TROIS VALSES (Wind Quintet)

synthesized demo

Transcription for woodwind quintet of the work originally composed in 1914 for solo piano. By this time in his career Satie was filling his scores with non-standard performance instructions, satiric barbs and modernist prose, scattered about on a carefully, expertly fashioned musical structure of experimental harmonies, strangely static rhythms, and radically miniaturized forms. In the case of Les Trois Valses Distinguées du Précieux Dégoûté, Maurice Ravel was undoubtedly the target of Satie’s satire. Ravel was the Précieux Dégoûté (a revolting or jaded dandy, a fop), and Satie’s Trois Valses subtly derided Ravel’s popular Valses nobles et sentimentales, composed four years earlier. (Another set, Avant-Dernièrniers Penseés, is also published by Creative Spirit in a transcription for woodwind quintet.)

TOTAL DURATION: about 3–1/2 minutes