Erik Satie composed for the mandolin

[Mandopolis]

The Melonious Quartet, a (french= modern mandolin quartet, puts forward an unseemly postulate : Satie composed for the mandolin !
Practising the art of "as if", the Melonious Quartet has taken on in the painstaking work of transcription. It is neither a question of arrangement nor of derangement, but actually of removal: the piano is going to we evacuated ! But if it is quite a difficult undertaking to make one forget the piano, this applies no less to the mandolin...

The CD was release by Oriente Musik (a German label) in june, and is now available in most of european countries. Unfortunatly no distribution in USA yet...

Celine

[vkioulaphides]

Bon jour, Celine! (Or, of course, bon soir, if you factor in the time-difference.) http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

How exciting! Maybe I will pick up a copy of the CD next time I am in Europe (in about a month).

In the meanwhile, please give my warm regards to the members of the Melonious Quartet, along with my best wishes for success in this and all their other endeavors.

From your post, what will remain forever in my memory is the phrase: [QUOTE]"It is neither a question of arrangement nor of derangement." http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

In fact, I plan to call some of my future publications derangements! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[John Craton]

While Satie apparently never composed for a mandolin (somewhat surprising, given his penchant for writing for instruments considered unorthodox in his day), he did compose music for something called a cefalophone. Does anyone know what this contraption was? From what I've been able to find, it was a deadly dangerous instrument to play, and France supposedly outlawed schools from teaching it due to injuries sustained by some who attempted it. Was this a real instrument, or just an amusing story created by the lovably eccentric composer?

[John Ely]

I would be interested in your transcription of Satie. He has long been a favorite of mine. Thnaks for the interesting ideas.

[Alex Timmerman]

Hi all,

Satie can work fine on mandolin! Last June we did a music project on Satie at our Music school. For that occasion we arranged a piece by this crazy marvellous and eccentric character titled "Jack in the Box", a three-movement "suite anglaise" originally composed for piano in 1899. #

It was eventually performed (everyone could join you see) with violins, all kinds of wind instruments together with mandolins, mandolas, guitars and double bass.


Great fun!

Alex

[vkioulaphides]

One of my teachers (Dr. David Noon) was a pupil of Darius Milhaud, who, in turn, was the executor of Erik Satie's will. After Satie's passing, Milhaud went to the deceased master's house to survey the estate. Upon entering, he had to walk, knee-deep in a morass of HUNDREDS of broken umbrellas; in the closet, Satie's wardrobe, consisting of a dozen identical gray suits; in the living-room, two upright pianos, upside-down on the other, as if in "mirror image" of each other: the one on the floor, delapidated beyond function; the one above (and upside-down), in impeccable condition.

It is not my wish, however, to ridicule one of the most wonderful, if also eccentric geniuses of the 20th century. One only needs to see and hear a performance of his magical/mystical Socrate to realize that here we have a master of the highest order. And, if we occasionally smile on his eccentricities, we are not alone in this: Satie made poking fun at himself his lifetime's manner.

An original and gentle spirit. May he rest in peace— and may his music live on!

[Jim Garber]

I found this page (http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/intro.html), which mentions a few more of his eccentricities.

http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/jpg/satie70.jpg

Jim

[Mandopolis]

Well well well !

Victor, I hope you'll find "En Forme de Poire" in your travel... Which countries are you to visit ? If you happen to come to the Cote d'Azur, please tell us !

About the cefalophone, it's one of Erik Satie's crazy articles... He loved to write this kind of things, often really funny. By the way, in very formal french, a "cephalée" is a headache. So his "céphalophone" is somehow a "headachophone"...

Satie never composed for the mandolin, but we found out that he may have directed a mandolin orchestra in his "Montmartre period"... But at his time, the mandolin was very popular in France, with about 1 million players. So when you talk about mandolin with anyone in this country, the person answers "oh yes, the mandolin, my great-auntie played the mandolin", "A mandolin, there was one in the attic when I was a kid"...

Waow, the "Jack-in-the-box" in this music school must have sounded terrific ! Of course we know this piece, it's a really nice one, very dynamic !
On 'En forme de Poire', the Melonious Quartet plays 'Parade', with all the sound effects - siren, whellof fortune, typewriter, revolver shots... It was lots of fun !

By the way, here is a photo that may explain why the CD is named 'En Forme de Poire' :
http://www.bastiancontrari.com/photo/babar.jpg

And here is a link to listen to the'Little Overture to Dance' (http://www.abeillemusique.com/son/classique/riencd51.ram).

I am to add more extracts on Melonious website... I hope I'll have time this week.

Celine

[vkioulaphides]

The 'Little Overture' is quite lovely. What strikes me about the instruments used is that they seem to be under very, very little tension— a good thing, in my view. The strings seem to be resonating freely, the tension evenly spread... nowhere are they pinched or forced into stiffness.

I suspect that Mr. Sakellarides makes sure all the angles on his instruments are worked out to perfection. A noble accomplishment!

[Bob A]

I'm a little disappointed to see the relative informality of the group portrait. I think that the performers should be wearing ties, in keeping with the serious musical content.

I assume the musicians are all related? There seems to be quite a family resemblance.

[Sellars]

Thanks for the lead! Satie is one of my favorite composers. I'll surely check this out!

[Marshall]

For CDs not yet released in North America, don't forget that there's this cool thing called "the web". #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif # I've bought a fair amount of stuff from alapage.com and some other French sites over the years, having it shipped to the U.S. (OK, that's not cheap). #There's also amazon.fr and a Spanish and German Amazon too as I recall. #Some of these sites have sometimes offerred English text as an option, but you can sometimes figure out what's going on without knowing the language. # Also some North American sites list European release CDs, which means they don't actually have it in stock but they'll do their best to get it for you, eventually. #The shipping's cheaper, though.

If I was back in my free-spending days, I'd very likely be trying to order the Melonius Q. CD from France right now.