Search - Erik Satie, Reinbert de Leeuw, Marjanne Kweksilber :: Satie: Piano Music; Mélodies [includes DVD]

Desert-island Satie

Steve Peters | Seattle, WA | 04/15/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"There are tons of recordings of Satie's solo piano music, too many of which sound like they were cranked out for use as bland wallpaper music in massage studios. Among the more reputable recordings are those from the 70s by Aldo Ciccolini, Frank Glazer, and Reinbert de Leeuw. Ciccolini's are perhaps the most popular, due to his efforts to record pretty much the entire Satie catalog. While I admire his dedication, I find his approach a bit too peppy, as if he's always worried about boring us. On the other hand, de Leeuw's glacial tempos are definitely not to everyone's taste, but I love it. He digs beneath Satie's wacky surface and finds the sublime clarity in this deceptively simple music, playing the spaces between the notes as much as the notes themselves. (If the slow motion idea puts you off, go for the Glazer, which is also lovely.)



This 3-CD boxed set - packaged in a square cardboard album with each disc in its own plastic-lined paper sleeve - brings together all three of de Leeuw's recordings of the early piano works, as well as his wonderful recording of Satie's songs with soprano Marjanne Kweksilber. As far as I know this is the first CD release of the latter, which has been unavailable for years. Great to finally have it back in print! Satie's songs are truly gems, closer to cabaret chansons than stuffy "lieder." There are a few jaunty numbers, but most of them share the mystical lucidity and spaciousness of the Gnossiennes and Gymnopédies, a simple melodic line with minimal accompaniment - notes hanging in mid-air. They have been recorded infrequently, usually bludgeoned by operatic singers with too much technique. Kweksilber brings a subdued, almost folky/early music rendering to these fragile songs that is just right. The "3 Melodies of 1886" and "Hymne" are stunningly beautiful. So between the songs and the piano solos, this could be considered a fairly definitive collection.



The special bonus here is the DVD. This 50-minute Canadian production is more contemporary dance film than historical bio-pic, with de Leeuw's solo recordings choreographed by Cirque du Soleil's Debra Brown for members of the company, some of whom are skilled contortionists as well as dancers. It's a fanciful scenario in which Satie, nursing his melancholy in the café Chat Noir on a dark and stormy night, encounters his ex-lover, the painter (and ex-trapeze artist) Suzanne Valadon. Punctuated by occasional voice-over drawn from Satie's writings, the absinthe-swilling cafe denizens go through a series of beautifully choreographed dances that are perfectly evocative of Satie's eccentricity and the whimsical proto-Surrealist hijinks of the Banquet Years.



The only disappointment is the accompanying booklet (text in English, French, and German). There is a decent character sketch of Satie and some background on the love story with Valadon, but information about the music itself is almost entirely absent. Not even the years of composition are listed, never mind the lyrics to the songs or who wrote them; most of the songs give a last name only, while others give no author credit at all. The original LP of the songs included all of that plus an informative essay that are all definitely missed here, as this aspect of Satie's work is so little-known. Some info on the "Satie & Suzanne" film beyond the basic credits would also have been welcome. It's a shame they didn't add just a few more pages to include any of that. This unfortunate oversight is the only thing that prevents me from giving this a 5-star rating."