Vexations
Vexations is a musical work by Erik Satie. Apparently conceived for keyboard, it consists of a short theme in the bass whose four presentations are heard alternatingly unaccompanied and played with chords above. The theme and its accompanying chords are written using strikingly eccentric and impractical enharmonic notation. The piece is undated, but scholars usually assign a date around 1893–1894 on the basis of musical and biographical evidence.
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". From the 1960s onward, this text has mostly been interpreted as an instruction that the page of music should be played 840 times, although this may not have been Satie's intention.
Publication
Satie did not publish the work in his lifetime, and is not known ever to have performed or mentioned it. The piece was first printed in 1949. The first American publication of the piece was in Art News Annual, vol. 27, again in facsimile. The first British publication was as an engraved example in an article by Peter Dickinson in Music Review, vol. 28. In 1969 the publisher Éditions Max Eschig produced the first commercial edition of the work, placing it second in a collection of three so-called Pages mystiques. Since there is no musicological evidence linking Vexations to the other works in the volume, its appearance in that context indicates nothing more than an editor's desire to publish Satie's uncollected compositions in three-part assemblages such as the Gymnopedies, Gnossiennes, etc.First public performance
Vexations appears to have had no performance history before the idea gained ground that the piece was required to be played 840 times. The first of the marathon performances of the work in this way was produced by John Cage and Lewis Lloyd at the Pocket Theatre in Manhattan by the Pocket Theatre Piano Relay Team, organized by Cage. Pianists included: John Cage, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Philip Corner, Viola Farber, Robert Wood, MacRae Cook, John Cale, David Del Tredici, James Tenney, Howard Klein and Joshua Rifkin, with two reserves, on September 9, 1963. Cage set the admission price at $5 and had a time clock installed in the lobby of the theatre. Each patron checked in with the clock and when leaving the concert, checked out again and received a refund of a nickel for each 20 minutes attended. "In this way," he told Lloyd, "People will understand that the more art you consume, the less it should cost." But Cage had underestimated the length of time the concert would take. It lasted over 18 hours. One person, an actor with The Living Theater, Karl Schenzer, was present for the entire performance.According to the 1971 edition of the Guinness Book of Records: The New York Times critic fell asleep at 4 a.m. and the audience dwindled to six. At the conclusion, one of them shouted "Encore!"
Meaning
Satie never explained the piece's title. Conjectures regarding the meaning of Vexations were construed long after Satie's death- The notation of the chords makes extensive use of enharmonic spellings, making it difficult to read immediately.
- Vexations could be interpreted as Satie's coming to terms with Wagnerism. In this interpretation, Vexations would be Satie's ironic act of defiance. He could outdo music as lengthy and intense as Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, using only the limited resources available to him; hence Gavin Bryars' description of it as 'a sort of Ring des Nibelungen des pauvres'. Vexations can also be seen as an attack on – or a parodic emulation of – what in Wagnerian music is known as the "unendliche Melodie", in which melody is supported by a continuously modulating progression of complex chords. In mood and compositional technique this brings Vexations near to the – certainly mocking – "Choral inappétissant", the first piece of "Sports et divertissements", which he composed more than 20 years later, after he had studied conventional counterpoint for several years.
- Vexations was written in a period when Satie's approach to harmony was related rather to a modal line of thought than to conventional harmony. Harmonically, Vexations appears to be an exercise in non-resolving tritones. Maybe Satie's intent was nothing more than to prove that any harmonic and rhythmic system was only a matter of habit for the hearer : so that after listening 840 times to a chordal system that is at odds with any habitual one, and set in an odd metre, one would possibly start to experience this new system to be as natural as any other – an experiment he was likely to have taken seriously, and maybe directly or indirectly influenced Debussy and/or Ravel.
- Although the date of composition is uncertain, Vexations appears to have been composed shortly after a brief, but intense, affair with Suzanne Valadon, the nearest Erik Satie ever got to a relationship with a woman, as far as is known. One of the testaments to this relationship is Satie's optimistic composition "Bonjour Biqui", Biqui being a nickname for his beloved, and the composition being an echo of how Satie customarily greeted her. it can be conjectured that Satie — being "vexé" about being rejected by his "Biqui"—wanted to disenchant himself from what she had meant to him, by composing a piece that would help him forget all such frivolous feelings.
- It is also possible that Satie was spoofing the Perpetuum mobile genre: many 19th-century composers had composed such – then very popular – separate pieces with an 'indefinite' number of repeats, mostly leaning on dextrous virtuosity. References like "immobilities", a definite number of repeats, an unconventional harmony, and a "very slow" tempo, instead of the usual very rapid one of a Perpetuum mobile, all might indicate that Satie was making a parody of this genre, spiting the cheap effects of content-less virtuosity in an uninspired harmonic and rhythmical scheme, that his contemporaries would use to suggest "rapture" to their public.
- The deeply rooted idea that Vexations might have been intended by Satie as an experiment regarding boredom appears to find little support in the ideas expressed by Satie himself, although he described boredom as 'profound and mysterious.
