1975 Penguin Guide, review of old LP's:

Although Satie's music is often over-rated by his admirers, there is desperate melancholy and a rich poetic feeling about much of this music which are altogether unique. The Gymnopédies or the famous Morceaux en forme de poire show such flashes of innocence and purity of inspiration that criticism is disarmed. Aldo Ciccolini is widely praised as a Satie interpreter, and he plays here with unaffected sympathy. The recording here is first rate.

See 1970 comparison with Frank Glazer by Michael Nyman.

… any pianist who presumes to interpret his music, has to meet him on his own terms. Aldo Ciccolini did back in the 1960s in his Satie series. Ciccolini sees each piece as musical essay in its own right. His playing is variously classically poised, epigrammatic, romantically excessive, delicate, and tonally variegated, or humorously heavy-handed and rhetorical; all dictated by the demands of each individual piece. Hi playing is neither classical, romantic, nor impressionistic. It is simply Satie.

High Fidelity, Sept 87, Terry Teachout:
Angel CDC 47474   70:57

This anthology of Erik Satie's piano music is not a compilation from Aldo Ciccolini's mid-1970's <late 60's> Satie series for Angel but a collection of new digital recordings made by Pathé Marconi between 1983 and 1986. The performances are cool and witty, the selection of material satisfying, the liner notes by Felix Aprahamian informative, and the running time generous. Ciccolini is joined by Gariel Tacchino for the four-hand suites Morceaux en forme de poire and La belle excentrique. An ideal CD for Satie enthusiasts.

<What the hell is this CD? Wait a second … I think I know, in fact, I used to own it, somebody "borrowed" it and never returned it. This is a wonderful collection, pure heaven, a best-of gleaned from the full 5 CD collection described below. It's a better introduction to Satie's music than the EMI double CD from the older recordings. Unfortunately, I believe it has been out of print for several years.>

<May 97, Andrew Wilson saw this collection reissued in Europe:
"The single disc Ciccolini (with new cover) is EMI 7243 4 83514 2 5. I can't swear that it is exactly the same contents as before, but it probably is." >

Stereo Review, June 87, Richard Freed:
(Another review of the Angel 47474 collection)
Gymnopédies, Gnossiennes, Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois, Embryons desséchés, Sonatine bureaucratique, Avant-dernières pensées, Véritables préludes flasques (pour un chien), Cinq nocturnes, Morceaux en forme de poire, La belle excentrique

One of the most celebrated "integral" cycles on records was Aldo Ciccolini's unique survey of the music of Erik Satie on Angel. What made it unique was that every time one might have thought Ciccolini was through with it he found more to do, and as conductor as well as pianist. His approach covered six LP's of piano music, including the four-hand pieces, in which he played both parts by overdubbing, and a seventh in which he conducted the mini opera Le Piège de Mèduse and the orchestral piece Les pantins dansent. Other pianists have recorded Satie's music, to be sure, but Ciccolini was especially successful, and his 7 discs which may have had more impact appearing one at a time than they would have released as a set, probably did more than any other single factor to stimulate the big swell of interest in this composer's work that developed in the sixties.

Five of the Ciccolini solo records are still listed, and it always seemed that Angel would ultimately get around to making some of this material available on CD. Well, Angel has done better than that, producing a newly recorded CD in which Ciccolini offers some seventy-one minutes' worth of some of the best and most "basic" of Satie's keyboard works - including the Gymnopédies, Gnossiennes, and Morceaux en forme de poire - played with all the authority and communicativeness that distinguished his earlier series and enhanced by crystalline digital reproduction that enables the listener to forget all about electronic middlemen and just relish the music. This time he does not undertake the four-hand pieces alone but shares the keyboard with Gabriel Tacchino, who is as fine a partner as you'd expect him to be from his own survey of the music of Poulenc. Felix Aprahamian's annotation adds appreciably to the pleasure of this valuable and immensely enjoyable release.

Gramophone April 87, Lionel Salter:
(compares Angel 47474 collection with CD from Pöntinen)


