Satie - Le fils des étoiles

[jancivil]

Satie went back to school to study counterpoint, ca. 1900, the 'oughts' iirc. 1910? And his music changed a bit.

1912:


I heard this in a Youtube post where someone took it at tempo. On an electric keyboard, or was it a controller and a software instrument. No one takes Satie 'at tempo', pretty much every rendition is very precious with a lot of rubato and 'feeling'. It sounded like Zappa like that (like the second time I'd even heard it) so I went and did this, consciously doing the marimbas and xylophone in the style. Quite a bit of it is straight, only orchestrated. There are 2 or 3 bars here that aren't Satie's though. But this is kind of the new Satie after going back to music school. The time signature changes are in league with Stravinsky at the time.

I don't tend to think of E.S. as naive, he seems to have been genuinely eccentric or a bit . I say this out of reading a bit about his religious fervor. Which is where Le fils originates. the play by Peladan...
The walking his lobster around downtown on a leash is a _bit_ odd. But one may cultivate an image, & that's pretty avant-garde.

[vurt]

who hasn't walked a lobster these days?

[jancivil]

[Harry_HH]

All the the above Satie adaptations/arrangements are brilliant.
BTW, are you (jancivil) publishing under the name "Civil"?


https://tigressufraidus.wordpress.com/

[jancivil]

Pretty much.

Thanks.

[jancivil]

Here's where I lost the plot, re Le fils:



This is the 'Theme' portion of Act II, The Grand Hall. The 'Sections 1 thru 3' is Prelude, Theme; Prelude.
There is a middle section where it has nothing to do with Satie, and the section before that is quite a stretch.

But at this point it's like using the chord changes from something as a jazz musician to do this other thing. Except for the piano solo, which has nothing to do with anything in the original. By then I knew I was out of there.

The following section, in the original this kind of thing keeps going but I found an ending of what I was doing, which is a type of reharmonization.

It is a really weird piece, by someone that wasn't quite right in the head.

[experimental.crow]

it's been said that timing is everything ...
yours is impeccable ...

[nordickvr]

Just listened to Nocturne 3.
There’s quite a lot going on there.
Mallets blend sounds especially great.
Neat orchestration.

Ok, my english still sucks but,
let’s summarize, I really enjoyed it.

[jancivil]

it's been said that timing is everything ...
yours is impeccable ...

Thank you muchly.

I try. I revisited "Fantasy" a couple of times, there is still one thing I want to do differently but I don't have the files to do it properly.

[jancivil]

Just listened to Nocturne 3.
There’s quite a lot going on there.
Mallets blend sounds especially great.
Neat orchestration.

Ok, my english still sucks but,
let’s summarize, I really enjoyed it.

Thanks!

[seismic1]

I only spotted the addition of "Fantasy" to this thread last night, and I'm really enjoying it. The solo piano was unexpected (at least for me), but expectation can be a prison , if left to its own devices. The final section was my fave - some nice Jazz moves. I think I'll play "The Dangerous Kitchen" now I'm in the mood.

Good work

[jancivil]

My old musical partner-in-crime, a pianist, called it 'a real departure' for me. And likened it to Keith Jarrett.

It happened all of a sudden. The last section took some thought; the original is right weird.

Thanks for noticing.

[jancivil]

How much of this 'adaptation' is original material?

How did I fail to respond to this particular query?

The le fils Act I, quite little. The second ‘tonal’ section I helped with a melodic touch and a rhythmic thing that is not in the original at all. The Prelude in the original is just those quartal objects as depicted in the score excerpt, I ‘wrote’ some lines. Act II Prelude I keep the original but go kind of nuts with.

Nocturne 3 has something like 6 bars that are purely mine, and I remember changing a harmony or two I was just not hearing. which led to the new material.

Now, my second adaptation of the Act II Prelude (the why of posting this day)

is in the end a Civil compo. BUT! the piano part is 100% intact, before I split the reservation entirely to construct that ending. It’s incredibly spare here, and the idea is it’s supposed as the pianist responding in the ensemble improvisation. The opposite of that as a basic part/track with additional material.

[jancivil]

Your fractured jazz opera never fails to intrigue, but I still want to hear you cut loose on a groove some day.

Stranger 'n' - #5
gets into stretches of 4/4 with a consistent backbeat... there is lead guitar from start to finish.

Thank you! This just confirms what I suspected... you can cook an awesome groove based piece. I'm going to listen to that guitar many more times. There are things happening rhythmically that make my brain smile, and there are moments of magic, similar to that piano chord, that are very emotional for me. I keep going back...

believe it or not I believe I know exactly what bits poly means.

I hadn’t really listened to this since I re-EQ’d it for a Youtube post around 8 years ago.
Apparently I had heard Jeff Beck, lol. The main idea was to get into a Mixolydian two-chord vamp cf Zappa. but…