Vol.
1 The Gymnopédiste 1884 – 1890:
Allegro; Valse-ballet; Fantaisie-valse;
Ogive No 1 – 4; Sarabande No 1 – 3;
Gymnopédie No 1 – 3; Gnossienne
No 1 – 6 [60:32]
Vol. 2 The Rosicrucian Music 1891 –
1895:
Première Pensée Rose+Croix;
Trois Préludes du "Fils
des étoiles": Prélude
du 1er acte: La Vocation – Prélude
du 2e acte: L’Initiation – Prélude
du 3e acte: L’Incantation; Sonneries
de la Rose+Croix: Air de l’Ordre
– Air du Grand Maitre – Air du Grand
Prieur; Quatre Préludes:
Fète donnée par des Chevaliers
Normands en l’honneur d’une jeune Demoiselle
(XIème siècle) – Prélude
d’Eginhardt – 1er Prélude du
Nazaréen – 2e Prélude
du Nazaréen; Danses gothiques;
Messe des pauvres: Chant Ecclésiastique
– Prière pour les voyageurs et
les marins en danger de mort, à
la très bonne et très
auguste Vierge Marie, mere de Jésus
(version 1 and 2) – Prière pour
le salut de mo name; Prélude
de "La Porte héroique du
Ciel"; Pages mystiques:
Prière – Harmonies – Vexations
[75:48]
Vol. 3 The Velvet Gentleman 1896 – 1904:
Petite Ouverture à danser; Caresse;
Danse de travers; Pièces froides:
Airs à faire fuir No 1 – 3; Pièces
Froides: Danses de travers No 1 – 3;
Jack-in-the-Box: Prelude – Entr’acte
– Final; Verset laïque et somptueux;
Petite musique de clown triste (attr);
Rêverie du pauvre (attr);
The dreamy Fish; Je te veux; Poudre
d’or; La Diva de l’Empire; Tendrement;
Le Piccadilly [67:21]
Vol. 4 Musiques intimes et secretes
1905 – 1912:
Passacaille; Prélude en tapisserie;
Nouvelles pièces froides:
Sur un mur – Sur un arbre – Sur un pont;
Musiques intimes et secrètes:
Nostalgie – Froide songerie – Fâcheux
exemple; Douze petits chorals
I – XII; Six pièces de la
période 1906 – 1913: Désespoir
agréeable – Effronterie – Poésie
– Prélude canin – Profondeur
– Songe-creux; Carnet d’esquisses
et de croquis: Air – Essais – (Plus
lent) – Notes – Notes – Le prissonier
maussade – "Le grande singe"
– Exercises – Notes – Harmonies – Songerie
vers "Jack" – Bribes – Choral
– Exercises – Exercises – Exercises
– Exercises – Petit Prélude de
"La Mort de Monsieur Mouche"
– Gambades – Arrière propos –
Petite danse; Deux reveries nocturnes;
Préludes flasques (Pour un
chien): Voix d’intérieur
– Idylle cynique – Chanson canine –
Avec camaraderie [57:29]
Vol. 5 Piano Pieces with Stories 1912
– 1915:
Véritables Préludes
flasques (pour un chien): Sévère
Réprimande – Seul à la
maison – On joue; Descriptions automatiques:
Sur un Vaisseau – Sur une Lanterne –
Sur un Casque; Croquis et Agaceries
d’un gros Bonhomme en bois: Tyrolienne
Turque – Danse maigre (à la manière
de ces Messieurs) – Españana;
Embryons déssechés:
d’Holothurie – d’Edriophthalma – de
Podophthalma; Chapitres tournés
en tous sens: Celle qui parle trop
– Le Porteur de grosses Pierres – Regrets
des Enfermés (Jonas et Latude);
Vieux Sequins et Vieilles Cuirasses:
Chez le Marchand d’Or (Venise, XIIIe
siècle) – Danse cuirassée
(période greque) – La défaite
des Cimbres (Cauchemar); Trois nouvelles
Enfantines: Le Vilain petit Vaurien
– Berceuse – La gentile toute petite
Fille; Menus Propos enfantins:
Le Chant guérrier du Roi des
Haricots – Ce que dit la petite Princesse
des Tulipes – Valse du Chocolat aux
Amandes; Enfantillages pittoresques:
Petit Prélude à la Journée
– Berceuse – Marche du grand Escalier;
Peccadilles importunes: Être
jaloux de son camarade qui a une grosse
tête – Lui manger sa tartine –
Profiter de ce qu’il a des cors aux
pieds pour lui prendre son cerceau;
Sports et Divertissements: Choral
inappétissant – La Balançoire
– La Chasse – La Comédie italienne
– Le Réveil de la Mariée