Nobody but a reviewer, of course, should try to listen to either of these issues straight through: it would be like eating an hour-long meal consisting of a non-stop succession of canapés, many of with only a limited variety of flavors. Not that there aren't some delectable morsels in these two over-lapping programs - from the very early (1887) Sarabande, with its unresolved chords of the ninth and its poetic atmosphere, or the haunting bare archaism of the well-known Gymnopédies of a year later (reacting against the lush textures of late-romantic German works) to the high jinks of the café-concert pieces "en forme de poiré", the parodies (including a dig at Satie's friend Chabrier) of the Croquis et agaceries d'un gros bonhomme en bois, or the frolic of La belle excentrique (a music-hall dancer) curiously subtitled Fantaisie séreuse - not to mention the challenge of the austerely intellectual Nocturnes of 1919; but in many of the pieces written before 1905 (when , at the age of 40, Satie attends the Schola Cantorum, acquiring more technique and adopting a bolder harmonic idiom) there is an excess of naiveté and too great a reliance on ending phrases on an unexpected displaced common chord. The irrepressible buffoonery mostly expressed in absurd running commentaries on the music - meant for the performer, not the audience - is sometimes sublimely idiotic, like the acknowledgments to "the celebrated mazurka by Schubert" at the quotation of the Chopin funeral march in Embryons desséchés, but sometimes degenerates into childish silliness, like the endlessly reiterated final chords in the same work.

Aldo Ciccolini has recorded Satie's piano music before, though this time he has called in Gabriel Tacchino for the four-hand pieces rather than over-dubbing himself; it scarcely needs to be said that he understands the style perfectly and invests the music with as much diversity as it can take; but the 24-year-old Swedish pianist Roland Pöntinen is no whit inferior in his sensitive nuances of both tone and rubato in his overall shaping of the pieces. The difference between them (apart from a tendency for Ciccolini sometimes to adopt slightly faster speeds) lies chiefly in the tonal quality: the sound of Pöntinen' piano (beautifully recorded!) is warmer and more romantic than that of Ciccolini, which is much shallower (is this why he lets his pedal lag over in the introductory bars to the first Gymnopédie?) and, in forte, harsh - disagreeably so in the first of the Véritables préludes flasques (pour un chien).

I can't think why Pöntinen should play a B flat instead of the printed B natural at the F minor figuration ("ourez la tête") in the third Gnossiennes…

FIVE VOLUME SERIES

Brief Review of Volume 1 from Sunshine Gazette:

Erik Satie Premieres et Derniere Oeuvres EMI CDC 7 49702 2
I lived in New York for many years, and as a child of the 60's, I listened to WNEW (classic rock) and the Jonathan Schwartz show with regularity. He always started his shows with a beautiful piano piece called Gymnopedies, by Satie. At the time I had no idea what it was, but I loved it. Later, as I got into classical music, and started listening to Debussy & Ravel, I was naturally introduced to the happy/sad pensive music of Eric Satie. These piano works are downright beautiful, chock full of emotion. Aldo Cicolini is a wonderful pianist, and he does this music justice. The piano sound is variable, ranging from just OK to stunning. Overall, a great listening disk!

Gramophone July 89, Lionel Salter:
(reviews whole series)

It says much for Ciccolini's devotion to the Satie cause that, having already once made six LPs of his piano music, he should now record that mountain of miniatures all over again: in fact, he has gone further and included some not heard before - several posthumous pieces and shavings and a couple still unpublished.

In a commendable effort to impose some sort of classification (approximate as it must be) in this 5½ hours of material (with durations of less than 2 minutes for 156 of its 212 items), the discs have been divided into five categories: 1) first and last works, from the 20-second scrap based on Ma Normandie and Satie's first publications, a couple of waltzes, to his very last piano piece, the Première Menuet (before writing which, we are told, he had studied a Mozart minuet - little effect as this seems to have had on him.) ; mystical works, including the pieces written for Péladan's Rose + Croix movement and the preludes to his "Wagnerie" Le fils des étoiles, the chaste prelude to the Isis-worshipping drama "La porte héroïque du ciel", the Ogives inspired by the arches of Notre-Dame in Paris, the Danses gothiques (a novena composed during his stormy liaison with a one-time circus performer), and the "self-flagellating" Vexations which Satie wanted played 840 times - a wish that John Cage took seriously in a 19-hour marathon in 1963, but that Ciccolini mercifully confines to 1 ½ minutes; 3) sketches and exercises, mostly written during his time at the Schola Canatorum (to which he has gone as a 40-year-old pupil), the majority of which are bits and pieces reverently edited after his death by Robert Caby, but also including the piano duets En habit de cheval and Apercus désegréables, both of which contain fugues whose conditioned sobriety horrified his friend Debussy; 4) children's pieces and what Satie himself described as his "fantaisiste" works, often quoting popular songs, airs from operettas or classic themes, and liberally sprinkling the scores with bizarre running commentaries which, the commentator for this set claims, along with the seemingly grotesque titles, often carry hidden clues - though what is the significance of two of Les trois valses distinguées du précieux dégoûté not being in triple time? and 5) music for dancing, whether sublimated, as in the Gnossiennes (presented in their chronological order of composition, which isn't that of their numbering), or actual, like the café-concert waltzes, the dances for the pantomime Jack-in-the-box and the comedy Le Piège de Mèduse, and the dance fantasy La belle excentrique (in its piano duet version and played with the movements in the order desired by Satie rather than that dictated by his publisher.

