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LP
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GODREC 074LP
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$24.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/15/2025
GOD Records presents its first release from the controversial composer with cult status, Erik Satie. He influenced not only the entire musical language of John Cage but also an entire generation of 20th and 21st century composers, whose influence remains noticeable today. This unique release presents two of his rather obscure and lesser-known, but unique pieces, both composed for visual arts: a movie ("Cinéma") and a ballet ("Uspud"). Renowned Serbian piano player Branka Parlić, famous for her interpretations not only of Satie's works but also of other minimal composers like Philip Glass and Gavin Bryars, shares some of her impressions about the pieces: "'Cinema' is the first example of music scored explicitly for film, frame-by-frame. These facts really interested me, so I started working on it. So far, I have performed 'Cinema' live-to-film Entr'acte many times as part of my concerts. 'Uspud' is a less communicative three-act Christian ballet written for a shadow play back in 1892. This timeless, mystical work drew me in on the first reading, and I was delighted to work on it. Satie offered this piece to the director of the Paris Opera, and after he was rejected, he declared: 'I believe in the appearance of 'Uspud' at the Opera for the winter of 1927, or no later than 1943.' The meaning of the word 'Uspud' is still not fully clarified."
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CD
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AP 116CD
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"Pianist, conductor, arranger and composer Bruno Fontaine is the perfect example of a 21st century artist. This collection features a broad selection of Satie's piano works. The Gymnopédies represent an important precursor to modern ambient music. Satie's Nocturnes were his final works for solo piano and are considered among his most significant achievements in the genre. The Gnossiennes are a highly experimental form invented by the composer. Also included are the Avant-dernières pensées, the Pièces froides and Petits Chorals."
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CD
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SR 294CD
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Erik Satie's 1893 Vexations; performed by pianist Stephane Ginsburgh. This piece is musique d'ameublement -- literally, "furniture music," the phrase coined by Satie in 1917, where he identifies sound as drapes, tiling, wallpaper -- items belonging to the environment and changing it simply by being in it, by actually becoming elements of the space. This recording is the second installment in a series of furniture music (after Marcel Duchamp's Musical Erratum), and is unique in that it calls for 840 repetitions of a single motif. John Cale recalls a particularly grueling 1963 performance under the direction of John Cage: "Between 9 and 10 September 1963, I was one of a relay team of pianists, under the direction of John Cage, who played Vexations by Eric Satie at Pocket Theatre, 100 Third Avenue near 13th Street, in 18 hours and 40 minutes. The 180 notes of this 80-second work were played 840 times. The whole thing was John Cage's idea. The admission was $5, but members of the audience got a refund of five cents per 20 minutes, and those who stayed to the bitter end got a 20 cent bonus." Had Satie envisioned playing the piece? Who knows. Neither do we know if Duchamp's Erratum musical was meant to be executed. What can be said, however, is that when played in its entirety, Vexations inevitably becomes a performance for both players and listeners. An experience in repetition -- repetition without the slightest variation, except for the unavoidable tempo shifts that occur over such a lengthy performance, alterations in how the piano keys are hit, in other words, everything that falls within the realm of the mechanically involuntary. What would you say about a ritornello that lasts between 18 and 24 hours? Includes a 16-page booklet containing the essay "Cage's Place In The Reception Of Satie" by Matthew Shlomowitz.
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