page_title: Gymnopédies
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Gymnopédies / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Puvis de Chavannes "Jeunes Filles au bord de la mer" - au Gymnopedies d'Erik Satie Русский: Пюви де Шаванн - Девушки на берегу моря - любимая картина Эрика Сати в молодости - "с неё" он писал свои Гимнопедии
context_page_description: The Gymnopédies, or Trois Gymnopédies, are three piano compositions written by French composer and pianist Erik Satie. The first and third were published in 1888 and the second in 1895.
context_section_description: The work's unusual title comes from the French form of gymnopaedia, the ancient Greek word for an annual festival where young men danced naked – or perhaps simply unarmed. The source of the title has been a subject of debate. Satie and his friend Alexis Roland-Manuel maintained that he adopted it after reading Gustave Flaubert's novel Salammbô, while others see a poem by J. P. Contamine de Latour as the source of Satie's inspiration, since the first Gymnopédie was published in the magazine La Musique des familles in the summer of 1888 together with an excerpt of Latour's poem Les Antiques, where the term appears.
  Oblique et coupant l'ombre un torrent éclatant
  
  Ruisselait en flots d'or sur la dalle polie
  
  Où les atomes d'ambre au feu se miroitant
  
  Mêlaient leur sarabande à la gymnopédie
  Slanting and shadow-cutting a bursting stream
  
  Trickled in gusts of gold on the shiny flagstone
  
  Where the amber atoms in the fire gleaming
  
  Mingled their sarabande with the gymnopaedia.
  However, it remains uncertain whether the poem was composed before the music. Satie may have picked up the term from a dictionary such as Dominique Mondo's Dictionnaire de Musique, where gymnopédie is defined as a "nude dance, accompanied by song, which youthful Spartan maidens danced on specific occasions", following a similar definition from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Dictionnaire de Musique.
  Later in 1888, the third Gymnopédie was published. The second Gymnopédie did not appear until seven years later, and its impending publication was announced in several editions of the Chat Noir and Auberge du Clou magazines.
  Pierre Puvis de Chavannes' symbolist paintings may have been an inspiration for the atmosphere Satie wanted to evoke with his Gymnopédies.
caption: Jeunes filles au bord de la mer, 1879 painting by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, which may have inspired Satie for the atmosphere he wanted to evoke in his Gymnopédies
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Jeunes Filles au bord de la mer (Puvis de Chavannes) 1879", "Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix S7000", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2009:02:28 15:01:25", "Image Artist": "Puvis de Chavannes 1879 Centre de Musique Mediane pour Vikipedia", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Copyright": "Canonic Yuri Khanon. 28fe209. Tectum de Khanon.", "Image ExifOffset": "429", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1445", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3557", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/170", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:02:28 12:01:12", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:02:28 12:01:12", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8/5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "37/5", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "451/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "39/5", "EXIF SubSecTime": "908", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "577", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "816", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1357", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "5263", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "5263", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "1"}