Early Piano Works (Disc 1)  (73:30)
	01	Gnossienne No. 1						05:42
	02	Gnossienne No. 2						03:09
	03	Gnossienne No. 3						04:24
	04	Gnossienne No. 4						03:06
	05	Gnossienne No. 5						03:27
	06	Gnossienne No. 6						02:32
	07	Petite ouverture a danser						02:24
	08	Prelude de "La porte heroique du ciel"						05:42
	09	Danses gothiques						13:38
	10	Ogive No. 1						02:54
	11	Ogive No. 2						04:06
	12	Ogive No. 3						02:44
	13	Ogive No. 4						03:44
	14	Gymnopedie No. 1						06:02
	15	Gymnopedie No. 2						05:03
	16	Gymnopedie No. 3						04:53
Early Piano Works (Disc 2)  (69:06)
	01	Sarabande No. 1						06:52
	02	Sarabande No. 2						07:25
	03	Sarabande No. 3						06:10
	04	Air de l'Ordre						05:13
	05	Air du Grand Maitre						06:10
	06	Air du Grand Prieur						03:53
	07	Airs a faire fuir - I						03:41
	08	Airs a faire fuir - II						01:52
	09	Airs a faire fuir - III						03:48
	10	Danse de travers - I						01:44
	11	Danse de travers - II						01:27
	12	Danse de travers - III						02:25
	13	Priere						01:43
	14	Fete donnee par des Chevaliers Normands en l'Honneur d'une je						04:19
	15	Prelude d'Eginhard						02:21
	16	Prelude du Nazareen 1						05:27
	17	Prelude du Nazareen 2						04:36

Reinbert de Leeuw is a triple-threat artist, internationally known as a conductor, composer, and keyboard player. He studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory, taking piano and music theory with Jaap Spaanderman, while also learning composition with Kees van Baaren in The Hague. In 1963 he became a member of the faculty of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.

He has been a political activist, and he jointly composed (with Peter Schat, Jan van Vlijmen, Mischa Mengelberg, and Louis Andriessen) an anti-imperialism multimedia opera called Reconstruction, given at the Holland Festival in 1969. He has published a book with J. Bernlef on U.S. composer Charles E. Ives. He also composed a symphonic work called Abschied, and Hymns and Chorales for two electric guitars, 15 winds, and electronic organ.

He has a special interest in the music of Erik Satie. His piano interpretations of Satie's piano music, played intensely and more slowly than usual, have been recorded on the Philips label, and for the 1973 and 1974 Holland Festivals collaborated with the Contemporary Dance Foundation of Koert Stuyf and Ellen Edinoff on productions featuring music of Satie. He appeared performing the music for the film Satie and Suzanne — The Passion of a Lifetime, a filmed dance performance by Veronica Tannent. As an essayist he is known for articles in the Dutch magazine De Gids under the collective title Musical Anarchy.



Erik Satie was an important French composer from the generation of Debussy. Best remembered for several groups of piano pieces, including Trois Gymnopedies (1888), Trois Sarabandes (1887) and Trois Gnossiennes (1890), he was championed by Jean Cocteau and helped create the famous group of French composers, Les Six, which was fashioned after his artistic ideal of simplicity in the extreme. Some have viewed certain of his stylistic traits as components of Impressionism, but his harmonies and melodies have relatively little in common with the characteristics of that school. Much of his music has a subdued character, and its charm comes through in its directness and its lack of allegiance to any one aesthetic. Often his melodies are melancholy and hesitant, his moods exotic or humorous, and his compositions as a whole, or their several constituent episodes, short. He was a musical maverick who probably influenced Debussy and did influence Ravel, who freely acknowledged as much. After Satie's second period of study, he began turning more serious in his compositions, eventually producing his inspiring cantata, Socrate, considered by many his greatest work and clearly demonstrating a previously unexhibited agility. In his last decade he turned out several ballets, including Parade and Relache, indicating his growing predilection for program and theater music. Satie was also a pianist of some ability.

