Satie Vexations 3 in Monaco: the 24 hours non stop performance !

here the complete performance in a time-lapse video 

Still part of the Vexations4Japan tour i organised, the Monaco performance was also the very first time that i did a "long" version. By long version i mean more than 20 hours in a row. Well .... to be honest i did it only twice, 24 hours in Monaco and 35 hours at the Palais de Tokyo. 

The idea to do a 24 hours version did not came from me. As you start to know me, you might have understood that i am pretty talkative, and in real life, i am even more. 

When i was talking to Mr Boéri, the owner of the visionary galery "Entrepot" in Monaco, about the Vexations project, and explained him what it was. 

With Mr Boéri we shared one point: to do avant-garde event in Monaco, and he was very interested in the fact that the piece "could" be 24 hours long. 

So with a funny face, he look at me and said: "yes, yes, very interesting, let's do this 24 hours version!" 

Luckily i did not start with the Monaco one, and i had the 2 previous other concerts to warm me up. 

I wanted to push the experience further than a concert, and since we were in a Galery with no windows, i wanted that the scores will be all around the public. Unfortunately the idea was not really possible (but i still keep it in my mind and hope to do it one day). 

And for the very first time, i insisted to display the public all around the piano, an idea that i will use many time after

But on the other hand, i had this interesting idea: 

Since many scores were needed (840 to be precise), i wanted to make like an "inspirational" circle 

Everytime i eneded the performance of one page, i let it on the floor 

On the other hand, I met one of my painting soulmate : Andrea Clanetti Santarossa

He was using some scores, and doing paintings with it ! 

3 Paintings were made, and the public was able to win it. All the money will could get went directly to help the japan refugees. 

Sometime Andrea could not stand it, and had to rest : 

A very important point : once again, all the concert was displayed on internet. With it we got a huge succes as there was more than 2000 connections per hour ! 

The promo was very nice, and you can find everywhere related to that here at this link : promo 

Now for the music : 

My preparation was one of the most intense one:
No food and no drink for 3 full days prior to the concert. If the first day was very ok, the 2 other days, and specially the last one, i was more like a zombi. No food is ok, when you pass 20 hours, your appetite is reducing a lot. But on the other hand .... no drink is hard , as your body will do all its best to get some water, and .... taking a shower can be difficult as you can find yourself drinking by accident!

Past 48 hours, you start not to know if you are day dreaming or not. I still remember how much i was weak before starting the Vexations.
I took a lot of time to go to the Galery, and .... i did well since there was a trafic jam ....

As everytime, Mr Boéri wanted the concert to happen in the best conditions possible.
After the Perpignan performance, i had a long list of wanted food and drink. And .... i was surprised to see that everything i wanted was there !!!
But it is not as good as you think, since you really eating too much that you should, and after ... you really have problems ! And you know .... no stop !


The very good point of those version, is that it allways starts well.
You know you have to play slowly, because you have SO MUCH time !
Also i did not do the same mistake as Prague, and i did not see strange movies before. And the galery was full of light.

Also for the very first time, i performed the famous repeat that few are doing. You might have heard about the theory that, thanks to the Salabert edition, we are not able to understand the meaning of the last repeat sign, because it is a little different that the normal sign Satie allways use.
Well...... to prepare this concert, i was very happy to have receive a Facsimile in color of the manuscript, and saw that .... the last sign is a normal one, but simpy the black & white copy ruined everything.

So for the ones that do not understand quite well, the Vexations that i performed has this scheme :
Theme
Variation 1
Theme
Variation 2 (who is, in fact the Variation 1 upside down)
Theme  (this was on this last repeat that the Salabert 1st edition is not clear at all ! and it is true that ... performing it makes the Vexations longer of 20% and .... muliplied by 840, it is quite important)


I still remember that, everytime someone came to see the concert, there was a kind of ringtone, and Mr Boéri took his time to explain the piece.
When i was performing, i was not very at ease with all this noise around, but unfortunately the Monaco public, is not the kind of public that will do silence meditation.

Time to time i was joking with Andrea, and also i was looking slowly by slowly how his painting were evolving.
Public was coming in a regular basis. There was public from all over the world, i received supporting message from USA and Japan, I was simply flying over the notes.
Also on those message, i remember that i received many various questions about the Vexations, the performance, and on me.

Mostly we can say that it was done in the famous "Musique d'ameublement" way, as i can read sometime over the internet. That means, a music that is done only to "color" the everyday life. Today we would say, music for elevator or Muzark (as i read in "Ocean of time" a book about Ambient Music).

But ...
That was ....
before 1 am !

First of all, i learnt a terrible truth : doing the Vexations in a normal way is really a mistake : i mean .... Don't do like i did for the first 7 Vexations !!! With the time you forget about the bad and remember only the good !!! Do not use a "normal" piano bench !!!!!! Never !!!!!!!
I know, it is cool, it looks great and pro, but ........ after 8 hours your back really ... Hurts !!!!!!!!! it hurts a lot !!!!!
This time i had no more pains with my hands and arms, but on the other hand ...... i had so many back pain .... my muscles were all tenses like rocks !



