Unearthed manuscripts reveal a new side of the eccentric French composer, brought to life by pianist Alexandre Tharaud in a recording of previously unheard works
A century after the death of Erik Satie, 27 never-before heard works are released to the public for the first time. The landmark digital album, Satie: Discoveries, performed by acclaimed pianist Alexandre Tharaud, is now available on Erato, just days ahead of the centenary of Satie’s death on 1 July 1925.
Erik Satie
The collection sheds new light on one of music’s most enigmatic figures. Reconstructed from forgotten manuscripts and unfinished sketches, these pieces, ranging from playful cabaret songs to minimalist nocturnes, were originally written by Satie for performance in the bohemian cafés of Montmartre, where he worked as a pianist in the late nineteenth century.
The album is the result of painstaking musicological research by Sato Matsui, a Japanese composer and violinist, and James Nye, a British musicologist and composer. The duo independently tracked down lost materials in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and a private archive in Boston, piecing together and reconstructing Satie’s sketches into fully performable scores. Some of these are to be published by Éditions de la Fabrique Musique.
Among the newly discovered gems are pieces in the same free, minimalist style of Satie’s Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes (for example, Réflexions nocturnes and Autour du 1st Nocturne). Other works draw on familiar dance styles, (including several Parisian Valses), the café-concert song and operetta arias (‘Le Champagne’, ‘Pousse l’amour’ and ‘Chanson andalouse’).
Further pieces reveal a more experimental Satie, such as the Esquisses bitonales (Bitonal Sketches) or the Soupirs fanés (Faded Sighs), a collection of miniatures with evocative titles such as ‘Poil’ (Hair), ‘Barbouillage’ (Daubings), ‘Familial désespoir’ (Domestic Despair) and ‘Souvenirs fadasses (Dusty Memories).
Though most of the tracks feature pianist Alexandre Tharaud performing solo, three also feature the acclaimed Serbian violinist Nemanja Radulović. Radulović’s violin takes on the role of the singer in a mélodie and two cabaret songs where the lyrics are now lost.
In addition to these 27 world-premiere recordings, two already familiar pieces are included: the hypnotic ‘Chinese Conjuror’ from the ballet Parade, for piano four hands with Gautier Capuçon, and the ‘Chanson andalouse’, originally intended for the never-performed operetta Pousse l’amour. The ‘Cancan Grand-Mondain’ (High-Society Cancan) from La Belle Excentrique is recorded here in a new version for solo piano by Tharaud himself.
Alexandre Tharaud said of the album: “Satie remains very much an enigmatic figure today, held in enormous regard at the same time as being largely misunderstood and almost unknown…it is up to us to look beyond the Gnosiennes and the Gymnopédies, to try our sincere best to get closer to the music and to pay real attention.”
Satie: Discoveries is out now on Erato on all streaming services
If patience is a virtue, then it could be coined a female trait. Hildegard von Bingen waited 900 years for a resurgence of interest in her music. Fortunately for Agathe Backer Grøndahl, it was only a century before she was honoured with a republica-tion and urtext edition of 2 of her piano cycles. The albums, Fantasistykker (Fantasy Pieces) Op. 39 and I Blaafjellet (In the Blue Mountains) Op. 44 have been re-issued, thanks to the work of pianist and editor Christian Grøvlen and Faber Music for Edition Peters.
Grøvlen, Director of Music at the Composer’s Homes for Kode, has been promoting the works with a flurry of concerts showcasing these sparkling bright new albums whilst championing one of Norway’s greatest pianists and folklorist composers. So it was on a cold February night, that I was fortunate to attend an event at the beautiful home of the Norwegian Ambassador’s residence in Kensington, London. Outside the velvet winter sky contrasted with the pale luminosity glowing from drawing room windows, as musicians, publishers and journalists alike, were welcomed into the warmth.
The audience were transported to a world of Nordic magic in a setting that provided the perfect backdrop for the poetry of Norwegian landscapes encap-sulated by the visual reminder of paintings of fjords that hung on the walls. Grøvlen elicited both curiosity and laughter from the audience as he regaled with insightful anecdotes from the composer’s life and performed with a lyrical intensity.
