The Vexations reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Jul-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Vexations

Vexations is a noted work by Erik Satie. It consists of a short chordal passage, and is intended to be repeated 840 times.

On the score, it is written that "Pour se jouer 840 fois de suite ce motif, il sera bon de se préparer au préalable, et dans le plus grand silence, par des immobilités sérieuses" - "In order to play this motif 840 times consecutively to oneself, it will be useful to prepare oneself beforehand, and in utter silence, by grave immobilities."

Table of contents

1 First public performance 2 Meaning 3 Execution 4 Downloadable MIDI-files 5 External links

First public performance

The work was first played in public the requisite 840 times, by a team of pianists: John Cage, David Tudor, Christian Wolff, Philip Corner, Viola Farber, Robert Wood, MacRae Cook, John Cale, David Del Tredici, James Tenney, Howard Klein (the New York Times reviewer, who coincidentally was asked to play in the course of the event) and Joshua Rifkin, with two reserves, on September 9, 1963, from 6 pm to 12.40 pm the following day. Although, doubtlessly, John Cage was instrumental for some misconceptions about Erik Satie's work in general, nonetheless his 4' 33 composition could maybe be seen as the perfect "prelude" to Erik Satie's Vexations - how otherwise to execute the prescribed "immobilités sérieuses"?

Meaning

The piece's title was not explained by Satie. Some (e.g. Claude Coppens) even doubt whether it was really Satie that gave the piece it's name: the title "Vexations" appears to have originated around the time of the first (facsimile) edition of the work in 1949 (in Contrepoints N°6). Likewise, the assertion that the Vexations would be the second piece in a 3-part "Pages mystiques" appears rather dodgy, and not going back further than the 2nd edition of the work (Eschig, 1969), a period when Erik Satie's editors seemed obsessed to force any of his compositions in a three-part structure. Anyway, conjectures regarding the meaning of the Vexations (and their title) were construed long after Satie's death (in most cases supported by not more than minute indications), amongst others:

