Editing Socrate (section)

==The musical form==
[[File:Satie socrate manuscript.jpg|thumb|{{center|First page of Satie's manuscript for ''Socrate''}}]]

Satie presents ''Socrate'' as a "symphonic [[drama]] in three parts".
"Symphonic drama" appears to allude to ''[[Roméo et Juliette (Berlioz)|Romeo et Juliette]],'' a "dramatic symphony" that [[Hector Berlioz]] had written nearly eighty years earlier: and as usual, when Satie makes such allusions, the result is about the complete reversal of the former example. Where Berlioz's symphony is more than an hour and a half of expressionistic, heavily orchestrated drama, an [[opera]] forced into the form of a [[symphony]], Satie's thirty-minute composition reveals little drama in the music: the drama is entirely concentrated in the text, which is presented in the form of [[recitative|recitativo]]-style singing to a background of sparsely orchestrated, nearly repetitive music, picturing some aspects of Socrates' life, including his final moments.

The work differs from the musical forms of the period. The work is not acted and no scenery is required, unlike opera. Furthermore, the text is delivered by female voices, including the words of male characters. It lacks any musical sections that might be considered [[aria]]s, with the text delivered instead as [[recitative]].

This procedure is similar to secular [[cantata]]s for one or two voices and instrumental accompaniment  written by many Italian and German [[Baroque music|Baroque]] composers such as [[Antonio Vivaldi|Vivaldi]] ([[Ryom Verzeichnis|RV]] 649–686), [[George Frideric Handel|Handel]] ([[Händel-Werke-Verzeichnis|HWV]] 77–177), [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]] ([[BWV]] 203, 209), ''etc''. However, these older compositions all alternated recitatives with  arias, while ''Socrate'' is composed entirely as recitative. 
 
The three parts of the composition are:
# ''Portrait de Socrate'' ("Portrait of Socrates"), text taken from Plato's ''[[Symposium (Plato)|Symposium]]''
# ''Les bords de l'Ilissus'' ("The banks of the [[Ilissus]]"), text taken from Plato's ''[[Phaedrus (Plato)|Phaedrus]]''
# ''Mort de Socrate'' ("Death of Socrates"), text taken from Plato's ''[[Plato's Phaedo|Phaedo]]''