- Other anachronistic explanations involve Dadaism ; Musique d'ameublement ; conceptual art ; etc. Satie is often described as a precursor, or in the spirit of Oulipo, an 'anticipatory plagiarist' of subsequent developments.
- Why Satie chose 840 as the number of repetitions has also been subject to conjecture: there is no conclusive evidence showing why he would have preferred this number to any other. The fact that 840 is the product of the numbers from 4 to 7 does not shed much additional light on the meaning that the number 840 might have had to Satie, though it has to be noted that the esoteric sects or cults Satie had been involved in up till the moment that he wrote Vexations could be supposed to have some interest in numerology. When Satie started his own sect, the Metropolitan Church of Art of Jesus the Conductor, supposedly around the same time as composing Vexations, he appeared sure in his use of numbers. An article by Martha Curti on the numerology of 840, may shed more light on the subject.'
Execution
There is no indication that Satie intended the Vexations for public performance – the introductory text he wrote, as quoted above, rather indicating it was intended as a one-person experience. Satie made no effort to get either "Vexations" or "Bonjour Biqui" published during his life, scarcely, or not at all, communicating about their existence.As to the total duration of the work, and whether it is to be played loud or silent, it is hard to ascertain what Satie's intentions were:
- No metronomical tempo indication: the score mentions "Très lent", which could mean anything while the composition has not a melody that could be experienced as falling in one or another "natural" cadence – at least not at first sight: some argue there is a natural cadence nonetheless
- It is not clear whether Satie intended the bass-line to be repeated in between of EVERY half vexation: his precise instruction is "À ce signe il sera d'usage de présenter le thème de la Basse" – "At this sign customarily the theme of the Bass will be presented" : "être d'usage" not really being an obligation. There is more to be said about this sign: modern executions and editions of the score usually interpret that for every Vexation the "thème de la Basse" is to be played twice, while the original manuscript of Satie indicates the "sign" for playing this theme three times: once preceding the "motif", and once after every half of the "motif", which seems to indicate that the "thème de la Basse" has to be played before the "motif" is played the first time, but also that it is the "thème de la Basse" concluding the complete cycle. This would extend the total execution time with about half a minute.
- Even the 840 repeats have been questioned, for several reasons: in a "Mantra" or "habituation" approach there is not much sense in counting exactly how many times one repeats the "motif" to oneself. Also the indication Satie gives does not implicate it is mandatory to repeat 840 times: it is only a remark about the kind of preparation that is needed in the event that one wants to play it 840 times consecutively to oneself. There is no certainty Satie ever played the Vexations, either with or without repeats. Probably in most performances the imaginary natural is played.
- No indication whatsoever regarding at what volume it has to be played.
- It is not clear whether exactly the same speed and volume for every repetition is advisory: in the "vexation"-anger comparison mentioned above, it would not be impossible to imagine moods swinging from "rage" to "dejection", and everything in between, all along the same sitting, in a sort of "Etudes d'execution transcendante"-style – while obviously the standard interpretation, which is a monotonous execution throughout, maximally avoiding romantic implication, is more than arguably correct too.
- While the bass-note ending the motif is a major third above the first bass-note of the motif, even an execution with a modulating progression for every repeat would not be unthinkable: Satie nowhere indicates that the "motif" or the "bass theme" is to be executed at the same pitch every time.
Although, formally, there is no unambiguous indication either that the Vexations should be played on the piano, there is however little doubt that this is the intended instrument, an execution on another keyboard instrument – like e.g. the then popular harmonium – not being impossible.
Ornella Volta has been preparing a dossier with several studies regarding this work and its executions. This dossier, which has not been published, is intended to contain a full analysis and a facsimile reproduction of the original score.
The team at MakerBot Industries has programmed one of their robots to perform Vexations. It was performed for the public for the first time at a 2010 New York City Maker Faire. The performance was based on the one by Armin Fuchs in Dresden in the year 2000.
On 12 December 2012, French pianist Nicolas Horvath performed in the Palais de Tokyo a non-stop solo version lasting 35 hours. It is known to be the longest non-stop solo piano version ever.
In September 2016, during the three days of the sci-tech Trieste Next festival, the pianist and multimedia artist Adriano Castaldini performed an open-air solo of the entire Vexations, conceiving a very new way of interpreting the piece, i.e. making audible the psycho-physical experience of vexation by connecting his body to the live electronic processing of the piano sound: during the performance, the pianist wore a sensor system not simply for medical feedback, but to process medical data in real time using a software that turned data into control values for the piano sound live processing.
On December 2, 2017, alt-classical concert series ChamberLab hosted a marathon performance of Vexations as a fundraiser for the American Civil Liberties Union, and raised $16,731.85 in pledges and donations. The event was open to all musicians, and 34 participated throughout the day at the Hotel Congress in Tucson, Arizona.
On May 30, 2020, Igor Levit performed all 840 repetitions of Vexations at the B-sharp Studio, Berlin. The performance streamed on Periscope, Twitter and other platforms, including on The New Yorker's website. Levit said the recital was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, his reaction to which he characterised as a "silent scream". The 840 sheets of music were to be auctioned off to assist out-of-work musicians.