Socrate

Satie composed Socrate between January 1917 and the spring of 1918, with a revision of the orchestral score in October of that same year.

"Symphonic drama" appears to allude to Romeo et Juliette, a "dramatic symphony" that Hector Berlioz had written nearly eighty years earlier: and as usual, when Satie makes such allusions, the result is about the complete reversal of the former example.

This procedure is similar to secular cantatas for one or two voices and instrumental accompaniment written by many Italian and German Baroque composers such as Vivaldi (RV 649–686), Handel (HWV 77–177), Bach (BWV 203, 209), etc.

Each speaker in the various sections is meant to be represented by a different singer (Alcibiades, Socrates, Phaedrus, Phaedo), according to Satie's indication two of these voices soprano, the two other mezzo-sopranos.

Several more performances of the piano version were held, public as well as private, amongst others André Gide, James Joyce and Paul Valéry attending.

It is said Gertrude Stein became an admirer of Satie hearing Virgil Thomson perform the Socrate music on his piano.

[5] The work then traveled to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center for the opening week of the FAC.

[6] John Cage transcribed the music of Socrate for two pianos in 1944 for Merce Cunningham's dance, titled Idyllic Song.

When in 1969 Éditions Max Eschig refused performing rights, Cage made Cheap Imitation, based on an identical rhythmic structure.

In 2015, ninety years after Satie's death, Cage's 1944 setting was performed by Alexei Lubimov and Slava Poprugin[7] for the CD Paris joyeux & triste.

Orchestral version recorded in 1954, available in the INA [French Institut national de l'audiovisuel] "memoire vivre" series of CDs [Suzanne Danco No.