As a child Erik Satie showed interest in music and began taking piano lessons from a local church organist, named Vinot. While he progressed during this period, he showed no unusual gifts. In 1879 he enrolled in the Paris Conservatory, where he studied under Descombe (piano) and Lavignac (solfeggio), but failed to meet minimum requirements and was expelled in 1882. Satie departed Paris on November 15, 1886, to join the infantry in Arras, but he found military life distasteful and intentionally courted illness to relieve himself of duty. That same year his first works were published: Elegie, Trois Melodies, and Chanson.

The years following his military service formed a bohemian period in Satie's life, the most significant events of which would be the beginnings of his friendship with Debussy, his exposure to eastern music at the Paris World Exhibition, and his association with a number of philosophical and religious organizations (most notably the Rosicrucian Brotherhood).

In 1905 he decided to resume musical study, enrolling in the conservative and controversial Schola Cantorum, run by Vincent d'Indy. His music took on a more academic and rigorous quality, and also began to exhibit the dry wit that would become hallmarks of his style. Many of his compositions received odd titles, especially after 1910, such as Dried up embryos and Three real flabby preludes (for a dog). Some of his works also featured odd instructions for the performer, not intended to be taken seriously, as in his 1893 piano work, Vexations, which carries the admonition in the score, "To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities."

In 1925 Satie developed pleurisy and his fragile health worsened. He was taken to St. Joseph Hospital, where he lived on for several months. He received the last rites of the Catholic Church in his final days, and died on July 1, 1925.


Work(s) Overview
by "Blue Gene" Tyranny
Satie's music, in sound and aesthetics, was fundamentally different from the prevailing nineteenth century German school that prized ideals of continuity and development. It is music as sound per se (Musique d'ameublement, i.e., "Furniture Music" or "Music for Furnishing," 1920). In Musiques intimes et secretes ("Intimate and Secret Music") and the famous "Vexations" from Pages mystiques (1892 - 1895), Satie describes the conceptual nature of human mental activity and then requires the performers to experience and scrutinize, simultaneously, the exact moments of shifting psychological states. "Vexations" is a short musical passage of neutral feeling (augmented and diminished chords) repeated 840 times very slowly. Satie emphasizes natural and spontaneous mentation apart from "ideas" in The Dreaming Fish, Heures seculaires et instantanees ("Ordinary and Snapshot Times"), and Veritables preludes flasques — pour un chien ("Authentic Flabby Preludes — for a Dog"). Ironic titles and commentaries poke fun at pomposity, as in Le duc de Connaught et le President aux manoeuvers ("The Duke of Connaught and the President on Maneuvers") and Enfantines ("Infantile Pieces," 1913 which go by such titles as "The Bean-King's War Chant"; "Importune Peccadillos, I"; "Being Jealous of His Comrade with the Big Head, II"; "Him Eat His Cookie, III"; and "Taking Advantage of His Corns to Steal His Hoop"). Satie's religious feeling was of a mystical, pre-clerical kind, expressed in works such as Premiere pensee Rose + Croix ("First Rosey Thought + Cross," 1891, French word play on "Rosicrucians"); the beautiful and compassionate Messe des Pauvres ("Mass for the Poor," 1893 - 1895); and the moving Socrate (1918) on the death of Socrates and based on texts by Plato. Satie invented many musical techniques — the use of whole-tone scales, chords built in fourths, pattern melodies, unresolved "dissonances" used for their value as sounds, "open" large forms without contrasting or developing sections, and others. Perhaps more important, he was the first conceptual composer.






Gnossiennes (6), for piano

Composition Description by Meredith Gailey
Erik Satie, a quirky, pioneering man, revealed his true nature in his six Gnossiennes for piano. The first three were written when he was in his early twenties and show his lighter, comical side, only slightly alluding to a period of deep mysticism which was to follow. The title of Satie's Gnossiennes has baffled interpreters. Some believe it is a reference to a gnostic doctrine, others see it as an insinuation to the ancient palace of Knossos (home of the Minotaur and of Ariadne) and the stately Cretan figures endlessly circling the dark pottery there. Whatever purpose the title serves, it is without a doubt that the Rumanian music at the Universal Exposition of Paris of 1889 greatly influenced the life of these works. The following yearSatie was influenced even more when he encountered Josephin Peladan and the sect of the Rose Croix.

