And now we have Nicolas Horvath playing Cosima Wagner's 1881 Erard Grand (the make of piano that Satie favored) for Volume One of the Complete Piano Works in the new corrected Salabert Edition of 2016 in its World Premier recording (Grand Piano 761). The Glazer version is the most middle-of-the-road in its clean depiction of the scores, the Ciccolini is the must sparkling and impressionistic version, the van Veen is the more radically iconoclastic of all of them, featuring very slow, sensuously beautiful versions of the lyric masterworks and adventurous readings of the other works.
And so what of Horvath's new set? Of the Volume One? The Erard gives us a sort of pale, brittle vulnerability to the lyric works, most of which are a part of Volume One. We get Gnossiennes, Gymnopedies, Sarabands, the "Sonneries de la Rose Croix" and other gems both very familiar and less so.
Horvath's interpretations are meant to be faithful to Satie's vision and as such they are not spectacularly slow or fast, not extrovertedly dashing so much as concentrated.
The Salabert Edition corrects the numerous errors that crept into the printed versions of the works, some because Satie did not proofread the printed galleys as carefully as he might, and others for whatever reason. I cannot say that my well-accustomed Satie ears perked up and lead me to a pronounced "wow" at any particular point in my listening, but nonetheless it is always a good thing to get the music closer to what Satie intended.
The wealth of lyric pieces combined into the First Volume along with the sterling interpretations make this an excellent place to start for anyone who does not know Satie well. For the cognoscenti this new set promises to be another offering of finely poetic interpretations that completists or enthusiasts will want to have.
Strongly recommended.
To me is one of the worst recording (and of course performance) ever done for Satie's music. Horrible.
ReplyDeleteThank you bibo. You are entitled to your own opinion. I get a little suspicious when someone responds in such an extreme manner to a disk that seems like the opposite of "horrible." What is motivating you? Never mind, I actually do not care. I've always avoided making public extreme negativity when an artist has done his or her best. It mostly calls attention to the reviewer and serves no other purpose in the end, to me. But, as I said, you are entitled to express your opinion. Thanks.
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