{"id":745,"date":"2012-08-19T06:05:52","date_gmt":"2012-08-19T06:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/?p=745"},"modified":"2014-04-01T08:42:16","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T08:42:16","slug":"piano-saties-vexations-berkeley-arts-festival-sat-8-sep-8pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/19\/piano-saties-vexations-berkeley-arts-festival-sat-8-sep-8pm\/","title":{"rendered":"Piano: Satie’s Vexations @Berkeley Arts Festival (Sat 8 Sep, event opens 6pm, Lasqo @ 8pm)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Erik Satie<\/p><\/div>\n

840 trips through the hypnotic harmonic labyrinth of Satie’s Vexations<\/em><\/strong> over approx. 21 hours.<\/p>\n

Beginning at 6pm on Sat 8 Sep at Berkeley Arts Festival<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (<\/em><\/strong>2133 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA<\/a>)<\/em><\/strong>, and ending approx. 3pm the next day on Sun 9 Sep, free admission.<\/p>\n

Don’t even ask what happens if you lose count of the repetitions!<\/p>\n

I’ll have the honor of following the great Hadley McCarroll<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, coming on at 8pm<\/span> on Sat 8 Sep<\/span><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Composer, Rosicrucian, Dadaist, cabaret pianist, socialist, and founder\/prophet\/sole member of L’\u00c9glise M\u00e9tropolitaine d’Art de J\u00e9sus Conducteur<\/strong> (Metropolitan Church of Art of Jesus the Conductor<\/em>), <\/em>Satie remains a Rashomon of personae.<\/p>\n

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Le jeune Satie<\/p><\/div>\n

Whether playing pop at the Chat Noir<\/em><\/strong> cabaret; discussing compositional theory with Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc or Milhaud (later of Mills College…); or working and playing with artists like Cocteau, Diaghilev, Picasso, Bracque, Tristan Tzara, Andr\u00e9 Breton, and Man Ray; Satie always drifted serenely at the cross-roads of irreconcilable contradictions and could never be fit into a coherent frame.<\/p>\n

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La maison de Satie \u00e0 Arcueil<\/p><\/div>\n

Over the course of his 27 years in his final residence at the “House with Four Chimneys” at Arcueil, no one had ever visited his room. After his death, Satie’s friends discovered compositions that were totally unknown or thought to have been lost. These were found behind the piano, in the pockets of his velvet suits, and in other odd places in the chaotic, disordered space, and included the Vexations<\/em><\/strong> [1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Never performed (or even mentioned) in Satie’s lifetime, the Vexations<\/em><\/strong> were revived by John Cage, leading to a premiere by an incredible team of pianists including Cage, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, John Cale, David Del Tredici, and others in 1963. (After the 840th repetition, someone in the audience shouted, \u201cEncore!\u201d…)<\/p>\n

Causing strong hallucinations and failure to complete the performance to some pianists who have dared to try playing the piece alone, this endless ocean of mesmerizing unsettled waves is a pioneering work of minimalisme avant la lettre<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Tr\u00e8s lent... pli selon pli...<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite a score that’s only one page long, its strikingly eccentric and impractical enharmonic notation, ambiguous playing directions, refusal to resolve into any tonality, and, of course, unorthodox duration, make the piece challenging to play and remember, demanding a highly attentive trance state which is then aurally transmitted to the audience.<\/p>\n

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Satie \u00e0 l'harmonium - dessin de Santiago Rusi\u00f1ol<\/p><\/div>\n

As enigmatic as was Satie himself, the Vexations<\/em><\/strong> have been variously analyzed as a post-traumatic reaction to the end of his only known love affair (with Suzanne Valadon) or a secret numerological theology.<\/p>\n

The flat-5<\/strong> interval so prominent in the piece was traditionally known as the “Devil in music<\/strong>“; the piece unfolds in “inauspicious” 13<\/strong>-beat cycles; the number of notes in the manuscript, 108<\/strong>, is the product of 1-to-the-first x 2-squared x 3-cubed; and the number of repetitions, 840<\/strong>, is the product of all the numbers between 4 and 7\u2026 Coincidence\u2026.? Trail of red herrings\u2026? “In-joke”\u2026? If not, what meaning does this hold in any of the cultic systems that Satie participated in or devised?<\/p>\n

The only thing to do in response is come and hear<\/strong> a part (or\u2026 if you dare\u2026 ALL!<\/strong>) of this unique Bay Area performance, organized by indefatigable pianist Patti Deuter.<\/p>\n

I’ll update as time slots finalize, but as of now, here’s the piano team bringing this unique experience to your ears (in alphabetical order with start time):<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Sarah Cahill<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 1pm, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Luciano\u00a0Chessa<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 2am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Luciano\u00a0Chessa<\/strong><\/a> and\/or Joseph\u00a0Colombo<\/strong><\/a>\/Patti Deuter<\/strong>\/<\/strong>Joe\u00a0Lasqo<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/strong> <\/strong><\/strong>\u2014\u00a0 6am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Jacqueline Chew<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 noon, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Joseph Colombo<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 10pm, Sat 8 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Patti Deuter<\/strong> \u2014\u00a0 3am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Jim Jowdy<\/strong> \u2014 \u00a0midnight, Sat\/Sun 8\/9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Jerry Kuderna<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 6pm, Sat 8 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/span> Joe Lasqo<\/strong><\/a><\/span> \u2014\u00a0 8pm, Sat 8 Sep<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Dominique Leone<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 11am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Ric Louchard<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 1am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Hadley McCarroll<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 7pm, Sat 8 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Kanoko Nishi (<\/strong>\u897f<\/strong>\u9e7f\u4e43\u5b50)<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 5am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Roger Rohrbach<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 4am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Regina Schaffer<\/strong><\/a> \u2014 \u00a08am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Melissa Smith<\/strong><\/a> \u2014 \u00a09am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Julie Steinberg<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 11pm, Sat 8 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Anton\u00a0Vishio<\/a> \u2014 7am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Kelly Walker<\/strong> \u2014 \u00a010am, Sun 9 Sep<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Kelsey Walsh<\/strong><\/a> \u2014\u00a0 9pm, Sat 8 Sep<\/p>\n

I’m honored to join with these stellar pianists and looking forward to being sucked in to the abyss of Satie’s enigmatic Vexations<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

...or\u2026 if you dare\u2026 ALL!<\/p><\/div>\n

Come join us on our journey beyond normal consciousness\u2026<\/p>\n

Joe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

840 trips through the hypnotic harmonic labyrinth of Satie’s Vexations over approx. 21 hours. Beginning at 6pm on Sat 8 Sep at Berkeley Arts Festival (2133 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA), and ending approx. 3pm the next day on Sun 9 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745"}],"version-history":[{"count":55,"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":747,"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions\/747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joelasqo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}