Satie: Gymnopédie No. 3

Claire Chevallier plays the music of Erik Satie on a period Erard Piano

Chevallier has gained many plaudits for her recordings with Jos van Immerseel and Anima Eterna, including the BBC Music Magazine Award nominated recording of Ravel’s Piano Concerto for Left Hand.

A genuinely new approach to these popular works.

Claire Chevallier writes in the sleevenote:

Jean Cocteau said of Satie (whom he saw every morning for a long period of his life): ‘He inherited a grave eccentricity from his Scottish ancestry. . . . Egotistical, cruel, obsessive, he would listen to nothing that did not conform to his dogma and would fly into furious rages with anything that disturbed it. Egotistical, because he thought only of his music. Cruel, because he defended his music. Obsessive, because he polished his music. And his music was tender. And so he was, too, in his own way. . . . He cleaned himself with pumice stone. He never used water. At a time when music surged forth in floods, recognising Debussy’s genius but fearful of his despotism (they remained on friendly but quarrelsome terms right up to the end), he turned his back on the latter’s school and became, at the Schola Cantorum, the odd sort of Socrates we knew. ‘There he pumiced, defied, smoothed himself, and forged the little orifice through which his exquisite force needed only to flow from its source.’

When I chanced on this passage from Cocteau shortly after the recording, I felt this text summed up my impressions of those few days in front of the microphones when I had played Satie on my 1905 Érard. This superb piano regulated to cope with high volume and works that ‘surge forth in floods’ (such as Ravel’s Concerto for the left hand, ZZT060901) offered me the rich sonority of a cathedral on legs (especially for Les Sonneries de la Rose+Croix and the Ogives), but thereby showed me what Satie had resisted: it showed me in practice the paradox I required for his music. This paradox nourished each note of an inner universe equivalent to Satie’s egotistical, cruel, obsessive struggle to reach a goal of which he remains the sole master universe were opening up before me. In fact, all this music requires a total reduction of resources, a knifeedge playing style, a refusal of effect, and the most touching thing is that this leads us to Cocteau’s extraordinary conclusion: Satie’s music is tender. But it is a tenderness of an almost indecipherable purity . . .‘Precious’, as Satie would have said . . . Claire Chevallier - 10 May 2008

From the poetry of Debussy to the nostalgia of Ravel, from the humour of Satie to the insouciance of Poulenc, the French music of the early decades of the twentieth century was created by fine minds capable of grasping delicate nuances, infinite variations of light on the natural world and the human soul. From the gentlest im pressionism to the most outrageous surrealism, the pathways of French music are many and varied - and immensely colourful.

Dedicated to the memory of Brigitte Engerer.

As the 19th century faded and the 20th century began, something special was in the air: the scent of decadence mingled with the thrill of the new.

Moving from Romanticism to Modernism, creative spirits welcomed diverse influences – some of them exotic – and introduced new textures and colours to their work. Whether first heard in Paris, Vienna or London, the music of the Belle Époque was typically sensuous, elegant and perfumed – and full of subtle delights.

Produced by EMI Classics in partnership with the prestigious National Gallery in London, The National Gallery Collection is a budget-price catalogue series bringing together the very best in fine art and classical music.

The collection features a selection of classical masterworks in celebrated recordings from the EMI Classics catalogue, brought together with great artworks from The National Gallery’s permanent collection.

Erik Satie (1866-1924) was one of music's most unconventional characters. After two unsuccessful periods of study at the Paris Conservatoire he moved to Montmartre, earning a living as a composer and café pianist in an establishment that was frequented by the artistic community. He soon became friends with many of the literary and artistic names of the time, including Debussy and Ravel.

The first disc in this collection of Satie's works starts with what are his two most popular pieces, here in Debussy's 1897 arrangements for orchestra. There follows two of Satie's best-known ballet scores, Parade and Relâche and the disc ends with the lesser-known Mercure and Messe des pauvres, a curious piece for organ and choir.

The second disc is made up of a good selection of songs, including two versions of the quintessentially French song Je te veux, and ends with two short instrumental pieces.

"No more committed or convincing champion of this music could be found than Ciccolini, who equally well conveys, for example, the tenderness of the fifth Gnossienne, the pre-Poulenc pert humour and charm of the Morceaux en forme de poire and the frenetic gaiety of the ‘Grande ritournelle’ of La Belle excentrique." Gramophone Magazine

EMI MASTERS celebrates the full glory of the greatest performances from the world's greatest catalogue of recorded music. Digitally remastered at Abbey Road Studios direct from the original master tapes, these classic recordings emerge with unparalleled immediacy. You will be left in no doubt that you are in the presence of legendary musicians and ageless interpretations.