Passing this time .... everything changed. Public stopped to come, and only me, Andrea, Mr Boeri and his assistant stayed there ....

This time the "helish" moment arrived at night .... everybody was sleeping, and .... i was alone ......

Also i had no more message from internet as .... everybody was sleeping and so... not able to tell me ...

I tried to wake me up, using the spring water sprays, eating dry ginger , but that was hard.
It went along like that for 3 hours and ... at 4 am... pure despair !

And of course, slowly by slowly you enter into this "vexations" world, the despair of the music, each note sounding like a dagger into Satie's heart.

At 6 am, the other started to wake up. More joyfull, and could not belive that .... i was still holding on !

I still remember the frustration ........

They had fun upstairs, enjoying a wonderful breakfirst ! while i was there .... no i was not starving as i could get anything i wanted (i still remember the extreme kindness of Mr Boéri allways asking me if everything was ok ).
I could smell the coffee ..... the croissant ...... the laugh .....
and .......
i was still front of the piano .....


7 am : the audience came back, and also in the very same way i could heard more internet questions.


I had some massages for my back, i received some roses, and like everytime, more people came, they could enjoy nice food ( i ask some for me ). But it was very relaxed. Psychologicaly i was far away from this terrible moment of the night, the famous 'despair' moment !

But again, with the time running, it was once again very difficult to finish, and once again i really did not want to stop.

here a video with the last 10 Vexations

Again you experience this feeling ....
the one you don't want to have ...
like a farewell ...
You hug and hug and hug this very person who is so important to you
Your plane has to go
and ... you don't know when you will be able to see this person again
"very soon" you both say
you promise the world
but inside you ... you know the truth, that ... it will take time
much later, really later for sure
...
a lot of time ....

For the first time i started to really understand the music. And this is the keystone of this Monaco performance

Exatly like the wonderful Bill Viola video, if you have a quiet and meditating ambience, it works wonderfully, and ... for Vexations it is the same !
I still remember an internet folower that was complaining. This wonderful person folowed both the Perpignan & the Monaco, and was always asking for more silence, and .... i must confess that he was right !

No, no, no ! Musique d'ameublement was composed long after the Vexations, and on the opposite of what you can read, Vexations is not a joke at all. It might even be the most serious piece Satie ever composed.
So, if you really want to be into this piece, you have to do it in a meditating way. And even, i would recommand to put some long chair for the public. As i saw with the other Vexations, sleeping with it, is a fantastic journey.

There is also another think that i understood. Thanks to the addition of this 3rd theme repeat, i really feel that it was not a "long and never ending" piece, but on the other hand .... 840 pieces !
 Yes, you got my point,
This is why Vexations is in plurial form (in French : 1 Vexation, 2 Vexations etc etc),
 and my discovery is :
 in fact when you are really into this music,
 you understand that the real title should be "840 Vexations".

And with the lengh it is doing a "human journey" :

It starts with the wired, a meaningless song, turning around itself (Scriabine would describle this psychological status as "Affanato"or anguished ). The Variations are doing exactly the same, and are flipping one into another like concentric circles.
And exactly like "Love" , you will experience with the Vexations the same evolutions of feeling :
Non understanding / Frustration (another french word for vexation)
Anger
Pain
Despair
Sadness
and Forgivness going to a farewell

Then ... the simple frustration goes to pure love and forgivness thanks to a kind of "way of the Cross" (needless to remind you that Satie at this time was really into some kind of Christian-Gnostic sects)



After it, we had champagne, fun and food.

I was not tired at all. Exausted for sure. There was a pretty long question & answers from the audience, and also the internet audience. I guess it lasted 30 minutes
I rally don't remember the questions... but i guess i mostly said the very same things as i wrote there.
And surely the very same question : "do you really don't stop to go to the bathroom?" Yes, of course !! otherwise it won't be a non-stop performance !

A last image with all the team :

from left to right : Andréa Clanetti , Daniel Boéri and me

You will laugh with this very last details :

When i came back, i did not "fall in the bed" right away. I guess i was too much "high" with all the vitamins & redbull i took !
On the other hand, i took a shower and ...... ho God ..... i still remember THIS pain !!!
My back was hurting SO badly !!!!!!!!
I felt that all my back muscles, under the effect of the hot water, were like knives !!!!

Next Vexations step : the one in Rennes !


Also before i forget, this is an article on the "New Yorker" about my Satie performances :)

Vexations a dangerous and evil piano piece

Satie Vexations 2 : 2nd performance in Prague (updated)

 

 

time-lapse video of the complete Vexations in Prague

 

 live at the Studio Ruby  in Prague the 7th and 8th April of 2011 . Lasting 14 hours without any pause or break .

 

 

I must confess that this 2nd performance was the most "experimental"one, as nothing went "as i planned it".