– Colin-Maillard – La Pêche –
Le Yachting – Le Bain de mer – Le Carneval
– Le Golf – La Pieuvre – Les Courses
– Les Quatre Coins – Le Pique-nique
– Le Water-Chute – Le Tango perpetual
– Le Traîneau – Le Flirt – Le
Feu d’Artifice – Le Tennis; Heures
séculaires et instantanées:
Obstacles venimeux – Crépuscule
matinal (de midi) – Affolements granitiques;
Les trois Valses distinguées
du Précieux dégôuté:
Sa Taille – Son Binocle – Ses Jambes;
Avant-Dernières Pensées:
Idylle – Aubade (à Paul Dukas)
– Méditation (à Albert
Roussel) [61:11]
Vol. 6
Piano Pieces 1913 – 1920
Petites danses de "Le Piège
de Méduse": Quadrille
– Valse – Pas vite – Mazurka – Un peu
vif – Polka – Quadrille; Les Pantins
Dansent; Ragtime Parade; Sonatine Bureaucratique;
Nocturnes No 1 – 6; Premier Menuet;
Music for Piano Duet
Trois Morceaux en forme de poire:
Manière de Commancement – Prolongation
du même – I (Lentement) – II (Enlevé)
– III (Brutal) – En Plus – Redite; Aperçus
désagréables: Pastorale
– Choral – Fugue; En Habit de Cheval:
Choral – Fugue litanique – Autre Choral
– Fugue de Papier; Trois petites
Pièces montées: De
l’Enfance de Pantagruel (Rêverie)
– Marche de Cocagne (Démarche)
– Jeux de Gargantua (Coin de Polka);
La belle Excentrique: Marche
franco-lunaire – Grande Ritournelle
– Valse du "Mystérieux baiser
dans l’OEil" – Grande Ritournelle
– Cancan Grand-Mondain [67:03]
Erik Satie belongs
to that group of artists, whose work
has been over-shadowed by their eccentric
life-style. The general picture of Satie
is a man bearded, later in life bespectacled,
oddly dressed, wearing a bowler hat
and with an obsession for umbrellas.
(The cover pictures above are good illustrations.)
Add to this a reclusive life, a style
of composition that, however full of
changes it was, never followed the trends.
The work titles at best were strange
but more often than not were quite incomprehensible.
Still he is today firmly rooted in the
pantheon of great composers, although
I believe that the great majority of
even well-informed classical music enthusiasts
have heard very little of his oeuvre.
And I have to admit to belonging to
that category myself, at least up until
1983. Before that I had of course heard
his Gymnopédies, in the
original piano versions or different
arrangements, and I also knew some of
his cabaret songs. In 1983 I went to
two concerts (actually the same concert
twice with some months’ interval). These
gave me a fuller picture of Satie and
his musical world which really was something
out of the ordinary. The two artists
who invited me to this world were Iwa
Sörenson, lyric soprano at the
Royal Opera in Stockholm, and pianist
Olof Höjer. The music immediately
grabbed me by my shirt-collar and the
effect was enhanced by Höjer’s
spoken commentaries interspersing the
music. He is a brilliant communicator,
in his playing, in his speaking and
in his writing, and the booklet text
is an invaluable asset to the series.
I won’t pretend that I am a ‘Satian’,
or whatever the term should be, or that
I am familiar with most of his works,
but when the editor asked me to review
this series, I jumped at the idea, seeing
it as a good way of further education.
And so it turned out to be. It has been
a pleasure to follow Satie and Höjer
through the thirty-six years encompassed
by Satie’s piano writing. It has been
an experience thrilling, full of variety,
funny, sometimes boring. I don’t think
I would like to make the same journey
in its entirety again within the next
few months, but I will certainly return
to much of it and enjoy the music in
smaller helpings.
