Gnossiennes

Colin Cooper, Classical Guitar Magazine, March 2005

 

The eccentric French composer Erik Satie wrote his six Gnossiennes for piano toward the last decade of the 19th century; the word itself was invented by Satie, proba­bly in reference to the Greek word gnosis, which is related to spiritual knowledge. Stephen Goss has taken Nos. 2, 3, and 4 of the Gnossiennes and reinvented them for four guitars, putting quite a lot of himself in these superb presentations. Although they have the Goss stamp on them, they still manage to retain the original charac­teristics-one acknowledges the original composer here; it is as if Satie has been brought up to date. The atmosphere Goss manages to cleverly instill in this “simple” music-utilizing cross-rhythms, string brushing, harmonies, and plentiful dynamic instructions is quite astounding. In 1897, Satie’s friend, Claude Debussy, orchestrated two of the three Gymnopédies (composed by Satie just prior to his Gnossi­ennes) and almost as a “bonus track,” Goss has included his arrangement for guitar quartet based upon those orchestrations. Again, these are very attractive ar­rangements and work extremely well in this format. Both the original Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes are widely known and per­formed justifiably so and these new pre­sentations deserve a wide audience, too. It’s likely the great man would have strongly approved of these magnificent pieces. Technically, each part is not that difficult on its own; the hard part is piecing together the four lines and producing the high musicianship required to make this music work.
-Steve Marsh (Classical Guitar Magazine)