 

First of all, for those who knows me personnally, i am not too much of a night bird, so every marathon always starts at the morning, specially when i have to perform for more than 12 hours.

 

 

 

First of all, the Vexations was part of a 3 benefits concerts in Prague.

 

n°1 was a 1 hour electroacoustic improvisation concert at the 4K Club the 4th april

 

a short part of my electroacoustic improvisation



 

 

n°2 was my very first piano marathon ever, 5h30 long ! the 5th june at the Hlahol 's Hall

 

the complete program was :

Mozart:

 Fantaisie in c minor KV 475
Liszt:

 Funerailles
Scriabin;

 Sonata 9
Satie :
3 Gnossiènnes
3 Sonneries Rose + Croix
le Fils de l'Etoile
Prélude de la Porte Celeste du Ciel

Boguslaw Schaeffer:

 Non-Stop

Paul Wehage:

 Carrillon-Prélude
Carl Vine :

Threnody
Carlo Peron Cano :

Lost instants 

Simple presences I
Sabura Takata:

 Préludes ( selection )

Patrick Dorobisz:

 Mood 2

Liszt :
Zwei Orchestersätze aus dem Oratorium Christus S498b
No 1: Hirtengesang an der Krippe
No 2: Die heiligen drei Könige – Marsch
In festo transfigurationis Domini nostri Jesu Christi S188
Ave Maria IV S545

Heinz Chur:

 Sonata n°1 and 2

Jeroen Van Veen :

 Preludes Book 1 ( selection )

Ramon Lazkano:

 Gentle Sway & Seaska Kanta

Scriabin :

Vers la Flamme

Alvin Curran :

 Inner City n°1 , For Cornelius

Frederik Martin:

 Sonata 1 2nd Mov

Olivier Greif:

 Sonata n°5

Sonata n° 8

Hommage à Raymond Roussel

Therèse Brenet:

 3 Préludes ( 2008 )

Philippe Hersant:

 Ephemerides ( selection )

Elodie Lauten:

 Tango ( selection )

Tom Johnson :

Chord Catalogue

Tomasz Kamieniak :

 Buch der Illusionen ( selection )

Levaillant :

Préludes pour les petites mains

Delplace:

 Intermezzo 3

 Marche Funebre

Arnaud Desvignes:

 Soliol ( selection )

Cooman :

Préludes op 722

Augusta Read Thomas:

 Etudes 3 & 5

Pillip Glass:

5 Metamorphosis 

Trilogy Sonata

Liszt:
Via Crucis

 10 Chorales

Pärt :

 Fur Alina

Fur Anna Maria

Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka

 

Success was not so good unfortunately, as the public became smaller and smaller. At this time i did not know how to organise well such a marathon and make clear programs with clear understandable parts with exact timming. It took me some marathon to be able to take care of this.

 

n°3 : the 7th of April the Vexations !

It was a national premiere, as i am the very first to have performed solo non stop this piece in Prague.

 

a 1h30 part of the Vexations in Prague
 



And i got many surprises on this. before i start, i took it as very bad surprise, but ... it worked so well that i used for all the forthcoming Vexations to come !

 

To prepare this one, once again 24 hours without food or drink !

 

As i said, it started by Night !!! at 6 pm ! But now with the years i understood that they did that for good, after 1 electroacoustic concert and +5hours marathon recital.... it was necessary to have a long break !

 

2nd bad surprise ! No food, no drink ready !!! i could not belive !

But this was perfect. As i was asking things, the Prague team just bring it at the very very right moment. Of course it was hard for them, why ? because the Prague audience was really 200% Inside the Vexations.

They were not as many as Paris or Perpignan, but on the other hand they were so much focused on the Vexations, and deep Inside it. Some were meditating

So they did "by chance" what now is my "exact request" :

at start : no food

after 4 hours, (very important : not precisely) : bring 2 little square of Milk Chocolate, and only 2 square, and always check that i am not missing chocolate, but not to have too much

 

After 7 hours (very important ; not precisely) : bring a 1/4 cup of RedBull, always check that there is still some RedBull Inside the cup, but not more, as i much drink only few

 

I also got a funny idea to help the public to be "into the music" : i did what i called a "serious version" of Duchamp cult movie : Cinetic Cinema (i simply removed the french word jokes, that are not funny anymore in the XXI century). And ... that was a Good idea !

 

This time, once again i got this stupid idea to perform the first part a little fast and to slowdown at the end.

 

But i loved it.

 

It was pitch black, so the video was perfectly visible. But 6 pm ... i was already very tired even before starting !

 

I could see the audience meditating, i could Watch the video,and .... it hypnotized me !

I still remember my hunger, my thirstiness , and also i remember that at 4 am, i was almost sleeping.

This moment was terrible... i remember myself trying to play the Vexations theme.... i played half of it .... i could not do more .... i went back ..... started it again .... at same place i could not go and went back .... i went back .... i don t know ..... 10 times ? 15 times ? more ???

