Schwertsik, Kurt: Adieu Satie op. 86 (2002) 20'
for string quartet and bandoneon

World Premiere
5/5/2003
BASF Feierabendhaus, Ludwigshafen
Per Arne Glorvigen, bandoneon / Alban Berg Quartet


Composer's Notes      Deutsch


1.Parade
2.Darius en vacances
3.Le Coq et l'Arlequin
4.Gymnopédie
5.Clownerie acrobatique

You monastic clown,
who wished to banish the bourgeois from art
and disturb the hushed solemn whisperings of lofty art-lovers
with music hall, cabaret and the circus.

You Dadaist,
who refused to distinguish high from low art
                                              good taste from bad
                                              simple from incomprehensible ideas.

You patron saint,
of a modern ideal, which is my homeland
where I always wished to be: Utopia.

You navigator of time,
salvage the soul of modernity destroyed by Fascism
in your own chariot vanishing into eternity.

Adieu Satie

Text by Kurt Schwertsik. Translated by Richard Stokes © 2003