• The notation of the chords makes liberal use of enharmonic equivalents, making it difficult to immediately read.
• The Vexations could be interpreted as Satie's coming to terms with Wagnerism, which was riding high in musical life of those days: Satie definitely loathed all kinds of "Germanic" music (so not only Richard Wagner's, but also the music of Wagner's German antipodes). He loathed even more the French contemporary composers emulating what he experienced as Wagner-like romanticism (e.g. Camille Saint-Saëns, César Franck,...). In this interpretation the Vexations would be Satie's (ironic?) defiance that he could outdo music as lengthy and intense as e.g. Wagner's Ring or Liszt's Années de Pèlerinage, using only the limited (one would be tempted to say "minimalist", but that would be an anachronism) resources that were compatible with his own views on the true nature of French music - and/or, corresponding to his then more than modest means. Note that it is all but clear that his ideas about the limpid nature of French music had fully developed in this early stage. Whatsoever, the Vexations can be seen as an attack on - or a parodic emulation of - what in Wagnerian music is known as "unendliche Melodie" (never-ending melody), which is a melody supported by a sheer endless progression of complex chords - which harmonically doesn't exactly lead anywhere. In mood and compositional technique this brings the Vexations near to the - certainly mocking - "Choral inappétissant" ("unsavoury Choral"), the first (introductory) piece of "Sports et divertissements", which he composed more than 20 years later, after he had studied conventional harmony for several years.
• The Vexations were written in a period that Satie's approach to harmony was at least exotic, rather related to a modal line of thought than to conventional harmony. In order to understand what follows it should be appreciated that, in those days, the only two established harmonic systemss in western music were either the (older) modal system - which was up for some kind of revival, by e.g. Gabriel Fauré -, at the one side, and the conventional harmonic system of tonal music, firmly instored since late baroque era, on the other (the - Germanic - twelve tone system being still more than a decade away, while also Claude Debussy - much nearer to Satie - appears not to have questioned classic tonality till shortly after the Vexations were written). Harmonically the Vexations appear to be an exercise in non-resolving tritoness, one of the anathemata of conventional harmony (i.e.: in conventional harmony tritoness are not forbidden as such, but they should be immediately resolved in the next chord, what doesn't happen in the Vexations). In historical modal music tritoness were cursed as such, known as Devils in music (and thus totally anathema). It is not certain whether the various sects and cults frequented by Satie in those days would have had theological objections and/or sympathies towards these particular "Devils", and/or to the fact that the "motif" is subdivided in parts of 13 beatss. Maybe Satie's intent was nothing more than to prove that any harmonic and rhytmic system was only a matter of habit for the hearer (and not resulting from innate or divine preconception, as his contemporaries would think): so that after listening 840 times to a chordal system that is at odds with any habitual one, and set in an odd metre, one would possibly start to experience this new system to be as natural as any other - an experiment he was likely to have taken serious, and maybe directly or indirectly influenced Debussy and/or Ravel. An intended reference to Rossini's piano piece "Des tritons s’il vous plaït (Montée-descente)" (also exploring tritones) is very unlikely, while probably not yet published at that time. A reference to Liszt's "Bagatelle ohne Tonart" ("bagatelles without a key"), written a decade earlier, is maybe possible, but, apart from being uncertain that Satie ever heard about this music (and equally that he would have had more than incidental knowledge of it's underlaying "Zukunftsharmoniesystem" theory, which was rather the idea of making tonality wane by means of excessive consecutive modulationss, extending the Wagnerian style), arguably the Vexations - lacking any form of conventional modulation - are written in a key of C (which would be something like "C tritonal", while neither Minor nor Major, nor any Modal key), I, V and IV being the bass-notes starting respectively 3 groups of 4 quarter-note beats from the start of every measure on, moving towards an unresolved III in the 13nd and final beat. Note that this clash of the Vexations with any prior harmonic system is rarely discussed, not even in public concert reviews: maybe after all Satie was right, habituation to some atonality would settle in one day or another - although it has to be said that a decade after composing the Vexations Satie would give himself considerable effort to conform to the tonal system (but that could have been intended partly as a reductio ad absurdum).
• Although the date of composition is uncertain (supposedly mid 1893), the Vexations appear to have been composed shortly after a brief, but intense, relation with Suzanne Valadon, the nearest Erik Satie ever got to a relation with a woman. One of the testimonies of this relation is, apart from pictures they drew of each other, Satie's optimistic composition "Bonjour Biqui" (April 1893), Biqui being a nick-name for his beloved, and the composition being an echo of how Satie was customary to greet her. This composition takes, on paper, almost as much room as the Vexations, but no indication that it should be played more than once, so, when executed, it is infinitely shorter than the Vexations. Still, both compositions could be seen to have a mantra-like quality, one gay - the other arid (remains the question how Satie would have appreciated the idea of a "mantra"). Whatsoever, it would not be all that surprising that Satie being "vexé" (angry, even: spiteful) for being rejected by his "Biqui", wanted to disenchant himself from what she had meant to him, by composing a piece that would help forget all frivolous feelings. Possibly he was relieving himself with a kind of musical curse (seen the implications of "Devils" and the unlucky number "13" described in the previous paragraph)
• Other (not less cumbersome, because at least anachronistic) explanations involve Dadaism (which was only invented by the end the 2nd decade of the 20th century); Musique d'ameublement (also not before the end of the 2nd decade of the 20th century, at which time Satie described it as a novelty); conceptual art (not before 1960s); etc... - In other words: one could as well, and less anachronistic, call the Vexations a "typical" fin de siècle product.

Why Satie chose 840 as the number of repetitions also has been subject to conjecture: no conclusive argument showed up why he would have preferred this number to any other. The fact that 840 is the product of the numbers from 4 to 7 does not shed much additional light on the meaning that the number 840 might have had to Satie, though it has to be noted that the esoteric sects or cults Satie had been involved in up till the moment that he wrote the Vexations could be supposed to have some interest in numerology. When Satie started his own sect, supposedly around the same time as (or shortly after) composing the Vexations, he showed a keen assuredness about numbers (e.g. in the printed pamphlet listing the numbers of each type of adherant the sect was supposed to have acquired, some of these numbers going back to biblical data).