Of special interest was his comparison of Grøndahl’s style to her colleague and passionate advocate and supporter, Edvard Grieg. Grøvlen deftly demonstrated similarities and differences between the two composers with musical cadences summarising their respective characters. Grøndahl’s music hinted at a subtler darker enigmatic underworld, more mysterious in harmonic complexity.
Grøvlen traced a link between Grøndhal, her envrironment and relations to her sis-ter Harriet Backer’s paintings which include many intimate scenes of music making often featuring Grøndahl at the piano. The exhibition last year at the Musee d’ Orsay of Harriet’s work was entitled “Music of Colour”. This evening could have been entitled an exhibition, “Sounds of Light and Shade” as tone painting and hints of impressionism within Grondahl’s music were displayed. Also explained was the influence of the poetry of Vilhelm Krag (1871-1933), noted for his symbolism, melancholy and connections to nature. This resonated with what I knew of Grøndahl’s own life. Krag explored the melancholic side of the human mind and within Grondahl’s music there is this Nordic melancholy – her music often filled with an inexplicable darkness, despite the light that shines from within. An artist who struggled with depression and ill health, music was her refuge. Music, she wrote, helped her forget slush and rain, encouraging her to daydream instead. “There are no feelings or passions which it cannot create, arouse to the highest degree of randomness, you can cry or rage, be gripped by the most excited enthusiasm and feel more wretched and humble than the felon in chains.”
Yet whilst I was filled with pride to see the music about which I had written and talked celebrated in brand new print, the beautiful cream pages bound by a cover surrounded by the distinctive spring green border of Edition Peters, I left feeling frustrated. Yes, it is time her music is made approachable with worthy inclusions of smart title pages, credits and contents, academic preface and full scale portaits of Grøndahl in modest flowing dress, and cap. Yet despite all this, I couldn’t stem the mild irritation that here again sympathy was portrayed for a woman and what more she might have achieved were she a man?
Agathe Backer Grøndahl.
Here a woman was glimpsed through the 21st-century lens of expectations of what was missing, rather than seeing what was remarkably there burning bright in her own time. Presented by Grøvlen was an artist described as restrained, yet look deeper and a new picture emerges. Here after all is a woman who, as I wanted to yell from my seat, wrote a dawn chorus for the suffragette movement, who did indeed write and perform with and for orchestras and promoted herself despite the required modesty of the time. Why was that not mentioned? Here is a human who showed inconceivable will power pushing through boundaries to a life that was hard won for a woman of her era. Agathe Backer Grøndahl may have been “aggravatingly modest” as her era demanded, but she was also a woman whose bravery and courage took her to Europe as a young lady with a black jack truncheon in her pocket to protect herself from any angry or rowdy soldiers as pianist and recording artist of Grøndahl’s works, Sara Aimee Smiseth has pointed out. Look hard enough and what emerges is not the picture of a retiring wallflower chained unwillingly to a kitchen sink, but that of an exceptional artist fighting to follow her own creative path whilst fulfilling a role as mother and wife.
If you adjust the lens in the other direction another perspective emerges. Our gen-eration may be frustrated by the ideals of 19th-century decorum, but it was precisely the women’s salons of history where arts, celebrated in domestic settings, played an essential role in the flourishing of cultural traditions through the centuries. It was often in salon settings that the latest ideas were carried on chatter through windows out to the larger world. By virtue of Grøndahl’s career as a mother, musician and teacher firmly rooted to Nordic soil, she also had first hand access to her beloved folk music. Grøndahl more than Grieg transcribed these melodies, preserving them for future generations of male and female artists.
It is her work at home as a much-loved teacher and pianist that helped keep her name alive whilst raising standards of music in Norway.
Grøndahl may not have had the compositional career benefits of male gender, but in her own words to Bernard Shaw it is this “experience as a wife and mother that makes her an artist.”