The more it goes, the less i could play .... i went even down to some notes only ..... slower and slower .... i felt more and more powerless ... tired .... hypnotised ................... i could not move ..........

and ....

it happened .....

i don t know how long was the gap .... i don t even know if i stopped or not .....

and ....

1 woman skratched her back ....

and ....

 

I was back on track !!!!!!!!!

 

I think it was "the terrible" moment, as there is always a terrible moment when you perform it solo and non stop. A time of despair, sadness and you wish that you will end fast , or not even doing it. (not 100% sure, but if you look at the time lapse video, it happens on 8:01)

 

I really don t know whay would happen if nobody was in the hall !

 

After i don t remember quite well, what happened from 4 am to 8 am ... It was "normal"

 

Once again at the end, i feel this terrible sadness, but i knew that few weeks after i will do it again in Monaco, and ... a 24 hours one !!!

 

the last 10 Vexations

 

 

ps : a little edition !

 

I recently had some recollections about this very particular performance. There was actually a fact that made this performance unique in comparaison to all the other Vexations i did. A very strange storry (in my point of view) .

 

As i told you, in preparation for this Vexations , i stayed in bed for a complete day, no food, no drink.

When i understood that my performance would happen in the evening ... well i had a 2nd day in the bed ! ( if you prefer 36 hours in total ).  Since it was a "surprise" i was a little block and in the morning i could sleep no more. As a result i watched 2 movies. 1 was "Hard Candies" , and the other one was "Megane is Missing".

1st one was great, a very good story and something you would love girlies to do to those bastards !

and .... the other one was the total opposite (i coupled those movie by random choice, and did not look at the descriptions, simply the posters looks interesting Z movies).

For those who did not see Megane is Missing, well, it is a very boring movie, for 1h30 very good for sleeping as almost nothing happen. But the end ..... the end is really horrible.

SO ! (i now arrive to the interesting point) i was so much shocked by this ending, that in the middle of the Vexations i was thinking about it, about those 2 girls and all that might have happened to them, and ...... i almost had nightmares when performing ! I was really haunted by this movie !!!!

And also the place i performed was so dark ..... ( you can see that on the video) with the Duchamp green thing behind me ........ brrrrrr .................................

 

As a result : no more movies when i am preparing Vexations by "no food, no drink" !

If you also are preparing the Vexations, please keep this advice very seriously !



Satie Vexations 1 : 1st performance in Perpignan

I had the chance to be able to perform the Satie opus magnum "Vexations", and this is due to one association 'Les Amis d'Alain Marinaro' that really belived in this crazy project, and had the courage to program it.

this is the promo video of the concert

 



It was a benefit concert for Telethon (cancer research).

Anyway, let's talk about the performance itself, the most interesting thing.

It happen at the Centre des Congrès de Perpignan the 4th december of 2010 . Lasting from 7 am to 10 pm without any pause or break .
We were thinking that it will be 20 hours,but 15 is not so bad for a first time.

So to prepare it, i stopped to eat and drink 12 hours before the concert (but got a wonderful "last meal") . I also had a lot of food: dry fruits, mandarine, chocolate (many!!! and i love it), i guess some juices (not sure). But this is not the wisest choice. Only after Prague i knew what was good!
I also prepared a very special score : 840 pages , for the 840 repeats ! I still remember the printer when i asked to do it : she really belived that i was totally out of my mind !!


Also it was broadcasted on internet, a premiere for this work. It helped as we were able to gather +5000€ of fund

As most of the things you can read on internet, i must confess that i was very worried about my Vexations performance. And specially this story that one pianist became like crazy after the 600 repeat and had to stop right away.
But i was very well surrounded. Organised by doctors, there were helping me all the time, doing massages, and also i had a machine that checked my heart pulse (in case of emergency).

So i had this "stupid fantasy": to arrive fastly to n°440 and after slowing down... only because i was scared of the n°600 !!

But even with this little detail, i must confess that it was one of the most incredible Vexations experience.
Of course i asked for a "warm place" to perform it. Since Perpignan is located in South of France, it is normally warm. The concert hall was fantastic. One of the wing of the Perpignan Centre des Congrès. A place with a lot of Windows, very sunny, just a perfect place.
But ... unfortunately 2 days before the performance, there was a snow all over France, and what was "a normal wamrth" turned out to be an ice tombstone for the pianist !

The first, and most terrible enemy of this piece, is the pianist himself and his body. As a result, even if i prepared a lot, i really had to deal with it. Muscular problems, tensions, tiredness....
But the cold does not help !
I still remember than after 4 hours i really started to have my right hand really tense, and started to perform as much as possible with the left hand. ANd after 2 more hourse, i did 50/50 : left page was left hand, and right page , the right hand. In this way i was also very able to know where i was ... Yes the very funny thing is that , even with a score, when the hours are going, you start to loose yourself , you don t even remember where you are , if you turned the page , if you are at the end ... this is really a terrible feeling !!

