Satie: Piano Works

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Product description ------------------- Satie : 3 Gnossiennes - 3 Gymnopédies - Descriptions automatiques - Embryons desséchés - Chapitres tournés en tous sens - 6 Pièces de la période - Croquis et Agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois - Enfantillages pittoresques - Passacaille - Menus propos enfantins - Véritables Préludes flasques - Rag-Time Parade (arr. H. Ourdine) / Klára Körmendi, piano .co.uk ------ The music on this album is drawn from the four volumes of the complete piano music of Erik Satie performed by the Hungarian pianist Klara Kormendi. Recorded at the Italian Institute in Budapest, the small acoustic is eminently suited to this music, while Kormendi plays with considerable assurance, if lacking just a little of the fluid fantasy Satie really demands. Given that there are 36 pieces on the disc, it is clear that these are miniatures, and what elegantly crafted miniatures they are. Occupying a place in French piano music between the refined lyricism of Fauré and the spare impressionism of Debussy, these works have a beguiling gem-like perfection and lightness of touch. Satie, who studied with d'Indy and Roussel, sets out to charm with deceptively simple, ingenious compositions, often a subtle twinkle in his eye. His nonsensical titles and performance directions appear as a joking defence of a famously insecure man, uncertain of his standing besides Ravel and Stravinsky--who once described the composer as "the oddest person he had ever known"--but also the most "consistently witty". The composer's best-known pieces, the lovely three Gymnopédies, are beautifully presented, yet all the music here really has immense appeal. --Gary S. Dalkin