Erik Satie and Brussels modernist Arts world: the pivotal year 1925 (1919-1925).

Although a memorial concert was only organized in Brussels in 1926 following Erik Satie's death (1866-1925), 1925 was a pivotal year in his reception history in Brussels. This study investigates the beginnings (1919-1927) of the modernist musical movement in Brussels and examines Satie's role. It began in December 1919 with Jean Cocteau's lecture on Satie and 'Les Six', and a performance of Parade.
The study addresses the following research questions. What network did Satie establish in Brussels? Which works were performed and by whom? What was his influence on Belgian composers? How did the specialized press respond? What was his significance in the Schönberg-Stravinsky polemic of the 1920s? Did his influence change after his death in 1925?
This research is based on a relational database on musical modernism in Brussels, containing over 1,000 records, including concert programs, letters, policy documents, articles etc.

Between 1919 and 1923, modernist music initiatives were undertaken by small organizations within the young Brussels avant-garde circles of literature and visual arts, rather than by regular concert societies or musical magazines. Notable events include Erik Satie's invitation by Galerie Giroux on April 11 and 12, 1921. In Brussels, Paul Collaer (1891-1989) together with the Pro Arte Group and E.L.T. Mesens (1903-1971) were significant advocates of Satie's work, both as critics and organizers. The reception history of Satie's work mainly occurred between 1922 and 1925, with performances of almost his entire piano oeuvre, fragments from major song collections, most ballets, and other dramatic works, often shortly after their Parisian premieres.
Influenced by Jean Cocteau's cultural elitism, most Belgian music critics and composers deemed French culture superior to the Germanic, viewing the 'decadent' and 'anarchist' Germanic style as yielding to the Latin style (1924), and considering German-Austrian supremacy a thing of the past. In the Schönberg-Stravinsky polemic, until 1924, most Belgian critics saw Satie, not Stravinsky, as the most extreme exponent of French Neo-Classicism and leader of the avant-garde. From 1925 onwards, this role was taken over by Igor Stravinsky.