For the first hours everything went perfectly. I had to deal with the stupid questions of journalists that wanted me to "stop performing" to tell them how long i was performing (it was a live interview). Of course my answer was firmly a NO ! And for the funny things, i was almost praying for someone to bring me a heater !

I must also confess that many people in internet sent me support message from all over the world. That really helped me a lot.

When i passed the 400, things serious started. I started to slow down, and really get into it.
Also after such a time, you start to forget about the concert itself, the people surrounding you...

You try to relax your muscles, and slowly by slowly you even start to forget about your own body and you have this feeling that you are directly plugged to the piano... i guess it happened after 6 hours ...

After 10 hours things serious really starts ...

In every Vexations performances you allways have a "break point". A point were all your fears, sadness and despair are culminating.
At this moment you really want to stop... you are wondering why on earth you are doing it .... why not a normal concert ....
Normally this "break point" last 1 or 2 hours.... but you have the feeling that they last frever.

For my 1st performance i got the strongest reactions possible. Maybe the fruit of the surprise ?
With the hours passing, i even started to hypnotise myself, i was dreaming about the piano, the sound.
For the first time i also feel a link with the audience, a strong link !

here you can have 30 minutes of Vexations

I was also dreaming about Satie, his life and the relation with Suzanne Valadon, the only Satie relation, the reason he wrote such a piece...

And i saw them, there were also under hypnosis, moving their head like you see only in Voodoo rituals ...


The the biggest surprise was the end ... When i reached the n°800 i felt like the end was near ... and i slowed down more and more... i simply could not stop. When i reached 830 i got this terrible feeling that ... i was on a train station, and i would say farewel to someone with whom i shared so many things and will never see again ...
When i reached the 840 and performed the last notes, i was almost crying.
But i was not the only one, the audience who followed me for hours was also crying.

on this vidéo you can listen to the very end 

After the concert, i talk to the audience and they told me how strongly they felt the music. One told me that he felt he was flying on top of clouds, and another one told me that he was able to talk to his dead father ... Yes it was really a strong concert !

Unfortunately, i did not take care of the vidéo , so .... i got only incomplete recording ... this is really too bad ....

After it i was extremely hungry ! I had a wonderful dinner (allways in Perpignan !!! ) with wonderful wine, and a loooong bath ! (i think i slept in my bath, it was a jacuzzi).
I still could not belive i did it !

Forthcoming one would be in Prague - april 2011 ... but i did not know that at this time ...

Satie 's Vexations, an australian interview

As some might know, one of the piece that helped me to stand out of the army of pianist, and to be 100% honnest also helped me to know more about my own body (because you really MUST be relax to be able to keep the 10 hours to 35 hours long piano piece !).

For the ones who don't know this piece: Satie's Vexations is one of the darkest Satie's mystery. He composed it when he broke up with his "love of his life" Suzanne Valadon (who was supposed to be a man eater!). He never publish it, nor said it to anybody. It is said that the score was found long after Satie's dead when John Cage was looking for more Satie's piano pièces.

for the ones that can understand french, a very interesting video about S.Valadon:

http://www.ina.fr/video/CAF97501573

The piece 'seems' simple, but it is really not. It is totally avant gardist in all its way: no tonality, no melody, simply some kind of gregorian tonal attractions, with stranges chords almost pre-bergian. And on the score Satie wrote a strange comment for the pianist : to be prepared well enough to repeat the score 840 times, the pianist should meditate in an immobile and quite way. Of course it is not a word to word transmation (wikipedia & Google will be your friends for that) , but this is how i understand it.

So might say that it is a joke, but if it was ... Satie would have publish it, like he did for the Neverending Tango !
Actually i never understood (but nobody did) why the number 840. In my opinion, Satie really experienced it, as 600 is not enough and 1000 is too much. Only from 700 to 900 you can have a transe like effect without being too bored (for the pianist).

This is an exemple of this piece :

Last year after i did the longest version ever of the Satie's Vexations, the journalist Gabriel Wilder, that was preparing a paper for a multi pianist version of the Vexations in Australia, contacted me for a small interview.
As he received my answers, he was so happy with it that he insisted that i share my Vexations experience with the most on my blog, but .... last year was an extremely busy one ! (and my blog was uber ugly!)

Of course later, i will come back with the Vexations and take one by one all my performances and give my feedback, so it might help forthcoming pianists to prepare it (and i will not need to answer to their email anymore ^^ )

So here it is :

Gabriel Wilder: I'm a journalist in Sydney, Australia, doing a story on a performance on Vexations that will take place here next month. It will be performed by two pianists and I have done an interview with one of them, however, given your enthusiasm for the piece, I don't feel the story will be complete without mention of you and your many performances of the work.

There are some lovely comments from you on your youtube channel which I will quote but i would like to ask you a couple more questions, if you wouldn't mind answering them.

What draws you to this piece? Why do you keep going back to it?

