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Rating: * * * * *
Verdict: Cool and quirky delights from an eccentric French master.
There was a time when it was difficult to escape Satie's Gymnopedies. These artless little waltzes seemed the perfect ambient background for everything from television advertisements to lift music.
Alexandre Tharaud's new two-CD set, Avant-Dernieres Pensees, proves there is so much more to the eccentric Monsieur Satie (1866-1925). The French pianist gives us just one of the Gymnopedies, soulfully played, but includes all of the more gnarly Gnossiennes.
The first disc of this handsome Harmonia Mundi release, which comes complete with a 74-page booklet, lays out 42 of the piano miniatures. These bite-sized morceaux never allow us to forget that here was a composer given to asking his pianist to "play like a nightingale with toothache"; a maverick muso who titled his works Dried-Up Embryos and Automatic Descriptions.
Tharaud deals out Satie's surrealism with style, from tongue-in-cheek Chopin quotes to final cadences that go on and on ... and then some. There are pieces which poke fun at precious Debussian soundscapes and others which take sides with the acerbic Stravinsky.
A 93-second gem is the jaunty cakewalk of Le Piccadilly. With the seven instalments of Medusa's Trap, the unwary might suspect a few pages of music have slipped between the strings when, in fact, Satie is pre-empting the prepared piano of John Cage.
On the second disc, Eric Le Sage joins Tharaud for various duets including the famously titled Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear and violinist Isabelle Faust takes a break from more strenuous concerto repertoire to take part in wistful fugues and fantasies.
Particularly welcome are a range of Satie's songs, especially those sung by cabaret chanteuse Juliette. She brings a touch of Piaf to the charming waltz of Je te veux and the medical examination in At the Doctor's is nothing more than Left Bank Gilbert and Sullivan.
- William Dart
