Erik Satie (1866-1925)
Vexations (ca 1893)
Igor Levit (piano)
rec. 3-4 January 2026, B-Sharp, Berlin Design: PFA Studios
Reviewed as a WAV download.
No Silence Records G010005774771V [38]
With booklet notes that are framed by the question, ‘pourquois pas? Why not?’, Igor Levit outlines the background to his complete recording of Erik Satie’s Vexations in a single session that took fifteen hours and 29 minutes. There is a lot of detail around this, including a decision to play each of the 840 repetitions on separate sheets of paper, but Levit’s words on this work are telling indeed: “It’s all about you, the listener. You enter this space. You don’t have to worry about anything. You don’t have to pay attention to the dramaturgy. There isn’t one. You don’t have to pay attention to the melody. There isn’t one. You won’t find any harmonic developments. There aren’t any…”
John Cage was attracted to the conceptual nature of Vexations and initiated a first marathon performance in 1963, and it has been played and recorded a few times since. Igor Levit did his first complete performance in Berlin on 30 May 2020, broadcast online as part of the artistic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Levit earned my everlasting respect and admiration with his recording of Beethoven’s late piano sonatas on the Sony Classics label (review), and his recorded catalogue is now both substantial and acclaimed. His Vexations starts out ‘très lent’ as suggested by Satie, but he admits to becoming somewhat cross and frustrated after a few hours with seemingly hardly any progress getting through that stack of 840 A4 sheets, and so his tempo speeds up quite considerably later on. With the download version and the single LP release there are 30 ‘variations’ or repeats presented, sampling the beginning, near the middle, and at the end. You can hear Levit’s changes of mood if for instance you compare the gentle tranquility of the first few tracks, and then listen to his murderously forte attack in 281. These undulating contrasts are something of a feature of this performance, with some variations taking little more than a minute, others over two. By the time we get to the higher numbers the end is in sight, Satie’s enigmatically reflective pool of notes is restored to its unruffled surface, the music box winds down to a halt, and we are gently returned to the silence of the opening. Levit plays around with different pedalling and articulation along the way, and some variations almost run into each other to create impressionistic effects. Whatever happens, at no point does Levit appear to lose his sense of musicality. This progression does however somewhat give the lie to his words about there being an absence of dramaturgy. We go along with Levit’s struggles and worry on his behalf, so in this way there is a kind of extended ongoing dramatic narrative with which the listener will have to contend.
No Silence Records has made this into an impressive but expensive super-deluxe package for their customers limited to 840 copies. The release includes “a high-quality stainless steel bracelet, exclusively designed by jewelry designer Saskia Diez, featuring an NFC chip. Through the associated digital NFC experience, buyers receive the complete recording of all 840 repetitions of Vexations as a high-resolution download. The total playing time is more than 16 hours. In addition to the jewelry bracelet, the edition includes a high-quality 180g vinyl record with a selection of 30 repetitions of the work, as well as a sheet of music signed by Igor Levit, from the collection of notes used in the recording.” The LP is also available separately, and having this selection geared towards vinyl pressing no doubt accounts for its relatively brief playing time.
There are a few alternatives around for recordings of this work. Alan Marks recorded a nice CDs-worth (40 repetitions) of Vexations which originally appeared on the Decca label in 1990 and re-released elsewhere since. More recently we have had Noriko Ogawa with 142 repetitions played on an 1890 Érard instrument, missing out repeats of the single-line theme and with quite a swift tempo on the BIS label (review). There is a complete version played by Jeroen van Veen on Brilliant Classics BC95364 that fills 9 CDs and a single-CD version in his complete Satie box (review), as there is in a comparable edition from Cristina Ariagno (review). If you hunt around the names Alessandro Deljavan, Reinbert de Leeuw and Stephane Ginsburgh may also pop up online, and a download version will certainly save changing discs or LP sides.
Vexations completists will of course want to acquire Igor Levit’s fine recording of this marathon work, and this is certainly a version with the most lively and contrasting set of variations I’ve ever come across. The recording is an unedited one-take record of Levit’s performance with some background noises in the full version, which is something of which John Cage would no doubt have approved. With regard to taking on this monumental task in one sitting, Levit declares that he wouldn’t want it any other way; “Either you subject yourself to this ordeal, or you don’t do it at all.” With the reduced version chopped into six chunks there are some changes of speed and dynamic that might have been built up to more in the complete recording, but the feel of extended concentration and a sense of searching for ways to keep the mind and body engaged are certainly communicated. Levit shows us that it’s by no means a requirement to play this piece more or less the same way 840 times and, as far as I can see, has in this way opened the door to a new approach in this work. With such an audibly present human elementone could now argue that Satie’s Vexations holds a mirror to the cycle and rocky progress of life, however unwittingly.
…and monsieur Satie would, sitting at the bar in Le Chat Noir, doubtlessly find utter hilarity in us taking his little discarded scrap of paper so very seriously.
Dominy Clements
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Contents
Vexations 1-5
Vexations 168-172
Vexations 185-189
Vexations 277-281
Vexations 301-305
Vexations 836-840