Perhaps Grøndahl with all of her 400 songs and piano pieces wisely understood that it is by composing “salon miniatures” – the music of everyday inner details – and by experiencing the intricacies of life that her art will travel more feasibly than an epic sonata of grandiose ideas played by the few. Just as valuable as the giant sweeping brush strokes are the small yet miraculous details to be shared amongst generations of musicians at home as well as in the concert hall.
Whilst we celebrate the wonderful work of Edition Peters for replacing overcrowded print of antiquated editions and marching them into the clarity of the elegantly printed realm, let us also celebrate the achievements of a remarkable woman. Let us hope her story will not slip through the cracks of history.
Grøndahl brought to life the inner landscape of the soul. Perhaps this scattering of musical seeds will in the long run bear more fruit? I hope at least these informative editions will do much to contribute to hearing Grøndhal’s music, in the words of Vilhelm Krag, “grow beyond the frost of iron”.
Eva Maria Doroszkowska is an international pianist and teacher
It’s hard to believe Alfred Brendel has died at the age of 94. He’s been a part of my musical landscape since I was a teenager, when my mother, who was an admirer of Brendel in concert and on LP, bought me an Edition Peters copy of Schubert’s Impromptus and Moments Musicaux to learn – music which has remained central to my own piano journey for over 40 years.
A highly regarded pianist whose performances and recordings of the core of the classical canon – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt – are considered amongst the finest, Brendel retired from the concert platform in 2008 to focus on writing and lecturing. In addition to his impeccable, tasteful playing, his erudite and engaging writing on composers, music and the exigencies of the pianist’s life is intelligent and considered, the result of a lifetime spent in music.
What follows is just a handful of quotes from Alfred Brendel which offer some useful food for thought for musicians of all ages, whether amateur, student or professional.
If I belong to a tradition, it is a tradition that makes the masterpiece tell the performer what to do, and not the performer telling the piece what it should be like or the composer what he ought to have written.”
Brendel interviewed on the BBC
Fidelity to and respect of the score are the fundamentals of learning and performing music.
The score is the performer’s “road map”, with “signposts” to guide tempo, mood, expression, articulation, dynamics. These markings are also the composer’s personal “signs”, indicating and illuminating how he/she envisaged the music. At a simplistic level, these markings tell us “how to play the notes”, and we ignore them at our peril. Sometimes we have to make considered judgements in order to balance fidelity to the score with, for example, the possibilities offered by the modern instrument; such judgements are based on musical knowledge and experience. So while adherence to the score is fundamental, equally it is not the composer’s last word, as it were, and the score thus provides a jumping off point for interpretation, allowing the performer to bring their own personality and experience to the music and create performances which offer insights into the music while also remaining faithful to the text.
Brendel’s quote is also an important reminder to keep the ego in check when we play, so as not to obscure the music.
Recordings…have helped me to be better aware of my playing, to control it and listen to it more precisely
Here Brendel is talking about listening to his own recordings. Recordings are a very useful tool in practising, offering the musician an opportunity for self-critique, reflection and adjustment. And returning to recordings after a period of time, perhaps years in the case of Brendel, can also be enlightening as they offer a snapshot of where one was in one’s musical development/career and an opportunity to consider how one’s playing may have matured over time.
It should not be the purpose of listening to a number of recordings of a piece to observe what others have done and then play it differently to all of them because it’s me! The other end is to copy a performance that one loves as much as possible – one can learn from it….The most important source of performance is still the score.
Listening to recordings by others of the music you are working on is another useful practice tool, offering ideas about presentation, tempo, articulation and interpretation. As Brendel says, we should not seek to copy the great performers – imitation can sound contrived and artificial and anyway no one could truly imitate great pianists like Cortot or Argerich, for example. Equally, we should not seek to be different for the sake of our ego, but rather seek to be authentic and honest in our approach to and performance of the music. This also, neatly, comes back to Brendel’s comment about the importance of fidelity to the score and placing oneself at the service of the composer and the music, not one’s own ego.
