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I found out about this amazing 24-hour orchestral recording of Satie’s Vexations on a radio show that was supposed to be broadcast on Resonance Radio in London, but which probably – it seems – will never be aired. I got a copy of the not aired show on a CD, though, for the useful information on it concerning The Great Learning Orchestra, since I wanted to write about that latter day descendant of Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra. At the end of an interview with Pelle Halvarsson and Leif Jordansson (founders of The Great Learning Orchestra) on this show, they haphazardly, sort of from the corner of the mouth, let on the existence of this recording, jokingly inviting anyone interested in a copy to make contact!

I don’t easily scare when it comes to impossible cultural feats – instead they make me jump! -, so I did indeed ask Leif Jordansson about the true nature of this elusive, gargantuan recording. I soon learned that the whole thing lay dormant on 12 DAT tapes in a box in Great Learning Orchestra’s quarters in a hidden away corner of the fancier parts of Stockholm. I was invited to come around and borrow this unique set of tapes with the world premier of an orchestral version of Vexations, with the simultaneous assignment to transfer the lot onto CDRs.

I found my way up from the subway, out onto wintry, snowy streets and via a door code into a closed-in yard, across it and down into a basement by way of an anonymous and inconspicuous door. The only let-on were the letters GLO painted on a mailbox outside the door.
Inside was The Great Learning Orchestra habitat, a few rooms stuffed with instruments and electronic gear, microphones, recording equipment and a creative mess of paraphernalia of all sorts. It is truly a place where your thoughts and feelings turn in creative directions.

We talked briefly as I was handed the 12 DAT tapes, and with a feeling of awe I left for the subway and the train back to my rural dominions. I was nervous, and held on hard to my bag with the treasure; the only existing recording in the world of Erik Satie’s Vexations by an orchestra. There have been performances by pianists – for which the work originally was intended -, with usually 8 pianists taking turn, the latest as of now – February 2004 – being the one in London in January, during the BBC 3 John Cage Uncaged weekend, except then 54 pianists played… but in my bag I had the sole orchestral recording.

At home I began working with the 12 two-hour tapes immediately, first deciding where to fade out and fade in, to make the CDs about one hour each, with some overlapping not to miss anything. Then it was easy as Tony Curtis to make the transfers to CD.

I immediately found out that the recording levels of the two DAT recorders that had been used by the orchestra during the performance back in 1999 had been cautiously set much to low, which, however, is preferable to having the recording register too loud. There’s nothing to do about bad overload distortion, but in a non-hiss digital recording you can adjust levels upwards pretty much before any digital jitter will be audible – and that is what I decided to do.

At first I transferred the music untouched, in its original from, from DAT to CDR, so as to keep the original recording as it was. The archival duties in one of the jobs I’ve had, have made me very aware of the importance to always keep a copy untouched, in its original state, even when transferred to other media, and then make changes from a copy, which is no problem with digital media, or, in the case of analog media, to make a second transfer which is adjusted during transfer, or preferably transfer it to digital media and then change it around.

Nonetheless, in addition to the low level problem, I also found some irritating balance anomalies, revealed in the disturbing tilting of the sound to the right.
I solved this easily, but time-consumingly, by transferring each CDR to the hard drive of my Macintosh, where I adjusted levels and balance in a software called SoundMaker, after which I burned a new set of 24 CDs.

Now the recording became very listenable, and alive with vibrancy and presence.

Leif Jordansson introduces the concert on the first CD, by explaining that The Great Learning Orchestra will play three Erik Satie pieces; Priére, lasting one minute, Vexations, lasting 24 hours, and Harmonies, lasting one minute!
The they’re off.

Much could be said about this unique recording, if one had the time and ambition to study each CD in detail, but I will only make the remark that the piece, as heard here with an orchestra, lures you into a state of mind, a Vexations way of living, which I felt heavily when working with the recording for a couple of weeks. You are transformed into these waves of recurring lines, which, however, are ever-changing. The magic lies partly in this; the minute changes and transformations that take place during such a long performance, when you experience the well-known, i.e. in this case the Vexations score, in innumerable, slightly different guises, making you aware of the intricate patterns of existence as such, with countless variations on the theme of living.

Another peculiarity – a wonderful one! – of this particular recording, is the orchestral kaleidoscope! Since The Great Learning Orchestra is a loose-knit society of musicians around a core of a more stable center of a few founders and friends, the instrumental content is pretty much unforeseeable to begin with. Then you have the special circumstances in this case, with a host of musicians taking turns on stage, while others had a meal or slept or even went out on town or home to sleep, or in some cases even to work a shift at their regular jobs, to return later an continue playing Vexations. This made the instrumentation of the moment wonderfully unforeseeable. I was told by members of the orchestra that the instrumentation indeed was spontaneous.

