Vexations - Michael Nyman

This was part of the 18hr 40 mins marathon in Tate Modern, London, UK. The piece being performed is Vexations by Erik Satie, written in 1893, discovered in 1949 by John Cage and first performed in 1963 with Andy Warhol present in the audience. Warhol's film 'Sleep' was looped and projected above the 10 pianists who took it in turn to play 15 repetitions each, as in the original performance. This clip shows Michael Nyman's stint, preceded by Cliodna Shanahan. The performance brought back Joshua Rifkin who played the first 15 repetitions and was one of the original performers in 1963. The subject of Warhol's film, the poet John Giorno, who was for a time Warhol's partner, opened the evening with an excellent recital of three of his poems. The pianists then started at 20:00 on 27th May 2007 and finished at 14:40 on 28th May.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• vexations
• michael
• nyman
• andy
• warhol
• sleep
• giorno
• john
• cage
• erik
• satie
• tate
• modern
• long
• weekend

[bjbeamish]

Merci pour votre commentaire fanakaulitz - vous ne pouvez pas endurer toutes les 18 heures? Je dois avouer que c'était un peu terrifiant veiller toute la nuit...! ;-)

[bjbeamish]

No, I haven't - who and why and what? Tell all.

[bjbeamish]

Inspector Remorse if only I knew what you meant...  eh? what leek girl?

[bjbeamish]

I think you're right aryul - I think he was joking because as you say he did have a weird sense of humour. He would write things in his scores that would have nothing whatever to do with the music or how it should be played, but were just silly or poetic. The last laugh is probably definitely on us for enduring it, but what the hell?

[bjbeamish]

Why thank you seppojustnow - I'm glad you were able to see it. Satie is good, isn't he. You should hear Relache if you've not already - plus see the film Entr'acte which uses that music and in which Satie appears. Toodle pip.

[bjbeamish]

Thanks for your comment BlueDancer - at least art still has the power to produce violent emotions - it's obviously affected you greatly enough to spew forth about it. As for being easy to perform - it's rather deceptive actually. I can play it myself, but the similarity between the 2 variations is such that with repetition it becomes quite confusing, and especially after 20 times on the trot, let alone 840, liable to hypnotise you.

[pilsberg]

Ce qui est amusant, c'est penser à Satie qui vu son humour notoire s'est dit "Peut être un niais suivra cette consigne à la lettre"

[keyserbwa]

Même mort, je suis convaincu que Satie se bidonne encore qu'un "niais" (le mot est bien choisi, pilsberg =D ) ait suivi une telle indication ...

Mais du pianiste ou du public je me demande qui est le plus niais ... lol

[StyloXD]

Jouer Vexation pendant 18h c'est effectivement une vexation à la fois pour le pianiste et pour le public :D pour ça qu'il faudrait éviter de relayer les pianistes quand un projet est fait de jouer la pièce 840 fois

[Nicolaspaulhorvath]

@COCOONFABULA en effet c est une experiance hors du commun , je pense que c est vraiment quelque chose a faire au moins une fois dans sa vie

[alliecat1941]

Dang that would put me to sleep in the first 10 min. LOL LOL zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[MelonCreamSoda24]

I agree, this seems faster than "usual". But in any case I love vexations, when I played 5 hours of this (not straight) last year during summer school, it was a truly amazing experience that I will never forget.

[arilalala58]

he plays a lot faster than ive ever heard it

[zeldaleopard7]

il est etonnant! merci pour le partage de la vidéo

[rainbowchakra90]

Andy Warhol, in one of his initial experiments in film, did a film of different people sleeping. They weren't doing anything else, just sleeping. The piece was many hours long and I believe this song was looped as the sound track. I think to understand what this particular piece is about you'd have to do more research on Andy Warhol and his film 'Sleep'.

[CleoTheSim]

What an extraordinary performance!

(I wish I could have been there.)