‘Erik Satie "Vexations"’

Many of the French composer Erik Satie's works have a humorous side to them and poke fun at the occasional pomposities of the classical music world. Vexations – meaning "teasing" or even "plaguing" – is a good example. The title is not inappropriate: the score is contained on just one side of an A4 page, but must be performed 840 times! So was the composer joking or do musicians really have to do what he prescribes? A complete performance of Vexations takes about 22 hours, depending on the tempo chosen by the performers. Here, you can hear 30 musicians play a "short" version of the work, which will take about five hours.