Erik Satie - Vexations (Audio + Full Score)

Performers:
Piano - Jeroen van Veen

This video was uploaded at 8:40am exactly 840 days after Satie's birthday, 17th May (if you take leap years into account).

The piece bears the inscription "In order to play the theme 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities" (Pour se jouer 840 fois de suite ce motif, il sera bon de se préparer au préalable, et dans le plus grand silence, par des immobilités sérieuses).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexations

I strongly encourage you to have a read through the Wikipedia article, as it explains a great deal about the possible meanings and backstory behind the piece. Here is a comment from YouTube made by Gilles Mathivet:

"As you know, Satie composed Vexations at the end of his short lived relationship (january 1893 to june 1893) with artist Suzanne Valadon. accordig to French musicologist Bruno Giner in his recent book on Satie, 840 could be a symbolical figure: 3 times 280, 28 being the age of Suzanne at the time of their relationship (born in 1865).
Giner suggests another hypothesis: 840 is the result of adding the 12 firts numbers of the Lukas mathematical suite (1+3+4+7+11+18+29+47+76+123+199+322=840.
Also, all the chords are based on a tritone (3 full tones) known in medieval musicas Diabolus in Musica, and to be avoided for fear of excommunication or worse. Would Suzanne be the devil of his sentimental life?
As someone noted, this piece was probably not intended to be played in front of a public, but maybe as a self inflicted punishment to reach a state of spiritual elevation."


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