From Publishers Weekly
This whimsical book about the eccentric Parisian composer Erik Alfred Leslie Satie (1866-1925) confirms his position as one of the most bizarre personalities in music history. Gathered by a determined iconographer, the director of the Satie Foundation in Paris, and arranged somewhat chronologically by topic, such as "Friends," and "Lawsuits," these letters to Cocteau, Debussy, Milhaud, Picasso, Ravel and Stravinsky, among others, many of which have not been previously published, give us a picture of Satie the friend, student, neighbor, composer and musical influence, and of the only adherent to a religion that he founded. Illustrated with line drawings by Cocteau, Magritte and Picasso, as well as Satie's own musical scores and logos, this book will entrance and delight those interested in Parisian cultural life in the early 20th century.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Interest in Satie, one of music's eccentrics, may revive, for today's minimal music owes much to his aesthetic of restraint and purity. The eccentricity, the strange and humorous behavior, are illuminated in this correspondence, which includes letters from and to Satie and letters between other luminaries of Satie's milieu. Mixed with biographical context, the letters are arranged thematically, and in loose chronological order, in chapters such as Birth, Friends, Sects, Lawsuits, and ones on major works. Included are a chronology and an accounting of the whereabouts of the actual artifacts. Though valuable for the character portrait it provides, this collection has too many omissions to satisfy the need for a thoroughly documented complete English edition. Recommended for music collections.
- Steven J. Squires, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lib.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Steven J. Squires, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lib.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
