Erik Satie | Gnossienne No. 3 (Change Request ReVision)

Official Video: https://bit.ly/3clpSSj   

For this ReVision, I reimagined one of the more poignant pieces in his Trois Gnossiennes piano works from 1890, “Gnossienne No. 3”, the final “Lent” free-time piece, following the “Gnossienne No. 2 - Avec Étonnement”.

An abstract French Impressionist and influential artist of the early 20th-century Parisian avant-garde, Éric Alfred Leslie Satie aka Erik Satie (1866–1925), broke ground with his work for future artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and ambient music with his innovative “Musique D’Ameublement” works, dating from 1917.

An accomplished art and cultural journalist, publishing works for outlets as wide-ranging as the Dadaist 391 to Vanity Fair, he wrote under his own name as well as Virginie Lebeau and François de Paule during his most active years.

The first Trois Gnossiennes are piano compositions that are highly experimental with form, rhythm, and chordal structure. The Gnossienne form and its name was the original invention of Satie, a rare occasion in Western Music—however, common with the French Impressionism movement, seeing Claude Debussy, among others, reinventing the Esquisses Symphoniques, with his triptych approach—where a composer employed a new term to describe the form of their work.

These Gnossiennes were first published in Le Figaro musical No. 24 of September 1893, with the piano solo versions of the first three Gnossiennes are without time signatures or bar lines, with the “Gnossienne No. 3” returning to the thematic material of “Gnossienne No. 1”

Inspired by another master of French music, Francis Poulenc, whose orchestration of this work in 1939 completely transformed it. Conceiving a fresh contemporary sonic cosmos for this standard piece of repertoire, Poulenc transfigured this work dynamically and motivated me to take it into even another realm.

This arrangement features a return to Da Capo twice, with a Mozart-styled-minuet to conclude. I orchestrated this through synthesis and not traditional orchestral sections but organized the sound design around their respective sonic statements. Using a variety of Oberheim pads, Sequential Circuits brass, and Roland Juno strings and bass, this was embellished with modern percussive accompaniments.

Written By Erik Satie in Paris, France (1893)
Orchestrated By Neal Andrew Emil Gustafson (2019)
Produced By Change Request in Chicago, IL (2020)
Video By Andrew Emil (www.andrewemil.com)

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Erik Satie | Gnossienne No. 3 (Change Request ReVision)

Andrew Emil // Change Request 

A preeminent artist of Chicago's 3rd wave, Andrew Emil is one of house music’s most staunch stalwarts. A concert-trained percussionist since age 11, he earned a chair in his native Kansas City Symphony before eventually moving to Chicago. 

As a traditional musician, Andrew Emil has worked as a keyboardist, arranger, and an orchestrator on recording sessions and productions, cutting his teeth at the former Chicago Trax Recording Studios. 

Credited on over 200+ recordings, his composition and studio productions have ranged from concert works and sound design to film scoring stages and hundreds of releases of electronic music productions. 

After a life in live music performance, from orchestra percussion sections to punk rock ensembles, he crafted a reputation for House Music productions in Chicago under his own name, as well as Broadway & Wilson, and Uptown Tones. 

One of the earlier innovators of the “Jackin House” genre under the Broadway & Wilson moniker with Jeff Bloom, Andrew is never content to stay in one place or style of musical thought for very long. 

He is the only recording artist to do production work simultaneously for Derrick Carter’s Classic Music Company, Mark Farina’s Great Lakes Audio, Gene Farris’ Farris Wheel Recordings, and four-time GRAMMY nominee Steve “Silk” Hurley’s S&S Records.

A string of double-digit singles for prominent labels, including remixes for artists such as Common, Kanye West, Little Louie Vega, Jamie Principle, Steve "Silk" Hurley, Iz & Diz, Fast Eddie, Shalamar, Roland Clark, David Morales, Colette, Amp Fiddler, JT Donaldson, and Gene Farris, to name a few. 

2012 saw the emergence of his epithet, Change Request, with the Change Theory EP on four play music. This new persona allowed the freedom to explore hybrids of mid-tempo live instrument focused jazz-dance-fusion. 

Following this release was “After All” on Seasons Recordings, with another single thereafter featuring house music icon, Chez Damier, “I Wanna Go Back”, including a remarkable rework from Glenn Underground, on Glenview Records. 

The ever-growing collection of songs and musical dialogue eventually led to the conceptual album series from Change Request. Each full-length effort containing a completely separate story and scored via its own unique incidental subtext. 

Emil created AstraVox Music with the award-winning Los Angeles-based composer, Mr. Nathaniel, as a home for his increasing catalog of incidental dramatic musical compositions. 

www.andrewemil.com