‘Everything I undertake misfires immediately. I produce dirty rubbish and that will accomplish nothing.’ So wrote Erik Satie in 1903 during a period of transition that saw him produce the last of his Rose+Croix style music in Verset laïque & somptueux, but in making a living writing for the music halls, he also created hugely popular songs such as Je te veux. The works on this fourth volume of Satie’s complete solo piano music were written between 1897 and 1906. They include rare theatre music and tender waltzes that contrast with jaunty ragtime and pantomime dances.

Nicolas Horvath began his music studies at the Académie de Musique et de Théâtre Prince Rainier III, and at the age of 16 he caught the attention of the American conductor Lawrence Foster. His other mentors include a number of distinguished international pianists, including Liszt specialist Leslie Howard. He is the holder of a number of awards, including First Prize of the Scriabin and the Luigi Nono International Competitions. He has become noted for hosting concerts of unusual length, sometimes lasting over twelve hours, such as the performance of the complete piano music of Erik Satie at the Paris Philharmonie before a cumulative audience of 14,000 people and recently played together with Philip Glass also at the Paris Philharmonie. Nicolas is a Steinway Artist.

‘In all of these works, [Horvath] manages to distill and present all the attributes of the shy and lonely artist [Satie], with the piano as the medium for communicating this, based on simplicity, clarity, precision, elegance and economy of means.’ – Ritmo on Satie Vols. 1 & 2 (GP761 & GP762)