Noriko Ogawa - rel�che - cin�ma: Noriko Ogawa plays Erik Satie on an 1890 Erard piano, Vol. 4

For the fourth instalment in her acclaimed Satie cycle, Noriko Ogawa has gathered music written for the stage � from the pantomime Jack in the Box (1899) to the ballet Rel�che (1924) � one of Satie�s last works. Several of the pieces exist in different scorings, but the piano versions heard here are all Satie�s own. Throughout the programme, what comes across strongly is the influence of music hall and cabaret; composed in 1900, Pr�lude de �?La mort de Monsieur Mouche?� even offers a hint of the ragtime, one of the first appearances of the genre in European music. Stage projects are as a rule collaborative efforts, and among Satie�s collaborators were some of the leading names of the art world at the time. In 1924 he worked on Mercure with Jean Cocteau, Picasso and L�onide Massine, the same team that in 1916 had produced the ballet Parade, and the same year came Rel�che, Satie�s collaboration with the Dadaist poet and painter Francis Picabia. For the intermission, Picabia and Satie involved the film director Ren� Clair who made the film �Entr�acte�: a truly Dadaist offering which included disjointed episodes with a bearded ballerina, a hunter shooting a large egg, and a funeral procession with the hearse drawn by a camel. For the film, Satie provided a separate score, Cin�ma, which has been called one of the first synchronized film scores.