Time transfigured: Erik Satie's Parade

Abstract

The result of a collaboration by Picasso, Massine, Cocteau and Satie, the ballet Parade is one of the truly remarkable works of the early twentieth century. In Parade Satie carefully controls both the speed and duration of each sonic event. At several points at the beginning of the piece, multiple levels of activity are heard either simultaneously or in close succession. These generate the temporal materials for the entire ballet. In this paper, the author first deals with the complex rhythmic structures in the Choral, Prelude, and the three repetitions of the managers' music. (The latter form an interrelated group and probably constitute the most important music of the ballet with regard to its rhythmic structure.) The author then examines a number of general relationships found among the three main scenes of Parade and finally presents a detailed examination of the rhythmic structure of the third scene.

KEY WORDS:

• Satie
• Parade
• proportion
• speed
• ratio
• duration