France Clidat plays Erik Satie: Danses de Travers (2023) Schilderij door Noël Van Hoof

Most pianists play the three “Danses de Travers” with a certain melancholy and resignation, and I think that's ok. France Clidat's interpretation however has a lot of "Sturm und Drang" and I like it even more. France Clidat was famous as a pianist especially for playing Liszt but also Satie. She played and recorded all his works: a good reason for a painting, to honor Satie and to honor the great job France Clidat has done.

The “Pièces Froides” consist of 3 “Airs à faire fuir” (Tunes to Make You Run Away) en 3 “Danses de travers” (Crooked Dances). These airs and dances are a return to the graceful simplicity of Satie's Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes. They share with those early works clear textures and a tendency to present a single musical idea from a number of different perspectives but have greater rhythmic fluidity and technical assurance. Biographer Rollo H. Myers placed the Pièces froides high among Satie's piano works, writing, "Only a born musician of the finest sensibility could have conceived these limpid and so essentially 'musical' pieces which ought to be in the repertory of every pianist who is more interested in music than virtuosity." The spare melodic lines of the “Danses de travers” rest on arpeggiated left-hand accompaniments that are virtually unique in his output.

Verwante thema's

Erik SatieFrance ClidatPieces Froides