Customer Reviews

Vexations

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There are few recordings on the market of this exceptional piano piece by Erik Satie. This version by Alan Marks does almost 70 minutes of Satie's Vexations, and is currently probably the only version on the market. Vexations is a piano piece which ought to be repeated 840 times. The piece itselfs takes about 90 to 210 seconds. The fact that it should be repeated 840 times is vexing. Play this recording repetitively and you're getting close to what Satie wanted.
Alan Marks's rendition is clear, the recording is flawless. This is one of the best recordings I know, fluent, laid-back and that is the way I appreciate it. Compare this with Aldo Cicciolini's recording (too fast) and Reinbert de Leeuw's recording (slow and concise, probably one of the best).
Alan Marks's is today the best recording that money can buy.

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Satie is sometimes credited with the invention of ambient music. It may be true; however, nearly contemporaneously, Scriabin created an ambient music of lesser repetition (cf. his Sonatas Nos. 5-10, and later piano pieces). Scriabin: Complete Piano Sonatas

In any case, this recording of Satie's Vexations is a very unusual disc which features a 70 min reading of a piece Satie designated to last almost 24 hours: a continuous performance of a few lines repeated ad infinitum to create a meditative background ambient: remarkable.

Continuous audition induces theta- brain waves which accompany a meditative or dream-like state.
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