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About "Socrates ungraved" (2016).
I was commissioned to make a transcription/arrangement of Erik Satie’s 'Socrate' by Theater-Heilbronn in 2013 for a new stage work involving the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn (WKO). This was a work I was not familiar with at the time but having since got to know it very well, I now believe it to be one of Satie’s finest creations. He subtitled the work a Symphonic Drama but this is typically ironic as the work is neither symphonic nor dramatic. Indeed, Satie said that he wanted the work to be “white” (meaning transparent, lucid and unimpassioned), adding that he had eaten nothing but “white” foods in the period leading up to its composition.
Satie’s 'Socrate' sets texts by Plato (in French translation) about the life and death of Socrates; the version I made for soprano and string orchestra based on the original voice and piano score keeps to Satie’s notion of ‘whiteness’ with subtle changes to the texture here and there in the strings to support the flow of the music through little contrasts. I realized when listening to my WKO version that I was paying little attention to what the soprano was singing (in French), and was instead starting to think about how well the music would sound with a violin taking the principal line. Thus my idea of a Satie-an anti-concerto was born, with the violin line being modelled on the original vocal line. Octave transpositions and occasional embellishments are applied in order to keep the melody idiomatic, proactive and, importantly, of constant interest to both performer and listener. I also gave a new character to the solo line through the addition of many grace notes.
I entitled this new version of the work 'Socrates ungraved' (2016) – “ungraved” is an old English word for disinterred or “dug up”, relating to my feeling that this creation is a way of giving new life to an old work. I was delighted that my good friend and long-time collaborator Dušica Mladenović agreed to work with me on this ‘anti-concerto’ and she gave the première of the work in January 2018 with the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra and Aleksandar Kojić conducting.