Me : Well at very first it was a friend of mine, after a jointed concert with the Monte Carlo Philharmonique orchestra who was talking about a "strange piece during more than 20 hours consisting in a mantra like, one page repeated almost 1000 times". It was more than 10 years ago, and i must confess i was very curious about it, and so much sad to have miss this kind of concert.

I was still hoping to see it, but unfortunately nothing really happened, and the only Vexations that rarely happened were 20 or more pianists doing it. I was not very interested in that, when you change pianist, you also change the point of view of the piece (imagine that 2 pianists perform the Liszt sonata, at the Fuga another is taking the seat, or 2 conductors for a Mahler Symphony or a Wagner Opera...)

In summer 2010, thanks to Maestro Erik HEIDSIECK, i entered in touch with the extremely active musical association from south west of France :"Les Amis d'Alain Marinaro".

They organised me a lot of concerts and recitals. In 2010 i expressed my wish to share my talent to help the needed. I was also much more trusting my piano abilities since from 2008 to 2010 i won more than 10 internationals piano competitions, and started to have succes for my recitals. But i still kept in mind the music and the project that i was dreamed to listen to and could not do (the Vexations, all the Philip Glass music, the Tom Johnson's Chord Catalogue, La Monte Young's X for Henry Flynt... list is endless).

So the association entered in touch with the Telethon team in Perpignan to organise a concert for this huge benefit event in France. At this time i came with the idea of something that can be more interesting than a "normal" concert. In the Telethon, they alawys do some challenge; and some marathon, and i figured that the Vexations (both a wonderful avant-garde music composition, and a marathon) will fit perfectly. Also i was a little bit impressed with all the legends that you can read on internet about the Vexations, the fails... A benefit concert will be for me, a responsability big enough to keep doing the Vexations (not stopping it) and to surpass my own possibilities. I was also hoping that the public will be touch enough by this to donnate. So the first one in Perpignan was pretty nice, 15 hours long, and we got almost 6000€. Also the Vexations were for the very first time broadcasted non stop over the internet. I received over the internet a lot of nice messages that really helped me to realise and complete the Vexations.
 

http://www.la-clau.net/info/le-pianiste-nicolas-horwath-prevoit-de-jouer-20-heures-non-stop-a-perpignan-5517

As some of them know, my fiancée is japanese, and i have a lot of very dear and good friends from this country. i can really say that, one week was taken away from us when the 3/11 tsunami tragedy happened. We could not sleep, almost not eating, and we were waiting news from my fiancée familly, our friends, and we were like hypnotized by the terrible news of the Tv, that got worst and worst with the nuclear diaster.

At this time, i contacted all my contacts that i had, to organise a benefit tour to help japan. I also got help from the great composer, pianist and friend Jeroen van Veen that did a website for it Vexations4Japan . I was hopping to be able to gather many time the same amount as Perpignan, but i could not (now i know that a recital is much more efficient for benefit than the Vexations).

 

 

http://www.vexations4japan.com

http://www.erik-satie.com/nicolas-horvath-joue-vexation-pour-le-japon/

So I did the vexations in Prague (14 hours), Lagny sur Marnes (10 hours, the only one i am able to put on youtube)and Rennes (15.30 hours), Monte-Carlo (24 hours).

http://www.lagny-sur-marne.fr/actugene.asp?appel=a_voir&idactu=18974

http://pplemoqueur.blogspot.fr/2011/06/satie-vexations.html

http://pplemoqueur.blogspot.fr/2011/06/satie-vexations-nicolas-horvath-fin.html

In total (with a recital in Istambul) i was able to gather 6000€

 

In end of 2011 i also got 2 more concerts involving the Vexations : in Villeurbanne (13 hours) a benefit concert for the Secours Catholique ; and in Honfleur with the complete piano music of Erik Satie in a marathon-day recital (10 hours Vexations, 9 hours for the other piano music).

 

http://lyon.catholique.fr/?Les-vexations-d-Erik-Satie-Villeurbanne

http://www.erik-satie.com/nicolas-horvath-integrale-au-piano/

 

Also the Monte-Carlo marked my first collaboration with the great painter (now a dear friend) Andrea CLANETTI (http://www.andreaclanetti.com/ ).

 http://www.lentrepot-monaco.com/archives/archive_24h_satie.pdf

 

Even with all those concerts, i still felt very frustrated not to be able to « experience » the Vexations by myself. So i had the idea to create from the Vexations a multimedia Art piece. The Vexations would be recorded and performed on a Disklavier linked to an abstract video synchronised with my rendition. In a black room, a disklavier in the middle will be the ghost and dehumanised memory of this so particular Vexations, and with it an abstract video based on hands movements in bergson movies (as far as I remember for the source, but not 100% sure).

I met Laurent FIEVET (www.laurentfievet.com ) who was extremely interested in this idea, and we worked together about the concept and organisation of this work. We entered in touch with the world famous Avant-garde museum and event organiser « Palais de Tokyo » in Paris who was imediately interested in what we named the [Vexations] 2.0.

