Uploaded December 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Trois Gnossiennes pour la Piano d'après Erik Satie Composé par Grant Colburn

(Three Gnossiennes for the Pianoforte after Erik Satie, Composed by Grant Colburn)

1. Gnossienne I Lent et mystérieux 00:00
2. Gnossienne II Lent et malicieux 03:20
3. Gnossienne III Lent et mélancolie 06:20

Sheets: https://shorturl.at/fhsD5

Composers note:

After spending most of my life as a baroque composer and rock musician the idea for writing the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes came from my being gifted an old upright piano from my friend and fellow band member Joshua Patchak. The piano is a beautiful late Victorian model complete with carved wooden demon faces (or green men perhaps?) on the
corners and center of the lid. Living in a small house I had been content to have only electronic keyboards to practice and write on so having an actual acoustic piano in the house again (though relegated to the porch for space's sake) gave me the inspiration to attempt to write my first Gymnopédie. Though for most of my life I have loved the music of Satie and early 20th century music I had never attempted to
write any music inspired by him. Unlike baroque fugues or inventions or Allemands, there is no set of "rules" for what makes a Gymnopédie or Gnossienne sound authentic, so I created my own.

For the Gymnopédies the rules were that music had to stay within the patterns established by Satie with the left hand playing bass notes and chords while the right hand melodies could go no faster than quarter notes. Each piece would start with the statement of the left hand pattern and the chords themselves would use similar chord structures of major 7th chords, 9ths, etc., and strangely enough the final rule was they all had to occupy three pages of music just as Satie's do. After feeling the success of writing the first Gymnopédie I then decided I need to try to write 2 more, also following Satie's usual pattern. As I got to starting to write the 3rd Gymnopédie it became quite a challenge to not only not repeat or copy Satie's original 3 pieces but also to not repeat myself. One soon learns there's only so many melodies one can create in quarter notes, half notes and dotted half notes! I think it helped though that each piece has its own sets of chord structures and progressions. They gave each piece its own color and mood.

After completing the three Gymnopédies, the thought of wishing to publish them as a small book made me think to write 3 Gnossiennes as well to have enough music to fill out more pages. Similar to the Gymnopédies, I established "rules" to follow. These included the similar bass and chord patterns to Satie's own Gnossiennes which used purer chords than the Gymnopédies, the use of exotic eastern sounding scales, and to have somewhere within the pieces where the harmonies and chords twisted into unexpected progressions. As with Satie's, the melody would begin in the first measure. I had hoped that one of my pieces would follow Satie's different chord patterns for his Gnossienne 2, but was never able to find an idea to pursue so all 3 of mine use similar left hand patterns. Humorously or eccentrically as with Satie's originals, these pieces all needed to fit within 2 pages of music and have no bar lines. The final nod to Satie was to dedicate each piece to friends and family, add in descriptive tempo marks and to use French for the titles and the words in the music.

About Grant Colburn:

Born in Wisconsin in 1966, Grant Colburn is an American composer, pianist and harpsichordist. He studied harpsichord with Igor Kipnis and composition with Irwin Sonenfield. He is the author of six collections of baroque harpsichord music, and two concertos for harpsichord and strings. Also music for recorder/flute with continuo and works for unaccompanied cello or viola da gamba, as well as songs for voice and continuo. Colburn was the author of a feature article on period composition in the summer 2007 issue of Early Music America Magazine. He is also a contributing reviewer and writer for Harpsichord and Fortepiano Magazine. A concert of Colburn's compositions was given at the 2007 Boston Early Music Festival. Аn article on his performing experiences while there titled, "A View from the Fringe of the Fringe." appeared in Harpsichord and Fortepiano Magazine, Volume 12, No.1. Colburn is one of the founding members of Vox Saeculorum, a society of period composers.


Gnossienne I Lent et mystérieux, à Kristen Schabell
Gnossienne II Lent et malicieux, à Brian Phillips
Gnossienne III Lent et mélancolie, à David et Michael Wallace


Performed on Nord Grand piano by @NordKeyboards


Coversart streamings / socials:
https://linktr.ee/Coversart

#Gnossiennes #NordGrand #Piano #eriksatie #recomposed