Fanfare, Nov/Dec 89 (90?), William Zagorski:
(reviews Collected Items from a Silent Dream London/Decca 425-208)
Ce que dit la petite princesse des Tulipes, Ogive no. 2, Berceuse, Sarbande no. 3, Sur un vaisseau, Idylkle, Gnossienne no. 3, Son binocle, Sonneries de la Rose +Croix: Air du grand Mâite, Pièces froides - airs à faire fuir no. 3, Fête donnée par des Chevaliers, Reverie du pauvre, Gymnopédie no. 2, Priére, Vexations, Harmonies

The "new-age" art work of the Alan Marks recording, its subtitle, "A very special encounter with the piano music of Erik Satie," and the selection of pieces in this collection, mostly quiet, atmospheric stuff, point up an attempt on the part of London to lure the Windham Hill crowd. I have nothing against this sort of crossover marketing. The record business is, after all, a business. I feel, however, that this particular target audience is entitled to better performances than are found here. Alan Marks, like so many of the current pianists who perform this repertoire, sees Satie as a rarefied austere musical ascetic whose music is bereft of all expressiveness, internal contrasts, tone color, whimsy, or humor. Both the scores of this music, and the composer's copious written commentary, point to a decidedly contrary point of view. In all fairness, Alan Marks realizes but one of Satie's attributes - his occasionally meditative quality - and this he applies to each and every piece in this collection, whether warranted or not. Everything is lento lugubre, all scored evidence to the contrary. To make matters worse, Marks, in his attempt to create a rapt, otherworldly atmosphere, often employs such distensions of meter that the elegant melodies of, for instance, Gnossiennes no 3, or Gymnopédies no. 2, are rendered all but unrecognizable. Mozart claimed that music played out of time was not music, and Satie, despite all his originality, still employed time signatures.

Gramophone July 91, Christopher Headington:
(reviews Vexations, Decca/London 425 221)

It's nearly a century since Satie composed his Vexations for piano and chose its title with characteristic acuity. It consists of a very slow theme of 18 noes without time signature and using every note save G sharp/A flat, which is followed by two 'variations', on with two voices above mostly in parallel tritones and other (after the plain theme again) with the additional voices once more, but inverted - which, as the tritone above inverts into another tritone below, "intensifies stasis and irritation", as Alan Marks's booklet-note puts it. All this take 2'06". After that, the composer tells the pianist "to play this motive 840 times successively." For the world premiére in 1983, John Cage organized a team of pianists and the work lasted just under 19 hours, while some later performances have taken a whole 24 hours of a day and night, as Satie evidently intended; but here Marks and Decca have only partially grasped the nettle and give us 40 repetitions, or as the pianist puts it, "just an introduction."

Well, what is a critic to say? This one is conscious of the composer's mischievous spirit hovering and ready to mock his pronouncements, and may perhaps be forgiven for keeping his head down a little. The music is by no mens disagreeable and Marks, who finishes his performance with a last statement of the plain theme and then 20 seconds of studio atmosphere, seems as persuasive an advocate as we are likely to find for a piece that he says "creates its own time zone" and describes as "sphinxlike … Cyclic, Sisyphean, a musical Moebius strip, a language complete in itself, a completion which remains unresolved. It seems to move towards infinity, its dimensions stretching exponentially." Marks goes on, "There are no instructions for the listener." As for the record collector, my advice is that this CD is only for the faithful or the truly adventurous. The piano sound is close and accompanied by unacceptable level of background noise, some of which appears to come from the instruments's action.