Erik Satie - Vexations

Описание: “There seems to be no reason why these chords might not continue for hours.” This sentence was printed in a critical essay published in 1919 (The Musical Quarterly Vol. 5, No. 4), implying that Satie was not a real artist, for his music had no formal structure. Today, no one denies the value of Satie’s work. But still the critic got something right: these chords really can go on for hours. Actually, maybe they should, as Satie stated in the score of Vexations, where there’s a weird indication for the pianist to prepare – in silence and immobility – if they intend to play the piece 840 times in a row.

So… is this piece supposed to be played 840 times? Is this an instruction or a joke? Maybe both. With Satie, we never know. The joke might be on the pianist, for either taking it seriously or not; the joke might be on the public, for expecting european music to be always so formal and polite; the joke is surely on Satie, for he was heartbroken at the time; and the joke is definitely on the critic, for Satie had already composed his Vexations, but hadn’t yet published it, when the quoted essay was written. So maybe we should simply get lost in these cyclic harmonies and enjoy a laugh together.

Here I present a short version of Vexations, played twice. The practical joke of playing it 840 times would result in a 21 hours long video, extrapolating YouTube's lenght limit by 9 hours (and resulting in a massive file, since the audio alone would be around 20 Gb). However, I intend to post a vexatiously long version in the future.

Anyway, thanks for watching! Let me know your thoughts on Satie and his Vexations in the comments.


This track:
Vexations (1893 [1949])

Composer:
Erik Satie (1866 – 1925)

Performance:
L. Sierakowski

Visual content:
Portrait of Erik Satie (1893), by Suzanne Valadon (by the way, Suzanne was the woman for whom Satie was heartbroken at the time).