To students of what the latest Grove classifies (surprisingly) as a French master, this comprehensive collection will be of value. Enabling them to separate the dross from the pearls, the trivial from the gnomic; to the ordinary listener, the last two discs will probably be found to contain the most interesting music. In either case, certainly no more committed or convincing champion could be found than Ciccolini, who equally well conveys, for example, the tenderness of the fifth Gnossiennes, the vigor of Les trois valses distinguées du précieux dégoûté, the sentimental longing of Je te veux, the pre-Poulnec pert humor and charm of the Morceaux en forme de poire, and the frenetic gaiety of the "Grande ritournelle" of La belle excentrique (these last two with the spirited help of Gabriel Tacchino). The recordings, made in sessions from 1983 to 1986 in the Salle Wagram in Paris, unfortunately weaken the appeal of these discs: as noted in the selection previously issued, the piano tone is shallow and metallic and, in fortes, often downright disagreeable.

Fanfare Jan/Feb 90, John Wiser:

Erik Satie's incalculably influential position in the history of twentieth-century music is generally agreed upon, I think. In itself, his music doesn't always carry much punch; the emotie range is narrow, the expressive quality mild, the compositional battery of devices pared down to minimum. With all these restrictions, one can still with justice impute to this music, as William Zagurski did in Fanfare <Armengaud review>, such properties and effects as "humorous, elegant, grim, laconic, epigrammatic, and grotesque." To some of it, anyhow.

Much cleverness has gone into the assemblage by EMI, although some of these hour-plus bouquets have an air of arbitrariness about them. "First and Last Works" is a bit of a weasel; the very early and very later are present, but so are pieces taken by somebody besides annotator Ornella Volta to be the inaugural and valedictory works for various creative phases in Satie's career. It thus cuts across all other categories with the possible exception of Oeuvres mystiques, to place in the lead-off volume a high proportion of Satie's strongest inventions. The collection's Volume One is further baited with early works otherwise to be found only in Jean-Piere Armengaud's complete survey of the two-hand music, cf. Zagurski's review cited above. This will surely enable it to rack up stronger sales than the remaining four volumes will achieve.

Other categories make not much more sense in the aptness of their titles, although someone with a deep knowledge of the music has clearly had a hand in organizing it. There is in every volume with the possible exception of No. 2 quite a strong feeling of unity and some sense of logical progress; at the very least, no air of inconsequentiality. Volume Two, of course, contains those works of the years from 1888 (Ogives) through 1893 (Danses gothiques) which dwell and harp upon severely circumscribed - even for Satie - harmonic and rhythmic devices. These pieces I find individually harrowing and, in consecutive audition, numbing.

Perhaps it is presumptuous of me to assume that every person reading the extensive headnote to this five-disc issue will twig to the fact that these are indeed new recordings of material which Aldo Ciccolini has for the most part already performed on analog records. Those have had sufficient exposure, distribution, critical and popular acclaim to bring into the region of common knowledge their assets and liabilities. The new issues intensify the impression left by their forerunners, now that we can hear in even greater detail the character of Ciccolini's playing. I am probably out of step with the majority in not liking it very much.

Control of rhythm is adequate so long as the tempo remains stable and the pace absolutely regular. Attempts at short-term inflection, of which there are many more in the new recording than in the old, are too often disruptive and conspicuous, interrupting or compromising musical flow. Piano tone is often harsh and percussive where nothing in the musical text can justify it; in quick passagework this eventuates in hectic clattering. There are many moments, particularly in that baleful Volume Two, where the whole point of the enterprise is that nothing is supposed to be happening. Yet Ciccolini is desperately trying to create events at every turn. Ogives, hateful to me even when played appropriately, become maddening fidgets.

When the star performer (as billed throughout) is joined by Gabriel Tacchino for the Trois Morceaux en forme de poire and Trois petities pièces montées of Volume One, and for Apercus désagréables and En Habit de cheval in Volume Three, the collaboration seems a contest for supremacy in loudness, harshness, and abruptness. La belle excentrique in Volume Five survives because it invites just such a rackety performance.

