Pianoless Vexations, an eight-hour performance of Erik Satie's Vexations [1893] was performed at The Sculpture Centre in New York City on Sunday June 11th, 2006, 11-7pm. Vexations was composed by Erik Satie in 1893 and consists of a short motif repeated 840 times. Satie directs on the score: 'In order to play this motif 840 times consecutively to oneself, it will be useful to prepare oneself beforehand, and in utter silence, by grave immobilities.' Vexations was first performed publicly by John Cage and several other pianists over the course of 19 hours in 1963. As the title conveys, artists performing in Pianoless Vexations used any instrument except the piano to perform Satie's original composition. Instruments included laptops, drums, guitar, French horn, violin, trumpet, saxophone, viola, recorder, toy piano, harpsichord, mandolin, bass, film projectors, voice, dulcimer and more. Artists performed in continuous twenty-minute segments throughout the day.
Listen to it here, at the excellent website UbuWeb, where you can find an enormous archive of rare MP3s, old video files and performance poetry, conceptual writing etc. Check it out - it's one of the best avant-garde sites on the web.
Listen to it here, at the excellent website UbuWeb, where you can find an enormous archive of rare MP3s, old video files and performance poetry, conceptual writing etc. Check it out - it's one of the best avant-garde sites on the web.
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