The six CDs, covering
the complete piano music by Satie, have
a total playing time of more than 6½
hours. Listening through all of the
discs in a few sittings is not advisable.
The reason for that will hopefully be
evident from the review. They are not
issued as a boxed set, which most comparable
offerings are, and that makes it easier
to try them out piecemeal instead of
risking a bulk-buy at considerable cost.
Each disc has a booklet – or rather
a book – of the size that in some cases
only with difficulty can be put back
in the jewel-case. It should also be
noted that the books are in English
only with one essay, Erik Satie and
the piano, recurring in each book
and a longer essay, covering the specific
period of the disc. All of this is very
informative and perspective building.
There are also lots of illustrations.
One more general comment:
the heading "Complete Piano Music"
was true when Höjer recorded this
10 – 15 years ago; after that a couple
of "new" pieces have been
unearthed, one of them, San Bernardo,
as late as 2002, while La Chemise
was published in 1995, the same year
that Höjer finished this project.
He also includes two pieces that were
for many years thought to be by Satie,
which Steven M Whiting proved to be
wrong in 1995, in time for Höjer
to acknowledge in his booklet commentaries.
Over now to the individual discs.
Volume 1 "Le
Gymnopédiste" covers
the years 1884 – 1890. Here we find
some juvenilia, inter alia his
first known composition, Allegro
from 1884. It is a short piece,
24 seconds, and it doesn’t give much
of an impression. It was not published
during his life-time, not until 1972
in fact, and that applies to a lot of
this music. The next two pieces, both
waltzes, are agreeable and quite conventional,
but at least in the second of them one
feels that the still teen-aged composer
is approaching a tonal language of his
own. But when he in 1887 returns to
composing for the piano we are at once
in a totally new world. In the four
Ogives (meaning "pointed
arches") we are transported back
to the Middle Ages, where Satie is building
high Gothic cathedrals. His building
materials are powerful, heavy chords
that are allowed to resound and die
away before the next chord comes. The
only forerunner I can think of is Alkan,
a generation earlier but his is a truly
romantic language, where the chords
are the foundation for the slowly moving
melody shaped by the uppermost notes.
In Satie’s cathedral Gregorian chant
still resounds but with the voices replaced
by the piano. It is evocative, fascinating
– and exhausting. There is a stillness
that is at first soothing but in the
end feels lifeless – the tempos are
so slow that one loses the impression
of rhythm and movement. In the three
contemporaneous Sarabandes he
utilizes the same method: again chords
with a lot of air between them, but
the harmonies are tighter - he is moving
away from the 19th century.
The well known Gymnopédies
and Gnossiennes are in the same
mould: slow, recessed, seldom stronger
than a mezzo-forte but with the haunting
melodies in the foreground. Höjer
plays them in a very flexible manner,
more rubato than some and delicate shadings.
The Satie-novice could well start here
and be assured that this is pianism
of the highest order.
Volume 2 "The
Rosicrucian Music" follows
Satie through the first half of the
1890s. This was the period when he became
part of the Rosicrucian Order or, "Ordre
de la Rose-Croix Catholique, du Temple
et du Graal". It was instigated
by the novelist, dramatist and philosopher
Joséphin Péladan, a front-figure
in the symbolist movement in the 1890s,
where mysticism, occultism and decadence
blossomed. Satie became, at least for
a time, the composer and conductor of
the order and he produced a handful
of works before he took exception to
the whole idea. Typical of this Rosicrucian
Music is slow tempo, soft tone and an
atmosphere of mysticism and even bloodlessness.
It is also repetitive and might be a
forerunner of minimalism. Strictly speaking
it is only the first seven tracks on
this disc that belong to the Rosicrucian
period – Satie left the order in August
1892 – but what he wrote during the
following years is principally cast
in the same mould. With some exceptions.
The Prélude de "La Porte
héroique du Ciel" –
dedicated to himself! – is lively, well
comparatively, but you actually have
a feeling of forward movement. On the
whole I found much of this dispiriting.
Among these pieces
we also find one of his most famous,
or rather infamous, compositions, Vexations.
