Because of traditional reflexes, the audience stopped to listen to the music but Satie and Milhaud kept saying « Whatever you do, don’t listen! »… And that’s the day what we now know as background music was born. As a true avant-garde artist and a serial jokester, with that experience, Satie wanted to do away with the idea of music happening as an organized and paid for event. During that intermission, music was therefore a non-event, a piece of furniture in the grand scheme of things, just like lighting or heating. What was seen as a joke then is our life now, and it even has a name, « elevator music »: shops, elevator, bars, restaurants… Every moment is a musical one and it’s barely noticeable because it should not be. It’s ironic that the Gymnopédies, written way before Satie’s concept, eventually became mainstream elevator music.
