Piano marathon

Vexations by Erik Satie

A number of pianists take on the challenge of Erik Satie’s iconic piano work Vexations in a marathon concert that can last up to 24 hours. An unmissable chance to experience one of the great works of conceptual musical art and to share in Satie’s mysterious musical communion.

The idea comes from this year’s Festival musician, Leif Ove Andsnes:

“I'm very pleased that the Festival has agreed to this major project, and I'm looking forward to it. Vexations was a typical Satie project, where he created a provocation, and it may well be a comment on the length of works in German music, such as Wagner's operas. At the time, however, Satie was also deeply interested in mysticism and esoteric ideas,” says Leif Ove Andsnes.

In the mid 1890s, Satie wrote one of the longest works in musical history on a single piece of music manuscript paper. Vexations, for which no particular instrument is specified (but it was surely intended for piano), asks its performer to repeat a single musical phrase 840 times. Satie advised musicians to prepare for it using ‘the deepest silence.’

“The work can be seen as a precursor to minimalism and meditative music. It is beautiful music and has the potential to become a sensory, powerful experience. Perhaps, after all the repetitions, one enters a particular mode of listening or state of mind. The music is likely to be experienced quite differently the 20th time one hears it than the first. For me, this will be the first time experiencing the work, both as a performer and as a listener, and I am very curious to see what kind of atmosphere it will create,” says the Festival musician.

Vexations is both a statement and a challenge – a test of endurance and an invitation to audiences to consider the meditative, intellectual and cognitive effects of repeating the same stretch of ambiguous music over time and space. The total duration of the 840 repetitions depends on the pianists’ tempo, and the process usually takes between 18 and 24 hours.

In this performance, a relay of pianists, including students from Bergen’s Prof. Jiri Hlinka Piano Academy and Leif Ove Andsnes, will perform the work in relay with audiences invited to drop in on the performance throughout the day and following night.

Photo: Thor Brødreskift

Music

• Erik Satie (1866–1925)
  Vexations

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