Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun music Any of several
compositions having a dance-like quality
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
French, coined by Erik Satie, but also used by Francis Poulenc
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Examples
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It is 30 seconds of melodic brilliance that circles along like horsies on a merry-go-round and sounds like an Eric Satie gnossienne.
ruzuzu commented on the word gnossienne
"Satie's coining of the word "gnossienne" was one of the rare occasions when a composer used a new term to indicate a new "type" of composition. Satie had and would use many novel names for his compositions ("vexations", "croquis et agaceries" and so on). "Ogive," for example, had been the name of an architectural element until Satie used it as the name for a composition, the Ogives. "Gnossienne," however, was a word that did not exist before Satie used it as a title for a composition. The word appears to be derived from "gnosis"; Satie was involved in gnostic sects and movements at the time that he began to compose the Gnossiennes. However, some published versions claim that the word derives from Cretan "knossos" or "gnossus" and link the Gnossiennes to Theseus, Ariadne and the Minotaur myth. Several archeological sites relating to that theme were famously excavated around the time that Satie composed the Gnossiennes.
The Gnossiennes were composed by Satie in the decade following the composition of the Trois Sarabandes (1887) and the Trois Gymnopédies (1888). Like these Sarabandes and Gymnopédies, the Gnossiennes are often considered dances. It is not certain that this qualification comes from Satie himself—the sarabande and the Gymnopaedia were at least historically known as dances."
--Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gnossiennes_(Satie)&oldid=475265513)
February 13, 2012