Satie and Paris
Tins is the first English study of a French composer who was most variously estimated lav his own countrymen and in his own lifetime. Satie's music was admired by Debussy and Ravel long before it was known by the majority of French musicians, and it was only when he was an old man that he was acclaimed as a master by the young composers who, during the first German war, reacted violently against the music of Debussy and Ravel themselves. To have been admired by both camps is something of an achievement, and, since we never hear any of Satie's music in England, a full account of his life and his work is the first step to trying to discover the truth about him. His life is most important because, as Mr. Myers makes clear, it was his personality and his approach to music that influenced his contemporaries almckkt, as much as his actual music. Satie was a farceur, a blagueur, a pince-sans-rire, and every other French kind of humorist, and his habit of labelling his music with instructions to the performer such as "Ouvrez la tete" got him the reputation among the more solemn French musicians and almost all non-French musicians of being very little else than a typically Parisian wit.
Mr. Myers makes a very good case for the defence, without going so far as some of Satie's uncritical admirers or claiming genius for him as a composer. • Satie's humour is not everybody's, and I per- sonally find that a very little goes a long way ; but it is quite right that such a very prominent side of Satie's character should receive full attention in a book devoted to him, and I prophesy that, at least among a small group of people, this book may well lead to the appearance of Satie-fans. The Parisian background is- excellently full and well documented and interesting reading in itself. But what will interest all musicians is the music. There are plenty of examples, and Mr. Myers goes carefully through Satie's complete oeuvre. It is impossible, of course, to judge whole pieces by isolated quotations, but even what can be printed in a comparatively small book gives a good idea of the sort of effect that Satie was aiming at and was the first to create, though it was ultimately turned into a fashion and
exploited by musicians with none of Satie's unworldliness and originality. For it is quite impossible to deny, as some people have done, that Satie did possess a distinct—if small—vein of originality: And originality being the rare thing that it is in any art, we cannot be too grateful to Mr. Myers for introducing what is virtually a new original to English music-lovers and, let us hope, eventually to
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