Erik SATIE (1866-1925)
Vexations (ca.1893) Nos. 1-142
Noriko Ogawa (piano)
rec. 2018, Tokyo College of Music, Japan
Reviewed in SACD stereo
BIS BIS-2325 SACD [80:32]
With regard to its title, Erik Satie’s Vexations ‘does what it says on the tin’. As Noriko Ogawa tells us in her booklet introduction, the piece was left to us “in the form of a scribbled manuscript page found among Satie’s papers after his death. There is no record of a performance during the composer’s lifetime, and no indication of whether he ever intended it to be performed at all.” The manuscript is accompanied by the following statement: “In order to play the theme 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.”
While the tempo indication of the piece, Très lent, is very much open to interpretation, I would say Noriko Ogawa’s speed is rather on the swift side. There is very little silence between each repetition, and so this version is less meditative than those I have heard previously, for instance, that of Jeroen van Veen on Brilliant Classics BC95364, whose odyssey spreads over 9 CDs where a projected complete performance at Ogawa’s pace would take 6. She fairly soon also stops repeating the Théme as part of the whole, which is a shame. Ogawa treats Vexations less like a ruminative musical space and more like a vehicle for dynamic shaping and a certain amount of variation. Playing her period instrument, an Érard from 1890 which has a more brittle sound than modern instruments but by no means intolerably so, Ogawa’s animated approach rises to a forte dynamic, holding back from true fortissimo but certainly at times hitting the piece harder than you might usually expect. This upper dynamic recedes to softer tones of course, and amongst these swelling waves there are also some variations in articulation. Each Vexation is mostly fairly legato, but at times Ogawa separates the notes in a contrast of texture and expressive weight.
Until now I had usually thought of Vexations as a kind of time-machine - a musical annulment of action in relationship to duration, its effect on the listener one of an inner journey for whom changes take place over an extended span of time while the music remains more or less constant. Ogawa attempts something different: a kind of Brucknerian monumentality in which emotions are directed by an ongoing slow rise and fall in dynamics like the contours of a mountain range. Which approach you find yourself preferring is entirely up to you, though I have to admit I would tend to go for a quieter, more meditative experience. I wouldn’t pour myself a bath and expect to be able to relax with this recording. Ogawa’s Satie has been described elsewhere on these pages as “bracing” and “piquant” (review), and this Vexations certainly goes with that aesthetic.
Dominy Clements
