‘Back in December we invited Gregory Moskos to play music down at the shop. A few months in the works, we’re very excited to have him coming in this Thursday for an evening of wonderful music. Our friend Nic Hughes (aka Isolated Now Waves mastermind N.213) will also be playing a selection of cassettes before and after the live performance.’
Programme notes for the evening are as follows:
Gregory Moskos will be playing piano selections from the French Composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) and one piece by the American composer Scott Joplin (1867-1917).
Satie is acclaimed as an avant-garde artist whose music was a precursor to the minimalist styles of music that came out of Europe in the early 20th century. The pieces to be performed on this night are reflections of the qualities most people associate with Satie, that is slow-moving, subtle playing with somewhat awkward tones and chords which you don’t hear from the more conventional Romantic music of the same era.
All of the Satie pieces in this program were written during the end of the 19th century, when Paris was going through both a cultural and economic boom, often called the gay nineties or la belle époque. It was a time of excess and intense celebration for fashion, arts and the pleasures of life. Satie’s pieces reflect this time period as they possess a certain calmness and tranquility that is also eccentric and somewhat exotic.
The program is as follows:
1er Gymnopédie
2e Gymnopédie
3e Gymnopédie
1er Prélude du Nazaréen
2e Prélude du Nazaréen
Prélude D’Eginhard
Première Pensée Rose + Croix
Sonneries de la Rose + Croix
Maple Leaf Rag (Joplin)
The finale is Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag. This is a piece performed in ragtime, which means it has a syncopated (or ragged) rhythm rather than the usual four beats per bar. This was a style that came out in New Orleans and St Louis largely influenced by the African American culture in the red light district before it became popluar among the masses. Maple Leaf Rag was written in 1899 and is one of Joplin’s most famous pieces.
The intention of this performance is to contrast Satie’s playful avant-garde pieces with Joplin’s ragtime piece as styles of piano music composed at almost exactly the same time but quite different in rhythm and ambience and emanating from two completely different historical contexts.