In his notice of Armengaud's survey, William Zagorski notes, "Completeness becomes a liability with performances as grim as these." In the present case, substitute overbearing for grim, and you'll have my main impression. As little variety as there is in it, Erik Satie's keyboard music needs to be treated gingerly, with elegance, with affection and gentleness. Frank Glazer once made a Vox Box containing all the normal individual needs to know about Satie. France Clidat's one-CD selection comprises a greater range of realized pianistic possibilities than can be found in all five of these Pathé-Marconi discs. Even the eccentric-unto-madness Reinbert de Leeuw penetrates more deeply into a limited number of works, and Pascal Rogé is attractive if rhythmically etiolated in still another single-disc issue. Far more attractive treatment of the four-hand music is done by Wyneke Jordans and Leo van Doeselaar. But the solo recitals naturally overlap each other, since players will select the more attractive and better-known works. That will simply not do for that insatiable part, the Completist. If a choice must be made between the Armengaud set (two-hand music only) and the Ciccolini and Tacchino survey, it comes down to high energy and many flaws (the latter) and low energy with matching unreflectiveness (the former). Even if Mr. Glazer's limited but effective selection were to come back on CD <it is>, the piano recording would probably not be terribly impressive; I'd make do with it very nicely and think that many others would too.

In fairness, I must say I recall that last Christmas's Want List found one Fanfare contributor listing the new five-volume set with high praise. The reader may put whatever spin seems appropriate upon that fact. No recommendation from me on this one.

Fanfare Nov/Dec 96, Elliot S. Hurwitt:

(Armengaud and Merlet review)

Turning from Merlet and Armengaud back to the best known Satie interpreter, Ciccolini, proves instructive. Ciccolini made two important series of Satie recordings for Angel (now EMI) in the 1960's and 1980s. Ciccolini, drawing on a view of Satie as a comedian with a gentle, poetic side, delivered interpretations that were generally brisk and light-handed, with occasional washes of lyricism in pieces like Gymnopédies. In the first traversal of the 4-hand music no second pianist was identified , and I always wondered if these pieces were simply double-tracked <they were>. When he rerecorded this music twenty years later (working with Gabriel Tacchino in the four-hand repertoire), Ciccolini began to slow down in the prettier passages of these predominantly exuberant performances. Thus to a certain extent, Armengaud and Merlet are carrying forward a trend in Satie music performances, one of dwelling more on the beauties hidden in the interstices of the music. They even resemble Ciccolini in sharp contrasts between affects and moods in this music. And yet they have some surprises up their sleeves; their version of En Habit de cheval, at 5:10, is considerably shorter than either of Ciccolini's.

Stereophile, Dec 89, Igor Kipnis:
(review of Ciccolini and Armengaud 5 CD sets)

So far as interpretation is concerned, both pianists admirably refrain from the kind of over-statement that is anathema to Satie, ie, sentimentality is eschewed totally, though neither pianist plays antiseptically. Ciccolini perhaps has the better sense of flow, the wittier statement, the marginally livelier and charming approach. Yet…Armengaud …compels in his own slightly more sober way, often performing with admirable understanding and sensitivity … the variably miked, shallow and dryly recorded EMI piano tends to be harsh and clattery in fortes and consistently lacks a good bass response; disc 1 has a minor glitch in its very opening.

Comments from discussion group:

Add to this list, the Aldo Ciccolini set <budget two for one> on EMI. Also at budget price, and far better performance <than Glazer VoxBox>.

Re: EMI CDC 7 47474 2. <out of print colleciton> This is an excellent summary of the 5 CD set, either as an introduction to Satie"s music or as an alternative to buying all five volumes. At 70"57 it is also excellent value.
-Andrew F. Wilson

Satie gave strange titles to most of his works, so don't be turned off by the CD name. Rogé does well by Satie. Ciccolini, on EMI, has issued many volumes of his works. There is a budget priced 2-fer that would also be a good start.

Satie Gymnopedies Vol. 1; Ciccolini, EMI. Sure. One of the first, still one of the best. I believe that the "Vol. 1" that EMI is offering is Ciccolini's digital remake. I remember it as having rather surprisingly poor sound. Most of the LP "Vol. 1" (itself a remake of the mono version) is/was available on an EMI "Rouge et Noir" release (though in a typically infuriating way, they left off one piece from the original LP, even though they added a lot more).

The full Ciccolini cycle has fewer magical moments than the earlier ones, but a few moments - the Pieces Froides, and the quiet middle bits of the Six Pieces come to mind - are bewitching. The original Ciccolini Passacaille and Gnossiennes are probably the ones I'd nominate there.
-DP

De Leeuw is in some ways very interesting in the young Satie's music, while Ciccolini sometimes is good in later Satie...I would definitely not buy Ciccolini's set. I find his domination of the market rather annoying and not fair to the image of Satie. There is too much "tempo" and excitement and "italian" temperament. Too much superficiality.
-OH