https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Playlist
If we asked him to appoint our favorite French composer from the end of the 19th or early 20th century, most of us would reach Erik Satie directly, can only remind us His most famous piecesTHE Gymnopedia And maybe the Gnossian. We may not know that this work all date from the same years of his career between the end of the eighteen years and the early 90s. They also represent only a small part of his artistic production, which includes a large part of instrumental and vocal music as well as compositions for dramatic works, written between 1886 and his death in 1925-whose hundredth anniversary is celebrated with the recording of newly discovered pieces.
Like the TutorDalya Alberge writesThese “twenty-seven incredible works of Erik Satie, songs of playful cabaret with minimalist nocturnes” were “carefully reconstructed from hundreds of small notebooks”, most of them wrote “in the Bohemiens of Montmartre in Paria where Satie worked as a pianist”.
Their rediscovery owes the efforts of two composers, James Nye and Sato Matsui, who “found the equipment lost in various archive collections, including the National Library of France”. They have now been recorded by pianist Alexandre Tharaud, and you can hear the resulting album, Satie: DiscoveriesIn The YouTube Playlist at the top of the post.
Famous in his native France and elsewhere, the professional participation of Tharaud in the work of his predecessor and estimated Countryman dates back at least 2009, when he organized a satie day at the Music of Paris of the Cité de la. That same year, he recorded the 1915 Satie compositions Penaltyor “penultimate thoughts. Once rejected as a minor, even by the composer enthusiasts, the Penalty have since increased by status to become some of his subsequent works that are most often interpreted. With the 27 short pieces that constitute DiscoveryTharaud's challenge was not to find a new reinterpretation, but the very first interpretation that we will have ever heard, leaving the next century of pianists to put their own tricks.
Related content:
How Erik Satie's “furniture music” was designed to be ignored and paved the way for ambient music
John Cale du Velvet Underground plays Erik Satie's vexations on I Got A Secret (1963)
Based in Seoul, Colin MArshall Written and broadcastTS on cities, language and culture. His projects include the substack newsletter Books on cities And the book The stateless city: a walk through Los Angeles from the 21st century. Follow it on the social network formerly known as Twitter in @ColinmArshall.

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