It means literally "Harassment"
(in the plural) and the crux of the
matter, and the reason for its fame,
is that, according to the composer,
the piece (or "Motif" as he
calls it) should be played 840 times!
I am indeed very grateful to Olof Höjer
for not following this instruction on
this recording. That would have meant
another 15 CDs or so. He confines himself
to about 1/60 of that and lets the music
fade out during the 14th
round. He actually started the concerts
I mentioned earlier by playing the piece
until the host of the evening entered
the stage, umbrella in hand ...
Volume 3 "The
Velvet Gentleman". The title
refers to the fact that Satie in 1895
suddenly became a rich man through an
inheritance. Some of the money he spent
on buying seven identical velvet suits,
some of which were still unused when
he died. This change of financial status
didn’t, however, change his compositional
status, for the first third of this
disc sticks to the same mood as before,
including the Pièces froides
(Cold pieces). But Jack-in-the-Box
suddenly breaks the esoteric spell and
introduces us to another side of Satie’s
genius: his cabaret side. Jack-in-the
Box is what remains of a theatre project
that Satie was involved in just before
the turn of the century. The play was
never staged but the music was saved
and is presented here in a piano reduction
of the orchestral score, both of them
obviously made by Milhaud. This is hectic,
rhythmic, partly dissonant music – and
entertaining. But it is still constructed
in that "minimalistic" way:
short motifs repeated and slightly changed.
That you don’t get that feeling of monotony
is due to the higher speed and the existence
of a perceptible pulse. The dreamy
Fish comprises remnants from an
unfinished theatre project and again
we have that hectic feeling, a wealth
of ideas stumbling upon each other,
jaunty almost parody rhythms.
This disc is rounded
off with five cabaret songs, highlighting
still another side of Satie’s activities.
For many years he earned his living
by accompanying cabaret singers and
accordingly writing songs for them.
This is the closest Satie ever came
to a really "popular" idiom,
and consequently he later rejected "des
rudes saloperies" ("the crude
filth"). However, these songs are
among the most enjoyable and vigorous
from the pre-war years, especially in
their original vocal versions. As piano
pieces they are greatly entertaining,
especially when played with such loving
care and tongue-in-cheek spirit. In
a concert programme he would probably
never play them as a set, but here,
as a number of encores after a successful
heavy-weight recital they are very apt.
Vol. 4 "Musiques
intimes et secrètes 1905 – 1912".
In 1905 Satie suddenly decided to
educate himself further, being tired
of the criticism that was heaped upon
his compositions. Somebody has said
that the partly strange, and in any
case personal, music Satie created was
due to his fallible education. It was
like someone who only knew thirteen
of the letters in the alphabet and out
of those letters had to create a meaningful
language. He applied for and was accepted
at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where
his teacher in counterpoint was Albert
Roussel, the foremost French symphonist
at the time. He threw himself wholeheartedly
into his studies and once more changed
not only his composition style but also
his exterior. Gone were the velvet suits,
now he appeared in dark suit and waistcoat.
The later well known attributes bowler
hat and umbrella were added to his outfit.
Compose he did, but very little was
published then or even later during
his lifetime. It was only in 1968 that
Robert Caby dug up the majority of the
music on this disc. Few of these pieces
are of great importance as compositions
in their own right. They should be regarded
as exercises and most are very short:
few exceed one minute in playing time
and some are not longer than a few seconds.
But they definitely show the results
of his contrapuntal training at the
Schola Cantorum and they are valuable,
just as painters’ sketchbooks are, to
understanding his further development.
And in among them there are pleasant
surprises, like in the Carnet d’esquisses
et de croquis, consisting of 21
small sketches, where the beautiful
32-seconds-long No. XVII Exercises
and the somewhat longer can-can-like
No XIX Gambades stand out. There
are also some older pieces, like No
XVIII Petite Prélude de "La
Mort de Monsieur Mouche, composed
around the turn of the century and supposed
to be the earliest French example of
cake-walk. But mostly these chips from
the artist’s workbench must be seen
as preliminary studies for what was
to follow in the next volume.
Vol. 5 "Piano
Pieces with Stories" 1912 – 1915.
Here, suddenly, Satie goes into a phase
of new creativity, a phase that also
invariably produces some of his most
fantastic work titles and comments.
