Unsent Love Letters and a Bike Ride Around The Deserted Streets of London

02/04/2020

Concord Music Publishing

Music & Sound

London, UK

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02/04/2020

Sara Lord of Concord Music Publishing rediscovers a special record - Elena Kats-Chernin's Unsent Love Letters

As we settle into our new routine – Zoom/Slack/Facetime/Skype/Google Hangouts/Teams/Houseparty….so many ways to communicate! We in the sync department at Concord are also taking this opportunity to listen to as much music as possible – which we obviously did in the old world, but I’ve found that with this extra time, the listening is much more intent, much more focussed. Also it is very rewarding to be able to share with our teams and our clients when we discover, or rediscover, an old favourite…

Talking of, on Saturday morning as the sun shone and I cycled around London for my allotted amount of government-approved exercise, through parks, down deserted streets, the sense of freedom was in direct contrast to just how eerie it was. Like a film set after production has wrapped just before the crew comes in to take it down. I’d given a lot of thought to what I wanted to listen to during the ride and had a few playlists in preparation (sound on low obvs – safety first). But as I was about to set off, Elena Kats-Chernin’s Unsent Love Letters caught my eye. It is such a gentle record – so simple, yet so moving and full of emotion. All the big themes - unrequited love, longing, missing someone who you can’t be with - and it certainly resonated as I passed by The Serpentine with the sun shining and the swans flapping and blossom…well, blossoming.

The story goes that after the great Impressionist composer Eric Satie died, amongst other strange and wonderful objects, a trunk was discovered in his apartment. It was full of love letters, addressed but never posted - written by Satie to an unknown lover nicknamed ‘Bequi’. The composer Elena Kats-Chernin, on hearing this story and being a long-time fan of his Gymnopedies was inspired to compose 26 pieces relating to some of the letters for piano and cello as an homage to Satie. Simply beautiful.