This article first appeared on the Interlude.hk site, in an earlier version
The 88-key piano looks to be headed for a major transformation in the coming decades. The mechanism under the lid is based on a 130-year-old design and many specialists believe it is time to dispense with those delicate moving parts. As innovative Australian piano builder Wayne Stuart says, “The piano has been crying out for a rethink for over a hundred years.”
Stuart may have it right. The behemoth that once adorned middle-class salons East and West is already in steep decline.
In the long term, it looks doomed. Owners often complain these pianos occupy too much space and nobody wants to take them away – not even for free. Only three piano makers survive in the United States compared to dozens just a few years ago. Some 80 percent of piano production is now in China, mostly for the Chinese market.
The trends are downward because of declining interest in piano study in Western cultures and competition from a dizzying array of digital devices that attract our young. These gadgets require no practice time, no studying and – most importantly – no waiting. As Jean-François Dichamp of the Barcelona Superior School of Music told me recently, “Learning to interpret music demands a lot of time and maturity. It seems the new generations are not prepared for this kind of patience.”
The “acoustic” piano, sometimes known as the 88-tooth monster, is threatened from another direction, even more pressing. New electronic models – the virtual pianos –storming in from Asia are undercutting the classic piano in price and performance with digital or hybrid keyboards that feel and sound just about right. Young players love them. Yamaha, Casio, Guangzhou Pearl River, Samick, KORG, Kawai and others are competing in this transition period. Some concert pianists travel with their favorite electronic keyboard for a quiet run-through in their hotel room before a concert.
Schools and institutions, the bread-and-butter market for the industry, are showing a preference for the low cost and easy maintenance of digital systems. Sales projections are for electronic keyboards to exceed a million units worldwide annually within two years. Steinway, the market leader in acoustics, says it can produce only about 3,000 units a year.
The clunky, heavy, expensive classic piano, critics argue, may eventually end up in a museum by late in this century, displayed as beautiful furniture.
Before that happens, the acoustic piano still has some potential to change and improve. Paris musicologist and pianist Ziad Kreidy recently collected views from twelve piano builders around the world and found that most are “not satisfied with the status quo”. Ironically, they consider that the market dominance of Steinway “unfairly stopped historical evolution”. In his recent book “Keys to the Piano” (Editions Aedam Musicae) Kreidy notes that a few innovative builders who have survived Steinway’s aggressive commercial strategies aspire to offer “new possibilities for musicians, to widen acoustic horizons, to exceed Steinway and its competitors”.
German piano builder David Klavins says, for example, that new materials such as carbon fibre offer “significantly better options. In his experience, he told Kreidy, “I have discovered that virtually every aspect of the acoustic piano can be improved remarkably when and if builders begin to think outside the box…”
There is much conflicting data, however, with market forces pushing in opposite directions. But research indicates pressures are building for a “rethink” along Stuart’s and Klavins’ lines. Stuart has just delivered his first 112-key export to an amateur American pianist.
Piano innovation has a long history. When Franz Liszt joined forces with his French friend Sebastien Erard to introduce the last major improvement, the double-action piano that became the world standard in the 1770s, European music-lovers were at first stunned, then thrilled. Rapid repetition of single notes was suddenly possible. People by the thousands traveled to concert halls to hear the great Liszt demonstrate the new musical fireworks that Erard had enabled.
Liszt was the rock star of the 18th century. He roamed around Europe with his new Erard on loan, prompting some proper ladies in his audiences to faint in ecstasy as he exploited the piano’s new potential. Other players quickly followed Liszt’s example.
But it was nearly 100 years later that Heinrich Steinway industrialized the production of his improved version, and his heirs still rule the piano world today, standardized and robotized in construction. Nearly all recent improvements have been cosmetic, however, lacking any “rethink” of any consequence.
The Steinway influence has not been entirely positive. Critics such as Stuart refer to the brand as “Stoneway” for its innovation lethargy. The latest new thing is the best Steinway can manage – the Spirio. Aggressively marketed, it seems to be a toy for the very rich Chinese, delivering high-resolution recordings of leading pianists’ performances to run on a player piano in private homes. But who wants Lang Lang in their living room? Will a hologram of the Chinese showman be the next step? The technology is there.
