Vexations is a Classical Music piece by Erik Satie. He never published it in his lifetime, and there's no record of Satie ever performing it. It's not known which instrument it was written for (though since the vast majority of Satie's works were for piano, it's considered a piano piece) or when it was written (Satie's biographers have guessed 1893 or 1894 as likely dates). It was discovered in The '40s and published by John Cage, who became its main proponent.
The piece itself consists of a few lines of discordant, unresolved modal phrases, played "Très lent" ("very slow") which take around one minute to complete. It likely would've disappeared from the face of the earth, had it not been for the curious author's note that Satie prefaced the sheet music with:
Pour se jouer 840 fois de suite ce motif, il sera bon de se préparer au préalable, et dans le plus grand silence, par des immobilités sérieuses. ("To play the motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare one's self beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities").
The famously eccentric Satie is absolutely right: to play this, or any piece 840 times in a row, requires a lot of preparation. The question is, was that note just one of Satie's trademark bizarre jokes, or did he seriously intend Vexations to played 840 times? Since its rediscovery, the prevailing opinion has been, yes, it's supposed to be played 840 times. Which depending on how fast you take the tempo, means the whole thing takes at least the better part of a day to complete, and can even stretch beyond 24 hours. Thus, Vexations has become one of Classical Music's great Dancing Bear situations, with a whole bunch of attempts at a complete 840-round performance over the last several decades, either by a rotating group of pianists or a truly brave single pianist. John Cage organized the first performance in New York in 1963, in which Cage and eleven other pianists (including John Cale) finished it in 18 hours. It's been performed by robots and performed as a fundraiser (sort of a musical version of Desert Bus for Hope). The lockdowns during the COVID-19 Pandemic inspired lots of different performers to tackle the full version, taking Satie at his word by slowing it down as much as possible. The current world record is a 36-hour performance.
Tropes associated with Vexations and its performances:
- Avant-Garde Music: As one of the most audacious compositions of one of the founding composers of this genre, it holds a special place in its history.
- Epic Rocking: Assuming it takes the pianist one minute to play the motif all the way through, 840 reps of it would equal 14 hours. However, because of fatigue and the vagueness of Satie's "Très lent" instruction, performances have stretched on much longer than even that.
- Leave the Camera Running: Full performances consist of the same few lines of music, repeated upwards of a thousand times with no variations. Very clearly an influence on John Cage's notorious uses of this in his music.
- Lonely Piano Piece: It's a very spare solo piece, with a feeling of sadness and even loss underlining it. One theory is that it was inspired by the end of Satie's brief-but-intense relationship with French artist Suzanne Valadon, a breakup which devastated him.
- Madness Mantra: Sort of an instrumental music example, as a short piece that's repeated ad infinitum with no alteration. You certainly could feel like you're going mad as you play or listen to it. Reportedly some pianists who tried to play it all 840 times began experiencing hallucinations after a while.
- Minimalism: As written, it's just a collection of almost random-sounding notes that don't have much of a structure or a resolution, so it already fits in this category. But, assuming Satie was serious about repeating it 840 times, it stands as an ancestor to the repetitious work of composers like Terry Riley and Philip Glass.
- Ominous Music Box Tune: As a simple, very dour piece that's apparently meant to be played over-and-over, it has this feeling.
- Riddle for the Ages: Satie apparently dashed this piece off, then forgot about it, leaving only the cryptic author's note as a hint to what his intentions were. As a result, everything about it is a mystery. No one knows for certain what the title means, the exact tempo of the piece, the intended volume of the music, and, most of all, did he really mean it to be played 840 times and, if so, what's the significance of the number 840?
- Tuneless Song of Madness: As a dissonant work that's usually performed repeatedly, this trope comes into play after a while.
