It may seem strange at first to have oriental instruments
play the music of a composer who personified the
French genius, 
albeit in a highly personal way,
better than most others. 


But these instruments throw a new light on Erik Satie's
fine intuitive approach 
when he was in the process
of creating his personal and utterly personal language. 


His vision was dreamlike, and in a single fleeting
and furtive passage, 
there are evocations
of the Middle Ages, Ancient Greece and the Orient.

Satie experienced the end of a century, during which technological and scientific progress
 as well as social upheaval
have accelerated to a breathtaking tempo. 
Like many others, he tries to turn back by immersing himself in the past and
the far-away and by creating Middle Ages, 
mysticism, religion and Orient as his personal private psychological landscapes,
only to realise 
- like we ourselves at the end of the millennium - that it was merely love from afar.

Pieces in the program:
Erik Satie: Gymnopédies / Gnossiennes / Chansons Médiévales / 
Sonneries de la Rose + Croix / Uspud / Prince de Byzance

download dossier