Satie: Sarabande No.1 - wind quintet

Satie: Sarabande No.1  

Arranged standard wind quintet

The Sarabandes are three dances for solo piano composed in 1887 by Erik Satie. Along with the famous Gymnopédies (1888) they are regarded as his first important works, and the ones upon which his reputation as a harmonic innovator and precursor of modern French music, beginning with Debussy, principally rests. The Sarabandes also played a key role in Satie's belated "discovery" by his country's musical establishment in the 1910s, setting the stage for his international notoriety.

French composer and critic Alexis Roland-Manuel wrote in 1916 that the Sarabandes represented "a milestone in the evolution of our music...pieces of an unprecedented harmonic technique, born of an entirely new aesthetic, which create a unique atmosphere, a sonorous magic of complete originality."

The sarabande is a dance in triple meter that originated in the Spanish colonies of Central America in the mid-1500s. It had migrated to Europe by the 17th Century, where in France it became a popular slow court dance. Satie's modern reinterpretations consist of three dances with a total duration of roughly 15 minutes:

Sarabande No. 1 - A-flat major (This one)
Sarabande No. 2 - D-sharp minor
Sarabande No. 3 - B-flat minor

The melody is shared amongst the top 4 instruments, and the quintet do not play tutti all of the time. This adds more interest and variation to the piece.

Enjoy