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I. PORTRAIT DE SOCRATE (LE BANQUET)
Alcibiade et Socrate
Performed by Tania Caroline Chen & John TIlbury
Erik Satie composed “Socrate” (1918) for one or more voices and small orchestra or piano. His text was from a French translation by Victor Cousin of Plato’s dialogues on the life and death of Socrates.
Cage arranged the first movement for two pianos in 1947, the 2nd and 3rd movements in 1967. Cage writes in the introduction to the score:
“I love all of Satie’s music and the music of “Socrate” especially. It seems to me that even though the words he chose are profoundly meaningful and touching, like the delightful and poetic remarks included in his other short pieces, all of which in performances Satie suppressed, the texts of Socrate may be omitted, bring about, as I hope to show in this arrangement, an enjoyment of the music alone, the beauty of which is so constantly clear and extraordinary.”
lyrics
English translation of the text by Victor Cousin of Plato’s dialogues on the life and death of Socrates, from Plato's "Symposium", 215a-e, 222e
Alcibiades:
"And now, my boys, I shall praise Socrates in a figure which will appear to him to be a caricature, and yet I speak, not to make fun of him, but only for the truth's sake. I say, that he is exactly like the busts of Silenus, which are set up in the statuaries' shops, holding pipes and flutes in their mouths; and they are made to open in the middle, and have images of gods inside them. I say also that he is like Marsyas the satyr....And are you not a flute-player? That you are, and a performer far more wonderful than Marsyas. He indeed with instruments used to charm the souls of men by the power of his breath, and the players of his music do so still: for the melodies of Olympus are derived from Marsyas who taught them...But you produce the same effect with your words only, and do not require the flute: that is the difference between you and him...And if I were not afraid that you would think me hopelessly drunk, I would have sworn as well as spoken to the influence which they have always had and still have over me. For my heart leaps within me more than that of any Corybantian reveller, and my eyes rain tears when I hear them. And I observe that many others are affected in the same manner....And this is what I and many others have suffered from the flute-playing of this satyr."
Socrates:
"...you praised me, and I in turn ought to praise my neighbor on the right..."
