Erik Satie

[karlhenning]

I'm going to watch it again (i.e., properly) from home . . . possibly this weekend . . . .

[Kullervo]

I must admit that when I read the thread title I thought you were referring to this, but the film is even better. Thanks!

[ezodisy]

The much misunderstood and underestimated Satie is one of my very favourite composers...

Mine too -- now. 4-5 years ago I would deride him for some of those down-and-out feelings his music engenders (I'm slowly learning to stop doing this, by the way  ). It wasn't until the very beginning of this year that I started to appreciate his music, to realise that it had a lot of depth of feeling and wasn't just something simple and maudlin, and I came to grips with it in large part thanks to a very beautiful film which uses several of his piano pieces: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwYNiRaeJEA

Ubuweb is great huh? There are some very special videos on that site. This particular film I saw a few months ago during Tate Modern's Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia exhibit which gave me a new and very rewarding appreciation of Duchamp's early career as a painter -- some marvelous work, quite breathtaking, and as the exhibit progressed I felt strongly that I was looking at a genius going through life as it should be lived. The exhibition ended with an inspiring (or I suppose depressing for some) quote by him: 'Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere.' Anyway I mention this only because all 3 appear within the film.

I've never heard any of Satie's music outside of the piano. Does it carry a similar lugubrious/despondent feeling? I suppose there's more to Satie's piano music than just that, but that's what I listen to it for.

[lukeottevanger]

This exquisite disc, containing his masterpiece Socrate and some of his songs, including three very early ones which share a lot with those early 'sets of three' piano pieces in which all three are very similar (Gymnopedies, Gnossiennes, Airs a fair fuir, Pieces froides etc. etc). But IMO these songs are more unearthly than any of those, incredible though it may seem.



But hang on a while before clicking on 'buy'

have you checked out the Ubuweb Satie page? The piano pieces arranged for guitar there are so, so much better than one would think - not pretty hotel lounge muzak but steely, intense and very human playing.

[ezodisy]

Thanks for that Luke. Both CD and page are new to me, I will play through the guitar music this evening. Cheers

[lukeottevanger]

I love what Kyle Gann has to say here too. It includes a link to mp3s of the songs he discusses.

I'll try to have something available for you to listen to later tonight...

[lukeottevanger]

Forgot this one, Tony:



For the type of Satie you describe, I can't imagine better. De Leeuw gives us more than 2 discs worth of Satie's early piano music - that means that among other thing it is missing the late Nocturnes, contemporaneous with Socrate and probably his finest piano music. But everything that is there is a gem. It's no 'best of Satie' collection, but essentially it ismost of the Satie which doesn't require knowledge of the composer's sardonic little asides and stories (no dried-out embryos here, no sports and divertisments, even though the latter certainly count among his very best music). You're left with the Satie that you describe loving - not just the obvious pieces but lesser-known ones too, all available elsewhere but rarely in such spellbinding performances as de Leeuw gives here. And that's really the point - this music is easy to play, easy to make an effect with, but it takes a special recording to go the extra distance, and de Leeuw's sensitive and slower-than-usual readings certainly manage to do so. The third disc is mostly made up of Satie's songs, which contain some wondrous little gems and are performed as sensitively as one can imagine here. There's a free bonus disc too, a DVD of a film imagining a meeting between Satie and Suzanne Valadon 17 years after their affair ended. A strange thing, full of acrobats doing controtions around a Paris bar - but certainly atmospheric..

[ezodisy]

slower than usual Okay okay, no need to send me into a drooling stupor Luke, I'm convinced I will buy this for sure. The popular Ciccolini recordings on EMI are often recommended, apparently he recorded them twice, I don't really know either one but what I've heard on Youtube isn't so appealing. The Satie piano music I know so far I prefer to hear played slowly, in a way almost mechanically with a rather strict beat. I haven't quite warmed to the free-fllowing approach, as in the (very nice) video below, thoug I may in time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGbYRAfQYF8

[lukeottevanger]

slower than usual Okay okay, no need to send me into a drooling stupor Luke, I'm convinced I will buy this for sure. The popular Ciccolini recordings on EMI are often recommended, apparently he recorded them twice, I don't really know either one but what I've heard on Youtube isn't so appealing. The Satie piano music I know so far I prefer to hear played slowly, in a way almost mechanically with a rather strict beat. I haven't quite warmed to the free-fllowing approach, as in the (very nice) video below, thoug I may in time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGbYRAfQYF8

Hmm, the de Leeuw is slow, as I said, but he does take a pretty free approach to the beat very often. There's a huge rubato at times - most notably, perhaps, in the Gnossiennes, which open the first disc. This might not suit you - but you won't know till you've tried! 