We work with them about the organisation of the first act of the [Vexations] 2.0, the recording, for 3 / 4 months. And the 15 of december I did the longest rendition ever of this piece : 35 hours , non-stop and solo.

http://www.erik-satie.com/vexations-le-121212-a-12-h-au-palais-de-tokyo/

http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/en/musique/concerts/les-vexations-derik-satie-recital-marathon

Well reading it in this way sounds like “another” world record. I must now confess that happened by accident. Of course my wish was : to make the best Vexations version that I could do. So a mixture of the Rennes and Monte-Carlo.

Monte-Carlo: I could perform the real version, the long one with the 3 themas and 2 Variations (as you can see in the color scan of the maniuscript, the opposite of the 2 and 2 of the Salabert score). But since this concert happened in an Art Gallery, with Andrea doing 3 paintings with the Vexations scores and attracted a lot of audience, the rendition was pretty noisy. On the other hand Rennes was the quiest one.

As you might imagine, doing the Vexations in the way Satie wrote it: with the 5 lines (and not 4), “very slow” is very difficult, since you need a hall for more than 20 hours for sure. Also doing it alone and non-stop (it will sounds crude, but, since everybody always ask me the same question: no bathroom break at all), if you pass the 20 hours, is … very challenging.

To prepare myself, it is very easy: I stop to eat and drink 3 days before the concert (for a shorter Vexations, only 24 hours before). I ask to have my first square of chocolate 4 to 6 hours after the beginning, and a tiny glass of redbull 7 hours after the beginning.

So I imagined that the Palais de Tokyo rendition would last something around 20 and 30 hours (as I wrote on all invitation). On the other hand Palais de Tokyo really took seriously the 30 hours, and... wrote it in all programs and advertisment. Also as many can imagine after so many hours, your brain start to confuse about tons of details, and I don t know why, I understood on the second day (past the 22 hours) that it was wrote everywhere that my concert had to finish at midnight the 16^th (I started the 15^th at lunch time 12 o'clock).

Since I did not want to deceive the public who was more and more numerous after the 24^th hour, I took (many) deep breath and try to keep myself until I reached 11 pm. I still don t know why I focused on 35 hours , and not 36. It is still for me a mystery. But I must confess that, past 30 hours time was extremely long and painful.

Also we prepared the concert in a way that it was almost impossible for me to calculate exactly how many pages I had to do. I simply knew that at 30 hours …. there were still too many !

Well I can also said that I “only” performed it 8 times, Last year I recorded the Liszt “Chrsitus” album, I performed it completely more than 14 times in concerts, I still continue to perform parts of it in numerous concerts. The Scriabin 9^th Sonata I performed it maybe 40 times in concerts, some Chopin Nocturnes or Satie Gnossiennes, I don't even know, and Scriabine “Vers la flamme” my war horse and one of my favorite encore... maybe a hundred, or more?

On the opposite of what some claims, Vexations IS real good music. Of course it has nothing to do with the music wrote at Satie time, it is extremely avant-garist and opened the doors to fluxus, repetitive and minimalist music.

And I really don't think Satie did it as a joke. Otherwise he would have publish it. This is his most secret and intimate music. Exactly like his very little and stranges drawing he made for himself and that are viewable in his museum in Honfleur.

 

or

 



Also as many person over the internet and after the concert ask me "what is the point in this music". Well this music really taugh me a lot.

First of it, and the most superficial one: how to manage to play so much, without stop, and not having muscle problems. So you must learn to relax in real time and deal with all those little things, otherwise it is impossible to do the Vexations.

There are 2 ways to perform the Vexations. For some, it must be done in a “metronomic like” way, with the chords sounding exactly the same in a bell like way, and being extremely precise. On the other hand, some other see the Vexations as a “life-like” experience, the music keeping evolving itself.

Well, I must confess that normally the 1^st way of seeing things are more the fruit of the ones who can perform only with multiple pianists and can't imagine doing more than 4 hours. I must admit that I don't share this point. For my very first Vexations, I used to prepare it in this way, but I found it pointless. Also I tried to prepare it in a “classical” way, trying to make it “interesting” : 10 pianos, 10 forté , 10 left hand over right hand , some with some notes stronger than other … it can work , but …. when you pass 150, you have done all the possibilities, so …. what is next ? Doing it again ? This, again, works only with multiple pianists.

Also I am against a multiple pianists Vexations (I even never did it so far) for a simple reason: when you are changing pianist, it changes everything in the sound production and the evolution of the music (like I said earlier, it is like 2 or more pianists performing one Liszt Sonata).

So I came with a very simple conclusion: trying to do 840 times the very same things. As you know, we are not robot, so this is impossible. And what can be very interesting for the audience in a very long range, would be to listen to the very subtile evolution of it, since slowly by slowly all the human feelings (anger, joy, stress, muscle problems, hunger...) will enter into the music itself. So, no the tempo primo is not the tempo finale, but... I am also not the same one (as well as the audience) at the beginning and at the end of such a piece.

