The Gymnopédies are three morceaux for solo piano composed by Erik Satie in 1888, the first of which is here revisited by Italian pianist and composer Fabrizio Selli in the same vein as his album The Magic Room. In this new offering, Selli has increased his use of electronics, though without sacrificing the refinement and subtlety characteristic of his preceeding work; technological wizardry is applied with taste and restraint to enhance the actual sound of the acoustic piano and to enrich its sonic ambience. Satie’s piece, dreamy and romantic yet daringly modern for its time, provides the ideal vehicle for Fabrizio Selli to expand the approach introduced to his listeners with The Magic Room, in which a delicate, ethereal atmosphere is magically sustained throughout the work’s unconventional harmonic structures. Unconventional as was Satie himself, a true original – considered, not without reason, a pioneering genius by his wide circle of students and supporters – who expressed his very personal artistic convictions through seemingly whimsical titles and innovative musical forms.
He introduced a novel musical language – defining his work “furniture music” and even “wallpaper music” – and today’s Ambient Music, a term coined in the late seventies by Brian Eno, would be unthinkable without Satie’s contribution; indeed, Eno has always cited the French master as his major source of inspiration. In this new arrangement of the first Gymnopédie by Fabrizio Selli, the “classical” character of the original score is infused with electronic stylings dear to the Brian Eno “school”, while, at the same time, the listener may detect the influence on the Milanese musician of other contemporary artists such as Björk and the Boards Of Canada in the choice of precious, peculiar sonorities and the addition of elastic, rarified rhythm sequences here and there.