Many of them also belong to the best
and most well-known of his compositions
and the reader whose curiosity about
Satie may have been aroused by this
review should probably start here. This
is music to return to repeatedly, to
ponder over, to smile at the titles,
to wonder whether Satie is serious,
or crazy or just wanting to pull the
pianists’ and the listeners’ collective
noses. We actually throw ourselves into
a kaleidoscopic world of rhythms (one
of the "Real flabby preludes"
is a rag-time), of children’s songs,
of quotations from Chabrier, Mozart,
Beethoven and so forth; he paints strange
landscapes, strange embryos (the Embryons
déssechés, of which
Satie wrote "This piece is completely
incomprehensible, even to myself")
and everybody can use his/her own imagination
to create one’s own pictures and stories.
There is also some
music written with children in mind:
simple, technically surmountable for
people with small hands, but the real
masterpiece is Sports et Divertissements.
The background to these 21 pieces
is quite amusing. A publisher asked
Stravinsky to write music to a series
of drawings by Charles Martin, but Stravinsky
refused because the fee was too low.
Satie was then asked and offered the
same sum of money, but refused because
the fee was to high! So not until the
publisher cut the fee to half did Satie
agree. Olof Höjer has some interesting
and enlightening comments on the music
and it is a pity that room was not found
in the booklet for more. The half-minute-long
Le Golf has a very clear resemblance
to Tea for Two, and were it not
for the fact that Vincent Youmans wrote
his evergreen more than ten years later,
I would bet that Satie saw the pun Tee
for Two. Anyway it is very entertaining
and Höjer plays all of this so
delicately.
Vol. 6 "Piano
Pieces 1913 – 1920" "Music
for Piano Duet"
During the last decade
of his life, from October 1915 when
he met Jean Cocteau, Satie wrote little
piano music and instead concentrated
on stage music. However he did write
some pieces between 1917 and 1920 and
these, in a way, sum up his achievements.
Dance had an important place in much
of his writing and in the Petites
danses de "Le Piège de Meduse"
he also uses ‘danses’ not associated
with him: quadrille, mazurka, polka.
A strange and interesting creation is
his Sonatine Bureaucratique where
he "borrows" a sonata by Clementi
and re-writes it. In a written comment
he called it "just a joke – a very
small joke. That’s it ..."
Partnered by Max Lörstad,
Olof Höjer rounds off this last
disc, in this complete survey of Satie’s
piano oeuvre, with some piano duets,
of which Trois Morceaux en forme
de poire are the oldest, written
as early as 1903. These "three
pear-shaped pieces" are actually
seven and they are definitely entertaining,
based in several cases on cabaret music.
En Habit de Cheval might mean
"Dressed as a horse" but it
is difficult to find anything horsey
in it. Once again Satie pulls our noses.
In the final work, La belle Excentrique,
which was also his very last composition
for piano, we are once again back in
the cabaret world. However much he hated
"the crude filth" he obviously
felt drawn to it, a kind of love-hate
relationship maybe.
And here ends this
traversal through the music of one of
the most singular of composers. All
is not gold and one can wonder what
Satie would have liked so much, that
he obviously had rejected, to be published
and played. But that’s a fate he has
to share with others, and we should
be grateful for the opportunity to look
into the master’s workshop.
As I have already said
there is much that has more musicological
than musical interest, but once one
indulges in these byways they can be
very rewarding. I am also filled with
admiration for Olof Höjer’s deep
involvement in this project and I know
that he has spent many years studying
and returning to Satie. It is quite
obvious when you listen to his playing
that he is in complete sympathy with
the idiom. There are others who have
also made this traversal on record and
I haven’t had the opportunity to listen
to them. Aldo Ciccolini’s set is available
and he has always had very good reviews.
There are also complete sets by Thibaudet
and Pascal Rogé, but all of these
are in boxed sets. And to anyone wanting
to start a Satie collection and preferring
to buy the discs piecemeal, I can wholeheartedly
recommend Olof Höjer. As a bonus
you also get the very substantial booklets,
written by a pianist who loves this
music.
Göran Forsling
Olof Höjer (piano); Max Lörstad
(piano) in Music for Piano Duet 