Of course this is the top of the iceberg, and I experienced greater things with the Vexations.

As many noticed, the extrem repetition (840 times, and unfortunately, I don't know why 840 and not 1000 or 777) induce a transe/hypnotic effect. I am still please to see that some part of the public take the time to experience the music, and not listen to it in an occidental way (for me this is much more like a mantra repetition, dervish music or some ritual music). To them, Satie opens a zen like travel, through space and time. For the one who never experienced Vexations, this statement can seems almost ridiculous, but those are testimonies from the public itself (they were doctors and composers, not some hippy gurus somking pots). But the travel is not for everybody, some does not like or understand it, or simply are not sensitive to it.

On my side, I also have some experience too. Not on the same range, since I am the actor, and must take care of many parameters.

In all the repeat there is always what I call an “intense moment of despair”. For the first Vexations, it happened at around 600, in Lagny it happened at 400, and in Vexations that are going over night, it happen at around 3 or 4 am. In Palais de Tokyo , it was the longest ever, since it happened from 3am to 8am (I must say more or less, since I was in the “Alice Guy hall”, cut from the outside, with no clock. I knew it because it was the time of the “night security guards” (I also remember that I could see them eating and drinking a lot, when I was almost starving...).

Also a very strange aspect that happened only to the 3 first Vexations (not any more since I know about it now), was the extreme sadness that happened when I arrived almost to the end. Having share so much with this music in a so few moment, you experience the very same feeling that when you leave a beloved one at the airport and know that... there will be a huge time before you see him (or her). And of course you are meditating on the meaning of the piece, why this name (vexations), your life, the way you are behaving with your nearest one etc etc... it is also a psychological experience, a strong one.

GW : Now that you have done a performance of 35 hours, will you stop? Or will you keep doing it?

Me: Well there was no particular point in doing a 35 hours non stop long version. I simply wanted to do what I think is the best suitable with what Satie is requiring.

After I did the 24 hours in Monaco, I really did not want to do it again a so long version, as it is extremely difficult and painful (both physically and psychologically), specially when you pass the 15 hours and you know that... it is more or less only the middle. Also the greatest problem is that it is so difficult to organise it, the fees are high and sometime the public simply doesn't want to understand the music. Now that it is recorded on a Disklavier and will become a piece of multimedia art, the Vexations will be able to travels from museums to galleries and also some festivals, I will be finally able to enjoy and experience this piece.

So far I don't plan to perform it. Not right now for sure.

Now I am on another cycle that I want to perform more: the complete piano music of Philip GLASS, in a one 6 hours non stop recital. I did it already twice, once in Villeurbanne for the Téléthon 2013, and another in Paris for the Nuit Blanche 2012 / Festival Alterminimalism in the wonderful College des Bernardins were I got a huge succes (more than 2000 personns came to the concert). 

In Febuary 2013, I am invited to perform in Kiev the national premiere of the Concertos 1&2 of Philip GLASS, ( I premiered them in France in september 2012 )

In May 2013, I will perform with Jeroen Van VEEN the great Canto Ostinato of Simeon Tel HOLT (a 2 and 4 pianos version, and also a Philip GLASS recital)

 I am preparing to perform the world premiere of the complete music of Jean CATOIRE. A forgotten french composer that I discovered thanks to my friend the great composer Frederick MARTIN (who dedicated me his 6^th Sonata). For this all details are still on progress, but it will be a 35 hours recital in Paris. Very soon I will post some video on youtube, but this music is a mixture of Morton FELDMAN and Arvo PART, but composed … in the 70' !

There will be also more happening in collaboration with Andrea CLANETTI in the same destructive way we did in Monaco with the “X for Henry Flynt” of La Monte YOUNG.

And very soon I will have some electroacoustic improvisations concert and some of 2 electroacoustic / ambient album will be released ( Aceldama : Rage in Eden records, Leçons de Ténèbres : Coma XIII records), and an experimental harsh noise version of the cult graphic music of Cornelius Cardew “Treatise” will be release at Sabbatical Records.

https://sites.googlce.com/site/sabbathidrec/releases/hoof070

Those are for the experimental concerts. On the other hand, my Liszt “Christus” album at Hortus Editions ( the world premiere of all the transcriptions that Liszt did himself of his Oratorio Christus ) will be released in Febuary 2013, and later in 2013 a chamber music album of the music of Melle Thérèse Brenet will be out at JTB-Prod

http://www.qobuz.com/album/nicolas-horvath-liszt-christus/3487720100000

 

http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=8913018



In July 2013 during the Collioure Piano Festival i will give the 1st Night of Piano Minimalist concert ( a 12 hours long piano recital, all night, with music from Catoire, Glass, Denis & Tom Johnson, Jennings, Campo, Feldman, Rääts, Chur, Gann, Otte...)

http://www.pianobleu.com/actuel/nuit-piano-minimaliste-communique20130610.html

 

-december 2012-