Finally, considering the many questions that remain regarding the composition, it could be seen in a tradition of Riddle music, somewhere between the "riddle fugues" of Bach's Musikalische Opfer and Elgar's Enigma Variations

Execution

There is no indication that Satie intended the Vexations for public performance (and certainly not as a "tour de force" of endurance to impress - or bore to death - a public) - the introductory text he wrote, as quoted above, rather indicating it was intended as a one-person experience (e.g. as a restrained way to work off anger, or, in order to get one's ears tuned to an unconventional harmonic system and metre). Satie did no effort to get either "Vexations" or "Bonjour Biqui" published during his life, scarcely communicating about their existence (there were more of his compositions sharing this fate).

As to the total duration of the work, and whether it is to be played loud or silent, it is hard to ascertain what Satie's intentions were:

• No metronomical tempo indication: the score mentions "Très lent" (very slow), which could mean anything while the composition has not a melody that could be experienced as falling in one or another "natural" cadence - at least not at first sight: some (e.g. the pianist Armin Fuchs, who executed the work in its entirety several times) argue there is a natural candence nonetheless (26 quarter-note beats per minute in Fuchs' case, which extends total execution to 28 hours).
• It is not clear whether Satie intended the bass-line (equal to both halves of the composition) to be repeated before EVERY half vexation: his precise instruction is "À ce signe il sera d'usage de présenter le thème de la Basse" - "At this sign customarily the theme of the Bass will be presented" (the "sign" occuring twice, before each half of the composition): "être d'usage" not really being an obligation.
• Even the 840 repeats have been questioned, for several reasons: in a "Mantra" or "habituation" approach there is not much sense in counting exactly how many times one repeats the "motif" to oneself. Also the indication Satie gives does not implicate it is mandatory to repeat 840 times: it is only a remark about the kind of preparation that is needed in the event that one wants to play it 840 times consecutively to oneself. There is no certainty Satie ever played the Vexations (or knew them executed), either with or without repeats (probably neither, because in the course of such action it probably would have emerged that the A on the 6th beat of the second half of the motif needs an accidental one way or another: either a pitch-changing accidental, like for the A's immediately before - beat 2 - or after - beat 8 - this A, either a natural, to make the middle melody of the second half of the motif identical to the high-pitch melody of the first half - I suppose in present-day executions generally the imaginary natural is played, see e.g. [1]).
• No indication whatsoever regarding at what volume it has to be played.
• It is not clear whether exactly the same speed and volume for every repetition is advisory: in the "vexation"-anger comparison mentioned above, it would not be impossible to imagine moods (expressed by tempo and volume, and additional expression by means of arpeggio, rubato, and the like) swinging from "rage" to "dejection", and everything in between, all along the same sitting, in a sort of "Etudes d'execution transcendente"-style - while obviously the standard interpretation, which is a monotonous execution (keeping to the same tempo and volume) throughout, maximally avoiding romantic implication, is more than arguably correct too.

Although, formally, there is no unambiguous indication either that the Vexations should be played on the piano, there is however little doubt that this is the intended instrument, an execution on another keyboard instrument - like e.g. the then popular harmonium - not being impossible.

Downloadable MIDI-files

From Wikipedia a ZIP-file containing, in MIDI-format, can be downloaded, by clicking this link: . The downloadable file contains also a readme regarding the parameters that were used for these interpretations or renderings of the Vexations.

External links

• http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/vexmanus.html by Stephen Whittington
• Serious Immobilities: On the centenary of Erik Satie's Vexations © 1999 by Stephen Whittington
• A harmonic analysis of Vexations and a music sample (half a vexation) can be found on: http://www.af.lu.se/~fogwall/samples.html
• The Vexations recording homepage containing, amongst other interesting topics, a life recorded MIDI-version of the Vexations, and the EEG of the pianist Armin Fuchs during the 28 hours he played them, leading to the conclusion that a trance can't be avoided when keeping scrupulously to Satie's instructions.

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