Ikiru Plays Satie

Introducing: Fragments, a new annual invitation from Deutsche Grammophon for twelve leading electronic artists to respond to a single composer. From ambient music to conceptual art, minimalism to rock, Satie’s music made its mark. Who better, then, to be the first figure explored in Fragments. With one single released each month, Fragments gradually builds over the course of a year, creating a portrait for the 21st century.

One might have thought that Satie's charmingly eccentric and obscurely evocative piano music would fit the French piano duo Katia and Marielle Labèque, like a silk chemise, but this disc of his most popular pieces for piano two-hands and piano four-hands is their first recording of any of his works.

Jan Vogler's new album was recorded in a small studio in New York. He teamed with the fantastic Finnish guitarist Ismo Eskelinen for this recording. ''Songbook'' presents partly pieces originally written for cello and guitar such as 3 Nocturnes by Friedrich Burgmüller (1806-1874) and the first movement of the Sonata for Guitar and Cello by Brazilian composer Radames Gnattali (1906-1988). ''Songbook'' also features several famous works in arrangements for guitar and cello: Cantabile by Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840), the Gymnopedie No. 1 by Erik Satie (1866-1925), the Suite Popular Espanola by Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) as well as the famous Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras by the most famous South American composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959).

A cult record if there ever was one, Patrick Cohen’s Satie goes far beyond any one of the many versions of this music on the market. It is simply something else. Possibly the best CD Glossa has ever produced, it has provoked controversies of all sorts since its release in 1998, not only due to the interpretation and the instrument used, an 1855 Érard piano, but also because of the polemical essay which accompanies the recording.

Camino is guitarist Sean Shibe’s first PENTATONE album, an introspective programme exploring French-Spanish musical borders, a pilgrimage leading from Ravel’s Pavane pour une Infante défunte, Satie’s Gymnopédie No.1 and Gnossiennes 1 and 3, Poulenc’s Sarabande, De Falla’s Miller’s Dance and Homaje, pour le Tombeau de Debussy and José’s Pavana triste all the way to Mompou’s Cançons i dansas 6 and 10, as well as his Suite compostelana. Shibe has deliberately granted Mompou a central role on this album, as his music demonstrates that melancholy, aimlessness and a whole host of other feelings are not things to be avoided or fixed or solved, but experiences to be felt deeply: not with sad nostalgia, but with genuine wonder and excitement at what this means for the future. In that respect, Camino also documents Shibe’s personal quest to overcome the challenges of a time dominated by Covid-19, and to ultimately see the world anew.

Comme l’ont dit nombre de musicologues, la musique de Satie se caractérise par un ésotérisme subtil teinté d’une pointe d’humour et de mysticisme. C’est une musique par ailleurs absolument novatrice et audacieuse, sans emphase, à la sensibilité discrète, naïve et raffinée. Une musique étrange et sans effets de virtuosité, venue d’ailleurs et suspendue au temps comme dans le Gymnopédies et les Gnossiennes. Satie, suivant son humilité naturelle, possède l’art de simplifier le trait mélodique. L’interprétation de J.N.Barbier est en tout point remarquable et fait de ce CD un petit joyau.