The Gnossiennes stand out from Satie's other compositions in three fundamental ways: they are considered to be one of two priceless testimonies from his youth; they are the first compositions in modern musical history written in bar-less notation; and they are the first of his works to contain his famous witty instructions and indications. Neo-classical in style, they are each made up of a single mutable rhythmic and harmonic idea that passes through a series of subtle changes. The unusual notations that Satie wrote (Debussy later followed this trend) appear at length throughout the entire work. In the first piece he instructs the player to perform "monotonously and whitely," "very shiningly," and "from afar." The pianist is also told to "ask insistently within yourself," "arm yourself with clairvoyance," "advice yourself carefully," and to "dig into the sound," while playing "with great kindness" and moving "step by step." They do contain repetitive modally-based melodies, which when paralleled with their chordal accompaniments, foreshadow Satie's interest in religious chant and monody that later developed into an obsession.

In 1968, three new Gnossiennes (4, 5, and 6), were published. They are thought to have been composed after the publication of the first group, which are by far the superior of the six and more popularly chosen for recording. The original Gnossiennes (1, 2, and 3), were orchestrated by Lachberry, the remaining three by Robert Caby. Bearing slight similarities to his Gymnopedies and Sarabandes, Satie's Gnossiennes concisely display his early abilities and his authentic character.


Gnossienne, for piano No.1
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Composer

Erik Satie

Genre

Music for Keyboard

Work Type

Keyboard Work with Descriptive or Unclassified Title

Composition Date

1890

Average Duration

03:40

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Composition Description by Jeremy Grimshaw
Although in character they often maintain a low profile, the piano works of Erik Satie in many ways presage some of the most pervasive musical ideas in the twentieth century, from the syncopations and melodic contours of jazz to the chordal oscillations of pop to the harmonic stasis of minimalism. At the heart of each of his piano miniatures is a streamlined texture and economy of means that induce an acute expressive focus, one that, as those who play his works will attest, contradict the characterizations of emotional detachment and austerity that are often associated with Satie and his French followers. On the contrary, as demonstrated by the first of his series of Gnossiennes for solo piano, Satie's use of reduced means heightens and exaggerates the arc of his melodies and the mood of his textures. Gnossienne No. 1 was composed in 1890, when the composer was still in his mid-twenties. The piece may seem rather unrevolutionary to modern ears, but when considered in the context of high romanticism and early expressionism, the piece's Spartan elegance is remarkable. The contours of the simple melody, which mysteriously meanders within an unusual kind of minor mode, are subtly highlighted with vaguely Eastern-sounding grace note articulations, while the left hand maintains a drowsy tonic chord accompaniment. This rather gray palette sets in greater contrast the two most notable features: the shifts from the tonic to the subdominant chord — which, in traditional tonal practice, would be a rather weak move, but weighs more heavily under these circumstances; and the appearance of a new melodic idea, which ascends through the mode in a more directed fashion, peaking on the strident-sounding sharped-fourth scale degree that sets the mode apart. The piece's interest thus relies not on changes of color, but subtle variations in the intensity of hue.




Gnossienne, for piano No.2
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Composer

Erik Satie

Genre

Music for Keyboard

Work Type

Keyboard Work with Descriptive or Unclassified Title

Composition Date

1890

Average Duration

02:00

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Composition Description by James Leonard
Satie's second Gnossienne (Knosos Dance) has many things in common with his first Gnossienne. Both lack bar lines, although both are clearly in common time; both have dragging rhythms, although the second has a slightly different dragging rhythm than the first; both have melancholy modal melodies with sighing grace notes, but the second's melody incorporates the grace notes into the triplet rhythm of its descending line. Unlike the first Gnossienne, the second Gnossienne has no key signature, but it is still clearly in a modal version of E minor. Also unlike the first, the second has crescendo and diminuendo markings, but it does have the same obscure expression markings.

