Chapeau Satie

Xuefei Yang’s beautifully programmed album, Chapeau Satie, marks the centenary of French composer Erik Satie’s death on 1 July 1925. Satie originally wrote all these pieces for his own instrument, the piano, yet such is the fluidity and expressiveness of Yang’s playing that this repertoire sounds born for the guitar. Indeed, as Yang suggests when talking to Apple Music Classical, there is an innate affinity between her instrument and Satie’s work: “His music is often described as ethereal, and that’s exactly the quality the guitar brings out so well. Each plucked note lingers just a little, then vanishes. “I take advantage of the many ways the guitar strings can help the nuance the sound: plucking, bending, sliding, and slurring,” she continues. “Satie’s sparse textures leave ample space for these nuances to unfold. This resonates naturally with my cultural background—Chinese plucked instruments may use few notes, but exploit many ways of treating each note.” Like most music lovers, Yang’s earliest encounter with Satie’s music was through Trois Gnossiennes and Trois Gymnopédies; as Yang recalls, she was “immediately drawn-in by their haunting beauty and understated simplicity. That dreamlike quality has resonated with me ever since.” In the Gymnopédies, that “dreamlike” quality is further enhanced by flautist Sharon Bezaly, who performs new arrangements of them with Yang. Chapeau Satie goes well beyond these more popular works, and includes a further four Gnossiennes, three of which were not published until 1968. And like the original Trois Gnossiennes, published in Satie’s lifetime, they have unconventional characteristics: “Satie provides very little in terms of traditional instruction—no time signatures or bar lines. Even the title is obscure. Instead, he offers poetic expressions such as ‘from the edge of thought’ and ‘on the tip of the tongue’. These phrases invite a deeply emotional and imaginative response, which feels entirely natural to me as it strongly echoes the spirit of Chinese art—a sensibility that values suggestion over certainty, emotion over precision.” Yang also presents several of Satie’s songs alongside soprano Héloise Werner (who also contributes a song of her own, “Mélancolie”, in homage to Satie). “Satie is celebrated for his timeless piano works,” explains Yang, “but he was also very much a man of his time and his neighbourhood. For much of his life he lived and worked in Montmartre, the vibrant heart of Paris’ thriving café-concert and cabaret scene during the Belle Époque [around 1871 until 1914]. He composed a number of songs that were performed by leading music hall stars of the day, pieces that are light-hearted, cheeky, and full of charm. Songs like ‘Je te veux’ and ‘La diva de l’Empire’ show Satie’s flair for catchy melodies and playful rhythms.” All these qualities come across spellbindingly in Werner’s singing, while Yang allows herself the chance to play some verses solo—“to give the guitar a chance to sing!”. “Satie was a composer of contradictions: serious and absurd, minimalist and theatrical, melancholic and mischievous,” summarises Yang. “That’s what makes the man and his music so endlessly fascinating. Chapeau Satie is my tribute to that man and the composer who never quite fitted in, and who still speaks to us with quiet brilliance a century later.”