Satie: Gnossiennes; Ogives; Petite ouverture a danser; Sarabandes; Gymnopedies. Reinbert de Leeuw (piano). Philips, 446 672-2 (66 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1531
Erik Satie (1866-1925) is one of the oddest figures in the history of music. His work, mostly miniature in scale, is still generally more highly regarded for its influence (on figures as diverse as Debussy, Ravel, Varese and Cage) as for its intrinsic merit. As a man, he was eccentric in the extreme. He once used part of a legacy, for instance, to buy 12 identical grey velvet suits. He dallied with mysticism (in the 1890s he was official composer to a Parisian Rosicrucian sect). And in his 40s he attempted to make up for his deficiencies as a young music student by enrolling at the Schola Cantorum for classes in counterpoint, fugue and orchestration. Add to all of this the jokiness of some of Satie's music, his fondness for strange titles and implausible instructions/commentaries for the performer, and it's not hard to see why the composer of so much apparently simple music should remain controversial.
Reinbert de Leeuw's new disc is a Satie collection with a difference. It concentrates on early work - the Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes are probably the composer's best known pieces much of it almost ritualistically repetitive. The feeling of ritual is heightened by De Leeuw's musical approach, which is unusually muted, soft of articulation, round and sustained of tone. It's at times almost as if he's seeking to emulate a gently speaking organ stop. The tempos are extraordinarily slow, the sensitivity to harmony and the balancing of chords unfailingly exact.
If Satie is to be taken on Ravel's estimation as a "precursor both brilliant and clumsy", De Leeuw seems to be presenting the case that he was not so much a precursor of Debussy, Ravel or even Poulenc, but rather Morton Feldman. A thoroughly fascinating point of view, captured in playing of engaging intimacy.
Lutoslawski: Concerto for Orchestra; Musique finebre; Mi-parti. BBC Philharnionic/Yan Pascal Tortelier. Chandos, CHAN 9421(54 mins)
Dial a track code: 1641
Each of the three pieces on Chandos's new Lutoslawski CD represents different aspects of the composer's output. The Musique funebre in memory of Bartok, was the piece which brought Lutoslawski to international attention. It was written in 1958, after the relaxation of cultural policy in Poland had freed him to engage with the technique of 12 note composition. The somewhat earlier and more directly Bartok influenced Concerto for Orchestra was written in the early 1950s, when the employment of folk material was an official obligation for Polish composers; it has become Lutoslawski's most frequently heard orchestral work. Mi parti of 1976 is the most representative piece, employing the "limited aleatoricism" which was the outcome of the composer's encounter with the chance procedures of John Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra.
The Chandos recordings with the BBC Philharmonic under Yan Pascal Tortelier are in the best tradition of the label's house style, full bodied and atmospheric, emulating concert hall perspectives rather than recording studio clarity. The performances have warmth, too, and carry something of the spontaneity of a live event.
Wilhelm Kempff Centenary reissues
The centenary of the birth of the German pianist Wilhelm Kempff fell late last year and Deutsche Grammophon have marked the occasion with a number of reissues including some rare recordings from the 1949s (Mozart's D minor and Beethoven's C minor Concertos on 447 976 2, 73 mins, Dial-a-track code: 1751), and 1950s (Brahms's D minor Concerto and Handel Variations on 447 978-2, 70 mins, Dial-a-track code: 1861; Schumann's Fantasy in C and Symphonic Studies on 447 977-2, 54 mins, Dial-a-track code: 1971).
The Kempff heard here sounds sometimes not so much a virtuoso as an anti virtuoso. Peter Cosse's sleeve notes accurately characterise the earliest playing as "delicate, ethereal". The quality on the other discs is more mixed in spite of the superior sound. The Brahms variations and Schumann studies are both rewarding, but the orchestral playing in the Brahms concerto is regrettably underpowered and the Schumann Fantasy at times sounds too much of a struggle.