[ezodisy]

I suspect I'll like it, that's usually the sort of thing I want to hear in piano interpretation, I think you've nailed it. I'm just not familiar with it yet with Satie, so I suppose it's a unique interpretation of this music?

[Drasko]

slower than usual Okay okay, no need to send me into a drooling stupor Luke, I'm convinced I will buy this for sure. The popular Ciccolini recordings on EMI are often recommended, apparently he recorded them twice, I don't really know either one but what I've heard on Youtube isn't so appealing.

Cicollini's first traversal is the the fastest around, de Leeuw is the other extreme, everybody else is somewhere in between (including Ciccolini's digital cycle).

What would be recommendable orchestral version of Socrate? There are some impressive names available, like Jean-Paul Fouchecourt or Suzanne Danco with Milhaud conducting, no less.

http://classique.abeillemusique.com/produit.php?cle=12118

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000009KK8

[lukeottevanger]

I have three orchestral Socrates, and two with piano. Of the orchestral ones:

One is an early recording - Leibowitz in 1952. It's very much of its time, vocally - I like it enormously, but I don't return to it as much as the other two, which are:

A recording cond. Dervaux in 1972. The soloists here (including Mady Mesple) are somewhat easier on the ear - this is a great, idiomatic performance all round, but it's marred by faulty indexing on my CD. As it was my first disc of Socrate, I initially thought (with some disbelief!) that the piece started with the perky little march that begins the track - but soon realised (and track times confirmed) that the march is actually the end of the previous item, Les aventures de Mercure.

The last orchestral recording I have at present is fairly modern - Music Projects London/Bernas, sopranos Eileen Hulse, Susan Bickley and Patricia Rosario. It's the main work on the first disc I recommended above. This is my favourite at the moment - light voices just as Satie requires, good sonics, sensitive orchestral playing. All round, that's a very fine disc - first issued on Factory Classical, of all places.

[Drasko]

The last orchestral recording I have at present is fairly modern - Music Projects London/Bernas, sopranos Eileen Hulse, Susan Bickley and Patricia Rosario. It's the main work on the first disc I recommended above. This is my favourite at the moment - light voices just as Satie requires, good sonics, sensitive orchestral playing. All round, that's a very fine disc - first issued on Factory Classical, of all places.

Aha, I somehow initailly managed to misread that to be piano accompanied version. Ok then, that'll be the one, thanks! 

[ezodisy]

the de Leeuw is slow

holy shit what is he doing??? haha

[lukeottevanger]

You see what I mean!  An acquired taste - have you acquired it?

[ezodisy]

I just turned it on Luke  I will have to see how it goes down with a shot of something or other before I make a decision  It's certainly unique. Does the score allow for such breadth and, uh, creativity?

[lukeottevanger]

I just turned it on Luke  I will have to see how it goes down with a shot of something or other before I make a decision  It's certainly unique. Does the score allow for such breadth and, uh, creativity?

To put it briefly, yes, it does.

[ezodisy]

Thanks. Not that I would mind at all if it didn't, as I think a lot of the readings I like are often labelled as "overly creative", so to speak. It's certainly very sensitive. The music for me is all bound up with Le Feu Follet so I'll have to get adjusted to it without the visuals...

[George]

Really good stuff, here. Maybe even better than my favorite for Satie, Roge.

Anyone else heard this?

[Sergeant Rock]

holy shit what is he doing??? haha

Playing the music just for me   

Anyone else heard this?

I haven't. My Satie collection consists basically of the alpha and omega of Satie interpretation: Ciccolini and Leeuw. Also have one disc each from John McCabe and Anne Queffélec.

Sarge