Welcome to ‘Dodd’s Discoveries’, a review series from NativeDSD Senior Music Reviewer Bill Dodd. This series focuses on Bill’s latest selections, with new reviews regularly. And the best part… the albums featured in the most current review will be available at a reduced price! Click the button below to see all of Dodd’s Discoveries and to find the current album(s) on sale.
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I have loved the music of Erik Satie since… Well, I admit it, since I was first exposed to his Gymnopedies, no 2 as interpreted by Blood Sweat and Tears in their landmark 1968 album. I wasn’t alone in this. I’d been enjoying Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc for years, and when I finally explored Aldo Ciccolini’s recordings of Satie, I was hooked.
This album from Guillaume Coppola, Satie: Amoureux, will not replace Ciccolini, Roge, or de Leeuw in my library, but it is delightful for its freshness, and for Collpola’s finding new ways to play Satie. This is not Satie’s detached, ironic, witty, and cool approach. Guillaume Coppola has a very different approach with pedaling that adds warmth, emotional rubato, and an overall feeling that he is improvising music to express deeply felt love for someone. And that is the key!
Satie had a brief and stormy love affair with the painter Suzanne Valadon. She painted the portrait of Satie that appears on the cover of this album. And that is the inspiration! Guillaume Coppola plays as if the listener is hearing the intimate thoughts of the composer.
It’s lovely! And I think it’s perfect for listeners who prefer a more lyric, romantic approach to music, and were put off by Satie’s music. It’s also a way for Satie lovers to find some new things in these pieces. Listen to the samples! Beautiful playing, excellent recording, but certainly not normal Satie. I will have some new things to look for the next time I listen to Ciccolini or Roge!
You may also want to consider this excellent album. It features some of the less known Satie pieces, and a happy combination of quirky and tender.