The only two persons who stayed all the 24 hours continuously were Leif Jordansson and Pelle Halvarsson. Pelle played 16 of the 24 hours! He says that it took him five days after the performance to get rid of that bass line in his head! When it finally disappeared Pelle was walking through a culvert in the Uppsala City Theater. He says that his head all of a sudden went completely empty. He saw a piano standing in the culvert, and he went up to it and played the piece again once – and then it took him another two days to get rid of it!

As you listen, you are carried from moment to moment by the wave motion of the piece, which starts feeling like a Vexations ocean swell, rising and sinking, breathing slowly through night and day. However, your attention is kept wide awake, in a hypnotic way, as you listen in startling apprehension for the small changes that happen each lap, each revolution of Vexations. Ever so often the instrument combinations change too, delivering a completely new sound, as if the wave motion of Vexations was moving through all kinds of fluid or semi-fluid matter. There is a fantastic difference between Vexations on a double bass and a recorder and Vexations on electric guitar and trombone, for example – and these spontaneous instrumentations keep flourishing for 24 hours!

After hours it also happens that the whim of the moment and the close calls of Vexations lunacy carry players away a bit, into ingenious experimentations, which, however, stay well inside the boundaries that the piece allows for. It is very fun at times, while, at other times, it’s like a still, soothing morning mist.

Please read the comments of players and audience!

When I was ready to hand back the DAT tapes and deliver the CD transfers plus the fixed-up CD transfers, I hopped the train to Stockholm again and went to The Great Learning Orchestra’s quarters, incredibly relieved when I no longer had the heavy responsibility of the safe-keeping of this unique recording.

I talked for a while with three members of The Great Learning Orchestra; Pelle Halvarsson, Leif Jordansson and Bebe Risenfors.

It appears that the original idea of having The Great Learning Orchestra playing Vexations came from Martin Q Larsson, musician, composer and member of the orchestra. The orchestra had started out with Terry Riley’s In C in May 1999, and when they established that the orchestra was a viable and functioning idea, they began discussing what other works they might involve. Satie was part of the discussion from early on, and Vexations, brought up by Martin Q Larsson. The core of the slowly materializing orchestra met now and then, to plan the coming performances of different works. Martin Q Larsson wrote different parts for the Vexations performance, like an S part among others, to make it easy for players to sit in with their instruments.

The group also committed a playing schedule to paper, mostly to secure the presence of enough people all the time.
The planning for the Vexations performance began sometime in August or September 1999, and, as stated above, the performance took place on 21st and 22nd November the same year. Leif Jordansson explains the vast amount of energy that went into getting all these people together at the same place and time for Vexations, as well as for other performances, of, for instance, Gavin Bryars’ Jesus Blood never Failed Me Yet and The Sinking of the Titanic.

The process really began with an invitation that was mailed to all the people who might be interested in partaking. They were to reply, stating what instrument or instruments they wished to play. The next step was to allot playing times around the clock, basically based on the preferences of all, but in the case some hours were not covered, negotiations had to be made with players to ensure a 24 hour coverage.
Another aim was to have no less than 4 players any given time on stage.

I raised the question of the orchestration. Pelle Halvarsson explained that it was a spontaneous orchestration, perhaps not in the playing moment, but as to the randomness of the groupings of players that came to decide to play at the same time, when the schedules were made.

One quality of the performance which goes right through, is the fact that, for the most part, one instrument plays the theme, while a group of other instruments join in for the variations, kind of answering the theme player, in a conversational, question and answer session, or in a refrain manner. Pelle, Bebe and Leif can’t quite discern how this came about, except that it felt very natural.

Leif Jordansson points out that it is a problem to count the times you’re playing this piece, which consists of entities of a theme, a variation, the theme again and a second variation, to be played 840 times. The only way to keep track was to print out the score on 840 sheets of paper and paginate them. Someone paginated them by hand. As they played through the piece, they dropped the score papers on the floor, and the scores were picked up and attached to the walls of the performance space; Stacken at Nalen. More and more score sheets appeared on the walls, and in the end the walls were practically covered. It felt like a crypt or a sepulchral chamber!

Pelle Halvarsson lets on that they had a twinkling metronome going through the performance to keep an even tempo, which would enable them to reach their goal after exactly 24 hours, which also happened.

The magnificent and incomparable recording of Erik Satie’s Vexations that The Great Learning Orchestra did might become available to interested parties on a print-on-demand basis, when pre-paid 24-CD boxes of the work may be distributed.