Bertrand Chamayou - Letter(S) to Erik Satie

Erik Satie and John Cage are UFOs in the world of music, because they envisioned music through a completely different prism," says pianist Bertrand Chamayou. "They are pioneers in the sense that, for many people, they changed the very idea of what music must be." With his album Letter(s) to Erik Satie Chamayou pays tribute to two idiosyncratic, innovative and influential composers, one born in Normandy in 1866, the other in Los Angeles in 1912. There is a strong connection between them: Cage considered Satie a source of inspiration. Satie takes pride of place on the album with such pieces as the three Gymnopédies and the seven Gnossiennes, while Cage is represented by five pieces and a work attributed to him following it's rediscovery amongst the papers of his disciple James Tenney - whose musical homage to Satie also features in the programme. Chamayou recorded the album at the state-of-the-art Miraval Studios in Provence, which inspired him to take an experimental approach: "I thought we should do something a little different - and I thought of Erik Satie. This was an opportunity to get really intimate with the piano... Satie is really a special case, a strange musician unlike anyone else.

Track List:

Disc: 1

1. Cage: All Sides of the Small Stone for Erik Satie and (Secretly Given to Jim Tenney As a Koan)
2. Satie: Gnossienne No1
3. Cage: Prelude for Meditation
4. Satie: Gymnopédie No1
5. Excerpt, Satie: Six Gnossiennes
6. No2, Avec Étonnement
7. No3, Lent
8. Cage: A Room
9. Cage: In a Landscape
10. Satie: Rêverie de L'enfance de Pantagruel
11. Satie: Véritables Préludes Flasques (3), Pour Un Chien
12. No1, Sévère Réprimande
13. No2, Seul À la Maison
14. No3, on Joue
15. Satie: Gymnopédie No2
16. Satie: Sports Et Divertissements: No9, Le Bain de Mer
17. Satie: Gnossienne No4
18. Satie: Sports Et Divertissements: No2, la Balançoire
19. Cage: Swinging
20. Satie: Gymnopédie No3
21. Satie: Gnossienne No5
22. Satie: Nocturne No2 'Simplement'
23. Satie: Sports Et Divertissements: No17, Le Tango Perpétuel
24. Cage: Perpetual Tango
25. Satie: Gnossienne No6
26. Satie: Sarabande No3
27. Satie: Songe-Creux
28. Satie: Prelude Du Premier Acte - la Vocation
29. Satie: Gnossienne No7
30. Tenney: 3 Pages in the Shape of a Pear
31. Cage: Dream