The second Gnossienne begins with a melody marked Avec etonnement (With astonishment) starting on a rising suspended tonic over the mediant minor, slipping to a rising suspended sixth over the flattened supertonic major, and then settling on a natural fifth over the tonic minor. The second statement of the melody, marked No sortez pas (Don't Go Out), begins with the same rising phrases, but drops past the modally flat fourth to the flat second above a diminished triad on the modally flat leading tone. The second melody begins on the same second and flattened fourth above the diminished triad, but rises through a crescendo to the fifth above the tonic. The second melody is repeated with the expression marking Dans une grande bonte (With a great kindness), but ends with a sustained fourth above the major subdominant. This harmony continues through the start of the third melody, marked Plus intimement (More intimately), decorated with sharp fourths and sevenths that lead the third melody first to the sharp supertonic major and then to the flat supertonic major. The second statement of the third melody leads through the sharp supertonic major and the flat supertonic major to the diminished triad. The second melody returns on the diminished triad, first marked Avec sur legere intimite (With slight intimacy), and then Sans orgueil (Without pride). The second statement of the second melody first ends with the same major subdominant as before, then with the major submediant before the final return of the first melody sinking through the minor mediant and the major flat supertonic to the pianissimo sustained tonic.



Gnossienne, for piano No.3
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Composer

Erik Satie

Genre

Music for Keyboard

Work Type

Keyboard Work with Descriptive or Unclassified Title

Composition Date

1890

Average Duration

02:40

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Composition Description by Jeremy Grimshaw
Despite his reputation as an enigmatic musical revolutionary, Erik Satie's small, intimate piano works are among his most familiar and best-loved compositions. This is not to say that they are not revolutionary in their own way; indeed, proceeding further along in the direction of, say, Schubert's distinctive piano miniatures, Satie's keyboard music often uses spare, concentrated musical materials to evoke a single mood or glimpse, but with remarkable precision of emotional nuance. The third of Satie's Gnossiennes, which appeared in 1890, bears out this characterization well. Its restrained pace, triple meter, and slow harmonic motion reflect all attention to the unfolding of the piece's slow, sinuous modal melody, the angularity and chromaticism of which carry the piece into unexpected modulations and conflicted harmonic fields. The initial mood and modal character bear close resemblance to the Gnossienne No. 1 from the same collection, but the more adventurous melodies of No. 3 carry the piece much further from the stable harmonic base that remained constant in the first Gnossienne. There is a distinct air of exoticism and mystery in the piece, one that is enhanced by Satie's characteristically cryptic title. The actual meaning of the word "Gnossienne," however, is under dispute. On the one hand, some believe the term to be related to "gnosis" — a reference of some sort to the Gnostic aspects of the Rosicrucian movement, with which Satie was affiliated to some degree. On the other hand, the term may refer to the maidens of the castle of Knossos, the ancient city in Crete. According to legend, it was the home of the mythical Minotuar, who roamed the halls of the labyrinth, and which, just at the time of Satie's earliest compositions, had been discovered and was being excavated. Certainly, the colorful chromatic twists and harmonic tangents of the piece can be heard, according to one theory, as a musical evocation of the crane dance that was performed outside the labyrinth. Still, despite the dispute over the "real meaning" behind the piece and the vague exoticism of the music it exudes, the piece is unambiguous in its emotional deliberation and focused, lucid expressivity.



Ogives (4), for piano
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Composer

Erik Satie

Genre

Music for Keyboard

Work Type

Coll. of Character/Single-Movement/Misc. Works for Keyb.

Composition Date

1886

Average Duration

09:40

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Composition Description by alexander carpenter
"Ogive" is an architectural term, referring to the shape of a gothic arch. In this case it designates a set of four untitled pieces for piano, each of which bears a different dedication. The first is dedicated to J. P. Contamine de Latour, the second to Charles Levade, the third to Madame Clement Le Breton, and the fourth to Conrad Satie. These are some of Satie's very shortest compositions — a mere four lines each — and, like many of Satie's other pieces from this time, have they neither bar lines nor time signatures.

Ogives is among Satie's earliest works, composed in the same year as the Trois Melodies and just a year or so before the Trois Sarabandes and the famous Trois Gymnopedies. Ogives shares with these other pieces Satie's distinctive modal melodies and their concomitant tonal ambiguity; their similarity to the sound and contour of Gregorian chant melodies evokes a neo-medieval aesthetic. These four short pieces exemplify Satie's early style nicely, but they also contain stylistic elements destined to reappear in his later works.











