German, Amsterdam-based pianist and composer Philipp Rüttgers takes the music of the most eccentric and enigmatic of French composers, Erik Satie (1866-1925, who was also a pianist) and adds to its stately melancholy and serene, innovative ideas some twists – subtle swinging pulses and a touch of irony – and places it within the context of a modern jazz piano trio, with his own trio featuring fellow Amsterdam-based expats – Israeli double bass player Omer Govreen and Korean drummer Sun-Mi Hong. Rüttgers says it is all about a quest to picture the invisible in Satie’s music. RE: SATIE, Picturing the Invisible is Rüttgers Trio’s sophomore album, following Études of Shapes and Forms (Zennez, 2024).
Rüttgers draws fragments and motifs from Satie’s complete volume of works (Éditions Salabert), reshapes them into a story-like, modern jazz trio narrative. He arranged Satie’s well-known compositions like «Gymnopédies» and «Gnossiennes», and some lesser-known ones such as «Les Fils des étoiles» and «Uspud», written during Satie’s short-lived yet highly innovative Rosicrucian period, before he fell out with the order and founded his own religion, the satirical and esoteric Église Métropolitaine d’Art de Jésus Conducteur (Metropolitan Church of Art of Jesus the Conductor), of which he was famously the sole member. Rüttgers adds to the album’s cover Satie’s still useful advice for an exact daily routine like «I breathe carefully (a little at a time). I rarely dance. When I walk, I hold my sides and look rigidly behind me», and «My doctor has always told me to smoke. Part of his advice runs: – Smoke away, my dear chap: if you don’t, someone else will».
Rüttgers thinks of Satie as a lyrical, restrained, even reductive impressionist composer and pianist, and quotes John Cage famous observation: «There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot». He arranges Satie’s compositions as jazz pieces that demand attentive listening to understand their enigmatic yet organic architectures in which they flow and unfold within time and space.
Every note, pause, and gesture of this remarkable trio is charged with the mysterious essence of Satie. The album was recorded live in Studio 2 in Heuvellaan in February 2026, with the trio in the same room, without headphones, allowing the musicians to interact as they would in a concert. The cover artwork by Geert Hermkens, which references the work of Wassily Kandinsky, deepens the synesthetic, constantly shapeshifting spirit of Satie’s geometric shapes and musical forms: the spaces between the motifs, the silent tensions and the hidden harmonies.
Eyal Hareuveni
Philipp Rüttgers (piano), Omer Govreen (double bass), Sun-Mi Hong (drums)
