page_title: Ludions
section_title: Premiere and aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Ludions / Premiere and aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Hôtel de Beaumont (formely Hôtel de Masseran) located at 11 rue Masseran in the 7th arrondissement of Paris in France. The building is registred as historical monument by the French Ministry of Culture. Français&#160;: Hôtel de Beaumont (ancien Hôtel de Masseran) situé au 11 rue Masseran dans le 7e arrondissement de Paris en France. Le bâtiment est classé monument historique par le Ministère de la Culture. This building is classé au titre des Monuments Historiques. It is indexed in the Base Mérimée, a database of architectural heritage maintained by the French Ministry of Culture,&#160;under the reference PA00088695 . беларуская (тарашкевіца)‎&#160;| বাংলা&#160;| brezhoneg&#160;| català&#160;| Deutsch&#160;| Ελληνικά&#160;| English&#160;| Esperanto&#160;| español&#160;| euskara&#160;| suomi&#160;| français&#160;| magyar&#160;| italiano&#160;| 日本語&#160;| македонски&#160;| Nederlands&#160;| português&#160;| português do Brasil&#160;| română&#160;| русский&#160;| sicilianu&#160;| svenska&#160;| українська&#160;| +/−
context_page_description: The Ludions is a song cycle for voice and piano by Erik Satie, composed in 1923 to five absurdist poems by Léon-Paul Fargue. It was the last of his vocal compositions, completed two years before his death. The songs are brief and a performance of the set usually lasts less than five minutes.
  Songwriting occupied Satie sporadically throughout his life. He produced popular hits for the music hall as well as mélodies for more discriminating audiences. In the Ludions he fused both genres with the irreverent spirit characteristic of his later music.
  Biographer Pierre-Daniel Templier called the cycle "one of Satie's most successful works, due to the perfect correlation between the inspiration of the poet and that of the musician. The familiar playfulness of Fargue's poems, their childish rhythms, their humorous nostalgia, are all delicately rendered by Satie...the irony shines through very clearly."
context_section_description: The Ludions were first performed as part of the extravagant "Baroque Ball" Beaumont held at his home at 2 rue Duroc in Paris on May 30, 1923. Marguerite Jacquemaire (later Countess Marie-Blanche de Polignac) was the soprano soloist, with composer Germaine Tailleferre, the lone female member of Les Six, at the organ. Satie found Jacquemaire's voice "angelic" and Igor Stravinsky reportedly admired the cycle's "perfect word-setting." For the creators, however, the occasion had already been marred by backstage drama.
  During a rehearsal on May 29, Fargue noticed that his name had been inadvertently left off the printed program as author of the Ludions. He flew into a rage at Satie (whom he blamed for the oversight) and Beaumont, prompting the Count to challenge him to a duel. "All right," replied Fargue, "but since I'm the offended party I have the right to choose the weapons, and I choose spelling." Beaumont backed down, but a week later an unmollified Satie sent Fargue a curt note demanding an apology. Sylvia Beach recalled his response: "As usual, in Fargue's feuds, he spent a good deal of time and took a lot of trouble to write the most dreadfully insulting things he could think of in daily letters to Satie. Not satisfied with mailing them in Paris, he would go all the way to Arcueil-Cachan, where Satie lived, to slip another insulting note under his door." The hand-delivery showed a particular malice: Satie allowed no one to visit his squalid apartment in Arcueil for the 27 years he lived there, and those who knew him kept their distance out of respect for his privacy. He and Fargue soon cut off all communication with each other. Ironically, Satie himself was notorious for ending friendships over slight and even imaginary offenses, and the break with Fargue was a rare instance of the tables being turned on him. According to Beach, Satie could only laugh about it.
  The Ludions were publicly premiered at the Salle des Agriculteurs in Paris on December 21, 1923. Satie accompanied mezzo-soprano Jane Bathori in his original setting of the songs for voice and piano, and this version became standard.
  One of Satie's final acts as a professional musician, on his deathbed in a Paris hospital in 1925, was to sign a contract with Jacques Lerolle of Rouart, Lerolle & Cie for the publication of the Ludions. Lerolle urged Fargue to visit the dying composer, to no avail; nor did the poet attend Satie's funeral in July. The songs were issued in 1926. Fargue re-published his complete texts as an illustrated booklet in 1930. In later years he wrote of Satie as "a true master" and privately remembered him with relish.
  In 2011 Robert Orledge published a corrected edition of the Ludions, including the alternative organ part for those interested in replicating the first private performance.
caption: The former Beaumont mansion in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, where the private premiere of the Ludions took place
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