Vexations / Eric Satie

Guy Vandromme and Alain Franco take on the rare challenge of performing Erik Satie’s Vexations, a proto-minimalist motif that anticipates Reich, Riley and Glass by almost 70 years.  

If performed in full to Satie’s mischievous instructions – that it should be played 840 times – the concert would last more than 18 hours. For their Sydney visit, Vandromme and Franco perform two sets of 42 repetitions on grand pianos arranged tail-to-tail, alternating each repetition, with each set lasting about an hour.  

“[Vexations] breaks down the barriers between possibility and convention”. John Cale

www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2013/Music/Satie-Vexations/