Gymnopedies (3), for piano (also orchestrated by Debussy)
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Composer

Erik Satie

Genre

Music for Keyboard

Work Type

Coll. of Character/Single-Movement/Misc. Works for Keyb.

Composition Date

1888

Average Duration

08:10

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Composition Description by Alexander Carpenter
Though much of Satie's music remains little known beyond the ranks of devoted connoisseurs, the three Gymnopedies (1888) for piano are instantly familiar. Indeed, Satie no doubt would have been amused by the range and absurdity of the contexts in which they have since been presented, from ballet scores to jazz-rock fusion arrangements to commercials for mundane consumer products. Debussy was very fond of these pieces — his orchestrations of the first and third likely exceed the popularity of the original version — and even Satie's critics grudgingly admired them. One of the composer's contemporaries famously remarked that these little pieces "seemed to have been written by a savage with taste."

The etymology of the title is important, and its significance is a source of some debate amongst scholars and critics. Though Satie insisted that the work was inspired by the writings of novelist Gustav Flaubert, "Gymnopedies" rather suggests Ancient Greece. Gymnopedia festivals, held in honor of warriors felled in battle, consisted of naked youths dancing and miming wrestling and boxing poses. As Satie scholar Eric Gillmor has noted, the composer had some knowledge of the Greek language and history by way of involuntary training in Greek as a boy. As with most of Satie's music, so steeped in satire and enigma, it is in the end difficult to make a connection between the Gymnopedies and their source of inspiration.

The Gymnopedies follow closely on the heels of the Sarabandes of 1887, which, Satie and his apologists insisted, marked a turning point in the history of French music. The Sarabandes, with their modal, plainchant-like melodies and static harmony comprised of unresolved chains of seventh chords, were a decidedly anti-Wagnerian statement in 1887, when the musical life of Paris was dominated by the German composer's works and admirers. As though a direct rebellion against the bombast of Wagnerian music drama, Satie composed the Sarabandes, described by the composer's friend Roland-Manuel as possessing "a sonorous magic of complete originality."

The same might be said of the Gymnopedies; they are certainly works of "sonorous magic" and share many of the musical traits of their predecessors. At the same time, they are somewhat more organic than the Sarabandes; the three pieces essentially explore a single idea, albeit each from a slightly altered perspective. This, according to Gillmor, betrays the influence of cubism on the work. Like the Sarabandes, only more so, the Gymnopedies "are one piece written three times — cast in the same mold as it were, but with the most subtle variations in phrasing, harmonic coloring, and balancing of part." The simple modal melodies are repeated with slight variations, while successions of seventh and ninth chords provide a gentle, colorful underpinning whose "sonorous magic" mitigates its dissonance. Each of the three pieces has a tonal center, in each case unstable, merely hinted at and encircled by the undulating harmonic shifts. Satie eschews melodic development in favor of repetition and juxtaposition of melodic elements, which, together with the static harmonic language, lend the work its characteristic dreamy quality.



Gymnopedie for piano No.1
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Composer

Erik Satie

Genre

Music for Keyboard

Work Type

Keyboard Work with Descriptive or Unclassified Title

Composition Date

1888

Average Duration

03:20

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Composition Description by Blair Johnston
One imagines that Erik Satie — a man who wrote an absurd autobiography detailing his day's activities down to the minute, a man whose apartment was filled with dozens and dozens of umbrellas at the time of his death, a man who had the notion to compose "wallpaper music," music meant to be absolutely ignored by the audience — might be tickled to death to know that his best-known pieces, the Gymnopedie and the Gnossiennes for solo piano, are now recognized by thousands upon thousands the world over. They are heard in soundtracks, over restaurant speakers (something to which they are admirably suited, considering that their composer worked as a cafe pianist). Very few people, however, know anything at all of the eccentric subtitles and indications that Satie wrote on his scores. The first of the three Gymnopedie, for instance, is a "Spartan dance of naked youths and men" (rather a tame description by comparison with some of Satie's others).

