Erik Satie
Erik Satie's piano music moves in slow, spare circles. The Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes rest on simple modal melodies and unresolved chords, cool, unhurried and strangely weightless.
Most of his output is brief and written for solo piano, though the same lean line and dry humour run through songs, ballets and the cool classical plainness of Socrate. He favoured titles that refuse solemnity: true flabby preludes for a dog, a bureaucratic sonatina, three pear-shaped pieces. Sports et divertissements sketches pastimes in tiny, precisely etched gestures, sometimes with spoken text. Cabaret waltzes such as Je te veux sit beside the stillness of the Gnossiennes without apology. Bar-lines can vanish; harmony is often left open. The music wants clarity, wit and a light hand rather than display, which is why players keep returning to it when they need something that feels both ancient and oddly modern.
Erik Satie is featured on the following titles
Le Tango Perpetuel
Ian Munro, superb pianist and imaginative composer, turns piano masterworks into chamber colour for the Australia Ensemble. The disc also preserves a rare late performance by tenor Gerald English in Satie’s Sports et Divertissements.
Gates Beyond
Waters lived in Switzerland but returned regularly to Australia for concerts. These works had long been in his solo recital repertoire, and the performances show the wisdom he had attained.
Compositions by Erik Satie also appear on
Romancing the Oboe
Oboist David Nuttall and guitarist Timothy Kain turn romantic miniatures into a warm chamber programme. Familiar favourites sit beside Brazilian sambas and Nielsen’s incidental music.