*****
THE imaginative effort to raise funds to refurbish the St Luke’s piano was to play it almost to death.
Twenty one hours was dedicated to playing almost the longest piece in western music. A wonderful array of local and far-flung pianistic talent performed a dedicated relay, each playing the same piece 20 times in half an hour and then replaced.
Satie's 840 Vexations is on one level simply that: a vexatious slow brainworm of a melody that once heard lodges with you. From Satie’s mystical phase, around 1895, it sounds more modern: angular, weird, chromatically off-kilter. The effect is hypnotic, meditative and hallucinating.
Stand-out performers included Helen Burford, Adam Swayne and composer Peter Copley. This piece is genuinely legendary: if you catch a few bars, you’ll take part in that legend.
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