Satie: Piano Music Arranged for Guitar

Erik Satie never composed for guitar. In fact, he never composed for anything but solo piano, save for a handful of vocal pieces and a couple of seldom-performed ballets. The guitar has a long history in classical music, dating back to the 17th century baroque guitar (or earlier, depending on your definition of what qualifies as a guitar), but it wasn’t an instrument Satie showed interest in. It’s hard to know how he would have responded to Anders Miolin’s arrangements of his piano works on classical guitar, but it’s clear the music takes on a brand new character with such a different choice of timbre. Modern interpretations of Satie are often played on different instruments, but typically in radically different contexts. Miolin, who entered a prestigious music academy at 15, takes on the task with the seriousness of a prodigy. It’s still classical music, but the gentle tone of Miolin’s guitar pierces the somber veil of Satie’s refrains, making way for flecks of bright light to shine through.