It's an absolute first for the island: the performance of "Socrates." This is the most personal and moving work by Erik Satie, the French composer whose death is commemorating the centenary of his death. The Canepa Conservatory of Sassari is presenting it on Monday at 7:00 PM in collaboration with the Laborintus Association, as the final event of the MusicaNova 2025 contemporary music series.
"Socrates" will be performed by soprano Laura Delogu and piano by Anna Revel. The text is taken directly from the Dialogues by Plato, Socrates's pupil, thanks to whom his lessons have reached us. Satie sets three texts, translated into French, to music: a portrait of the thinker at a banquet, a walk with his friend Phaedrus along a river, and finally the tragic death to which he is condemned by his fellow citizens and accepted by him, even though unjust, in full accordance with the principles of loyalty to Athenian law.
Two other compositions are on the program: “Nocturne n.1” for piano by Satie and “Dans l'intérieur” for augmented piano, written and performed by Pietro Dossena himself together with Anna Revel, in which the tragic narration of Socrates' death leaves a trail of sound in the body of the piano, which will be played using motors and other electrical and mechanical devices.
Erik Satie (1866-1925), a composer who was a leading figure in the French avant-garde between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is especially known for his complex piano production, which ranges from the delicate Gymnopédies to the hypnotic Vexations , from the visionary mystical compositions of the end of the century to the ironic miniatures of the first decade of the twentieth century.