The three Gymnopedie were composed during 1888; No. 1 is marked Lent et douloureux (slow and mournfully). Its steady 3/4 meter music falls into to nearly identical halves, with an accompaniment that sets up a regular rhythm (short-long, short-long) in the first bars and then veers from that rhythm only at the very end of each half. Atop this gently swaying background is a melody of the most peculiarly expressive kind; its quarter notes are translucent, its longer notes somehow hollow at their center (but not cold). The end of the second half is made to spin around a low E pedal (the dissonance of the F naturals above the pedal is absolutely empty — there is, amazingly, almost no harmonic tension to it, and the pianist is well advised not to overlay any) before winding down to a glasslike modal cadence. Love it or hate it (and there are countless on both sides), only Satie could have written this piece.



Gymnopedie for piano No.3
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Composer

Erik Satie

Genre

Music for Keyboard

Work Type

Keyboard Work with Descriptive or Unclassified Title

Composition Date

1888

Average Duration

03:00

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Composition Description by Blair Johnston
Written during the late 1880s while he was working as a cabaret pianist in Paris, Erik Satie's Trois gymnopedies (3 Gymnopedies) are famous pieces, recognizable to countless shoppers and restaurant-goers who have never heard of Satie (the use of the music as background-sound is something of which Satie would have wholly approved). The third of the Gymnopedies, Lent et grave (slowly and solemnly), has achieved further fame as an orchestral work, having been orchestrated, along with the first, by Claude Debussy about ten years after Satie first composed it. It is in the Gymnopedies that Satie first revealed the unique and unusual style that would make him famous (or infamous) in European musical circles: simple but occasionally unexpected chords in the left hand, and a simple but curvaceous melody in the right — and nothing else. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Satie was considered either an ingenious innovator and satirist or an untrained, even incompetent, charlatan, depending on whom one asked; and the debate still rages today. But, one way or the other, it is difficult not to like a piece such as the third Gymnopedie, when played as it was meant to be played — as a simple, straightforward piece of stylized texture. The quiet, long, A minor lines and repetitive (even hypnotic, in a good pianist's hands) accompaniment rhythm conjure up an idealized ancient Greek atmosphere (explicitly suggested by the word "gymnopedie") and transport the listener straight into the bizarre, personalized world of Satie's craft.














Sarabandes (3) for piano
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Composer

Erik Satie

Genre

Music for Keyboard

Work Type

Sarabande for Keyboard

Composition Date

1887

Average Duration

14:10

Corrections to this Entry?

Composition Description by Alexander Carpenter
The Trois Sarabandes for piano number among Satie's best known "trinitarian" piano works, including the Trois Gymnopedies, and the Trois Gnossiennes. In 1916 Satie's good friend Roland-Manuel described the Sarabandes thus: "these Sarabandes mark a date in the evolution of our music: here are three short pieces of an unprecedented harmonic technique, born of an entirely new aesthetic, which create a unique atmosphere, a sonorous magic of complete originality." Certainly this is true of much of Satie's early music, but especially the Sarabandes. These three pieces introduced a number of Satie techniques that would typify his early style, including the use of modes, and unresolved dissonances.

It has been suggested that the Sarabandes were directly influenced by Gustav Chabrier's opera Le Roi malgre lui, which Satie heard for the first time mere months before the appearance of the Sarabandes. Satie was no doubt taken by Chabrier's liberal use of seventh and ninth chords; however, as musicologist Alan Gillmor has noted, while Chabrier used these chords for color within an otherwise tonal context, Satie, in a sense, emancipated these chords, creating chains of "unresolved dissonances." Even though these pieces retain key signatures and nominal tonal centers, there is a sense of tonality being suspended as modal, plainchant-like melodies combined with evocative but non-functional diatonic harmonies.

Satie's music is often described as forward-looking, and indeed much of his music, some of the ballets in particular, clearly anticipate major movements in art and music, including Dadaism, Cubism, and Surrealism, by many years. In the case of the Sarabandes, one could perhaps extend this argument, and look forward 20 years to the music of Schoenberg, who insisted on the "emancipation of the dissonance" in the early years of the twentieth century. While Satie's Sarabandes are by no means atonal, in Gillmor's words, their music "comes very near to denying the constraining demands of the functional tonal system."