Latest news with #Vexations'
South China Morning Post
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Marina Abramovic directs pianist Igor Levit in 16-hour marathon Erik Satie performance
Classical pianist Igor Levit takes to a London stage this week for an epic musical endurance test directed by performance artist Marina Abramovic. Advertisement Levit is aiming to be the first person to solo play Vexations, a single sheet of music repeated 840 times, in a public performance expected to last at least 16 hours. The audience at central London's Queen Elizabeth Hall will witness 'silence, endurance, immobility and contemplation, where time ceases to exist', according to Abramovic on the venue's website. Written by Erik Satie in 1893, Vexations' is described as 'one of classical music's most simple, yet arduous and demanding works'. Pianist Igor Levit. He has live-streamed a solo performance of Eirk Satie's Vexations but will be the first person to do so on a concert stage when he plays it in London this week. Photo: Felix Broede for Sony Classical Satie's manuscript included a composer's note instructing that it should be repeated 840 times, a feat which generally takes between 16-20 hours of continuous playing. Advertisement During the Covid-19 pandemic, Levit live-streamed a Vexations performance from a Berlin studio.
Euronews
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
840 encores: Igor Levit and Marina Abramović plan a mammoth 20 hour Erik Satie performance
From one page of sheet music, Russian-German pianist Igor Levit will create a near day-long event. In his upcoming performance of Erik Satie's piece 'Vexations' at London's Southbank Centre, Levit will once again recreate the work exactly per its instructions, repeating it 840 times. Not published in his lifetime, 'Vexations' is a short piece that Satie wrote around 1893 without a time signature, dynamic markings, or even clear indication of how to include a bass-line added at the bottom. But all these curiosities about the one-page piece pale in comparison to the impressionist composer's instruction before the music: 'In order to play the motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.' Many believe Satie's intention was for the piece to be played 840 times. Across 24 and 25 April at London's Southbank Centre, Levit will perform 'Vexations'. It's expected that his performance could last anything between 16 and 20 hours. Past performances It's not the first time 'Vexations' will have been performed in full. Levit himself performed it over livestream during the pandemic. In 2020, Levit gave a number of livestreamed piano performances through a series of 52 concerts. His performance of 'Vexations' was aimed to represent the 'silent scream' of musicians around the world. In 1963, John Cage organised the first performance of 'Vexations'. Cage, the American modernist composer, had discovered the piece in 1949, nearly a quarter century after Satie's death. For the performance in New York, Cage organised a relay team of pianists to swap in and out to achieve the 840 repetitions. Since then, other pianists have performed it. American pianist Aaron D. Smith played it non-stop in the longest solo piano version, lasting 36 hours and 22 minutes in 2021. Last year, Japanese artist Ai Onoda tried to match the feat at the Yamagoya gallery and shop in Tokyo wearing a diaper. For his live solo performance, Levit is accompanied by arguably the leading figure in extreme performance art, Serbian artist Marina Abramović. Abramović will direct the show. As Levit braves the endurance task, the platform around him will be deconstructed, allowing the audience to slowly get closer to the 37-year-old pianist. Levit will be able to drink, eat and 'discretely' relieve himself throughout the mammoth performance. Staying the course It's also not the first time Abramović and Levit have worked together. They previously created a performance of Bach's 'Goldberg Variations' where the audience were told to prepare for the music by sitting in silence with their phones locked away for half an hour. Abramović has said that the pair 'are both ready to step into this unknown territory, leave our old ways of doing things, and emerge with a completely new experience.' Satie is one of the most influential composers of the 20th century for the way he is championed as a leading voice in the transition to modernism. His often sparse compositions, filled with unresolved chords were massively influential on impressionist composers like Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Francis Poulence. He is best known for his simple but elegant pieces, his 'Gymnopédies' and 'Gnossiennes', written in his early 20s. Shortly after writing 'Vexations' he became a recluse in his Paris apartment, allowing no visitors for the rest of his life, moving through different artistic traditions.
