'été

[1] In early 1915, composer Edgard Varèse proposed an idea for a French World War I propaganda production of Shakespeare's comedy to theatrical impresario Gabriel Astruc.

Varèse had served as chorus master for director Max Reinhardt's 1913 revival of A Midsummer Night's Dream in Berlin, using Mendelssohn's famous incidental score;[2][3] now he hoped to mount a comparable spectacle in Paris to prove that Shakespeare was an "ally" of the French and not of the Germans.

[4] He intended to replace Mendelssohn's accompaniments with a potpourri of French music composed for the occasion by Satie, Florent Schmitt, Maurice Ravel, himself, and - not quite in keeping with the theme - Igor Stravinsky.

[9] As most Paris theatres were closed due to the war, it was decided to produce the play at the well-known circus the Cirque Medrano near Montmartre with a cast of primarily comic entertainers and acrobats.

[10] Cocteau also enlisted Cubist painters Albert Gleizes and André Lhote to design the settings, some of which were to consist of colored "shadows" projected onto the backdrops.

American critic Carl Van Vechten reported that the character Oberon, King of the Fairies, was to have made his grand entrance to the tune of It's a Long Way to Tipperary.

[15] Varèse greatly admired Satie,[16] and as a tribute he commissioned his elder colleague to provide the bulk of the incidental score for A Midsummer Night's Dream, including the opening and closing numbers.

[17] Cocteau's adaptation is lost so it is impossible to determine how Satie's three central numbers would have corresponded to the action, though given their humorous titles and musical character, it seems he wrote them with the Fratellini clowns in mind.

"[21] In February 1916, when Varèse asked his permission to perform the Cinq Grimaces in the United States, Satie not only declined but, "almost certainly from a need for revenge",[22] sent as a substitute a score by one of his obscure pupils which he had orchestrated himself.

[23][24][25] And when Cocteau wanted to program the Cinq Grimaces as part of his celebrated "Spectacle-Concert" in Paris in February 1920, Satie again refused and composed his Trois petites pièces montées instead.