(Image Steinway & Sons)
To be sure, most leading pianists roll out their Steinways onstage and are satisfied once the tuner wrests the strings into shape. But often at intermission, after just an hour of Chopin or Rachmaninov, the strings need further attention from a tuner as the audience looks on.
Other brands struggle to maintain smaller share of the market in Steinway’s shadow. Each has its personality, measurable in tiny advantages. Boesendorfer, Bechstein, Fazioli, Grotrian, Sauter, Shigeru Kawai, Steingraeber and Yamaha all claim to be the best. The American aphorism applies : Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.
This century will almost certainly produce a new look, feel and technology for pianos – ones we are only beginning to imagine. Experiments have already appeared on the market. Klavins’ creation is seeking $6 million investment for development of his striking Model 408. Its mission, he says, is to “eliminate each and all acoustic and technological shortcomings that are associated with traditional grand pianos, including Steinway”. Fazioli builds futuristic designs custom-made for billionaires. Boesendorfer builds a 92-key “Imperial” known as the world’s most expensive piano at about $180,000. It has never caught on.
Other innovations can be found here and there. Bigger keyboards with additional octaves, sounds that will rattle your teeth, micro-tonalities that make your head swim, electronic expansions that imitate entire orchestras – or useful things like canned laughter, stormy applause and even gunshots.
More innovation is coming just over the horizon. French piano builder Stephen Paulello, a retired pioneer in innovative design, has commercialized his Opus 102 model that offers an keyboard of 102 keys. Soon he will launch a 108-key version, equal to that of Wayne Stuart’s world first, his Big Beleura.
Pianist Ashley Hribar, at the Big Beleura Australian keyboard (above) has released a CD featuring revisions of Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and his own Paganini Variations, among others. A listener will be surprised by the sonic range of the 108-key instrument. Ears are bound to perk up.
He and other pianists who have tried this model say they cannot imagine returning to the standard 88-key model. In this clip, Hribar calls on the deep bass and high treble to enhance “Fingerbreaker”, the Jelly Roll Morton classic.
This is not to say the world has fallen out of love with the classic piano, whatever its limitations. No instrument comes close to producing such a range of sound, loud or soft, to convey the beauty of music.
Can an estimated 60 million young Chinese students be wrong? They are studying and mastering Western piano music on the classic design. And international piano competitions now exceed 750 worldwide, attracting Asians and Europeans as well as a few Americans. Conservatories such as Curtis and Juilliard are thriving on the influx of talented fee-paying Asian students.
Leading players help keep seats filled in concert halls by staging dramatic performances in short skirts, low tops, high heels, and – for the men – eye makeup and acrobatic writhing, hair flicks and in Lang Lang’s case, the occasional wink at the house. Audiences are divided between love and hate for these excesses.
Contemporary composers are eager to contribute ideas to these experimental keyboards. A leader in this world, Prof. Kyle Gann of Bard Collage in the United States, says you must listen to his micro-tonality work over and over again to appreciate what a piano can do. His instrument uses computer technology to simulate more than 300 keys. A sample of his ethereal creations can he heard in his recent album “Hyperchromatica” which I have tested repeatedly to let it sank in. As one listener writes in the comments section of the CD, “The more you listen, the more coherent it gets.”
We are lucky to be alive as the piano undergoes this metamorphosis. It will be an unsettling, disturbing period, just as it was for Christofori, Erard and Heinrich Steinway who dared to rethink the instrument in the 18th and 19th and 20th centuries.
Now it’s our century. Now it’s our turn.
MICHAEL JOHNSONis a music critic and writer with a particular interest in piano. He has worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his journalism career. He covered European technology for Business Week for five years, and served nine years as chief editor of International Management magazine and was chief editor of the French technology weekly 01 Informatique. He also spent four years as Moscow correspondent of The Associated Press. He is a regular contributor to International Piano magazine, and is the author of five books.Michael Johnson is based in Bordeaux, France. Besides English and French he is also fluent in Russian.He is a regular reviewer for this site’s sister site ArtMuseLondon.com.
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