Letter(s) to Erik Satie
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ERIK SATIE / JOHN CAGE
Letter(s) to Erik Satie
Bertrand Chamayou (piano)
[ Erato / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 8 December 2023
"Erik Satie and John Cage are UFOs in the world of music, because they envisioned music through a completely different prism," says pianist Bertrand Chamayou. "They are pioneers in the sense that, for many people, they changed the very idea of what music must be."
With his album Letter(s) to Erik Satie Chamayou pays tribute to two idiosyncratic, innovative and influential composers, one born in Normandy in 1866, the other in Los Angeles in 1912. There is a strong connection between them: Cage considered Satie a source of inspiration. Satie takes pride of place on the album with such pieces as the three Gymnopédies and the seven Gnossiennes, while Cage is represented by five pieces and a work attributed to him following its rediscovery amongst the papers of his disciple James Tenney - whose musical homage to Satie also features in the programme.
Chamayou recorded the album at the state-of-the-art Miraval Studios in Provence, which inspired him to take an experimental approach: "I thought we should do something a little different - and I thought of Erik Satie. This was an opportunity to get really intimate with the piano … Satie is really a special case, a strange musician unlike anyone else."
"the challenge with these deceptively simple pieces is to maintain perfect balance, weight, poise and equilibrium in the music throughout, alongside a clear sense of line and unswerving tempo. Chamayou manages this quite brilliantly in In a Landscape." Gramophone WINNER 2024 - Concept Album
"as Bertrand Chamayou's beautifully planned and presented sequence of miniatures by both composers shows, Satie's music imprinted itself on Cage's own piano works, especially in some of his pieces for conventional and prepared piano from the late 1940s...it's a gem of a collection." The Guardian
Tracks:
1. All Sides of the Small Stone, for Erik Satie
John Cage
2. 6 Gnossiennes: No. 1, Lent
Erik Satie
3. Prelude for Meditation
John Cage
4. 3 Gymnopédies: No. 1, Lent et douloureux
Erik Satie
5. 6 Gnossiennes: No. 2, Avec étonnement
Erik Satie
6. 6 Gnossiennes: No. 3, Lent
Erik Satie
7. A Room
John Cage -
8. In a Landscape
John Cage
9. 3 Petites pièces montées: No. 1, De l'enfance de Pantagruel. Rêverie
Erik Satie
10. 3 Véritables préludes flasques (pour un chien): No. 1, Sévère réprimande
Erik Satie
11. 3 Véritables préludes flasques (pour un chien): No. 2, Seul à la maison
Erik Satie
12. 3 Véritables préludes flasques (pour un chien): No. 3, On joue
Erik Satie
13. 3 Gymnopédies: No. 2, Lent et triste
Erik Satie
14. Sports et divertissements: No. 9, Le bain de mer
Erik Satie
15. 6 Gnossiennes: No. 4, Lent
Erik Satie
16. Sports et divertissements: No. 2, La balançoire
Erik Satie
17. Swinging
John Cage
18. 3 Gymnopédies: No. 3, Lent et grave
Erik Satie
19. 6 Gnossiennes: No. 5, Modéré
Erik Satie
20. 5 Nocturnes: No. 2, Simplement
Erik Satie
21. Sports et divertissements: No. 17, Le tango perpétuel
Erik Satie
22. Perpetual Tango
John Cage
23. 6 Gnossiennes: No. 6, Avec conviction et avec une tristesse rigoureuse
Erik Satie
24. 3 Sarabandes: No. 3 in B-Flat Minor
Erik Satie
25. 6 Pièces de la période 1906-1913: No. 6, Songe-creux
Erik Satie
26. Le fils des étoiles: Prélude du premier acte. La vocation
Erik Satie
27. Gnossienne No. 7
Erik Satie
28. Three Pages in the Shape of a Pear (In Celebration of Erik Satie)
James Tenney
29. Dream
John Cage
