re: [microsound] satie on accordian

[dieter scheyhing <scheyhing@xxxxxxxx>]

i just went through some of the messages from a few days ago, so i'm a bit
late on this one.

stephan - have you ever heard angelika maisch playing satie? she had a 10"
released by zensor in the early 80s (title: endich satie! (finally satie!))
she plays some piano pieces, for which satie wrote little texts, kind of odd
stories ment to be read by the performer for himself before he is playing,
to help him get a certain image or mood for the performance, but
expressively not ment to be read to the public. now this is exactly what
angelika maisch did: while playing the pieces, she recites the texts in
german, to be exact: in her "badisch" dialect (she's from karlsruhe). i can
hardly describe how funny this is, i guess you have to have heard someone
speaking who originates from karlsruhe to get the picture :-)
the whole thing is very weird, and very very enjoyable!

the east berlin free jazz pianist ulrich gumpert also released a satie
record. i think it was on nato, and as i recall it he played VERY slowly,
kind of ultra-de-leeuw-style.
regarding de leeuw's satie, maybe the matter is a bit like glenn gould's
mozart: to enjoy it long-term, occasionally one has to put it against the
backdrop of a *serious* interpretation - like ciccolini (satie) or gulda
(mozart), this way getting to appreciate the latter as well.

regarding interesting uses of accordian: of course pauline oliveiros (too
obvious?)
also i used to enjoy most of what guy klucevsek did, before he was getting
too corny - though a certain degree of corniness was always part of his game
and works very well in the earlier period. his cd on phil niblock's label
was really good, and also his polka project was nice (he had a lot of
contemparary musicians/composers commissioned to write a polka for him - or
what they imagined a polka could be).
and christina kubisch did a piece for accordian and tape, titled nostalgico.
a live recording of a performance of this piece is included on her "four
pieces" cd.

- dieter