I have by now a proper library on Erik Satie. My latest purchases are the books by Ornella Volta: “Satie Seen Through His Letters”, “Satie / Cocteau. Eine Verständigung in Mißverständnissen” and “Erik Satie. Satierik”.
A funny fact: Do you know that Satie changed his name from Eric to Erik? He liked the Nordic sounding “k” like the “k” in “Viking”. The composer would always sign his letters with his full name “Erik Satie”. Not just “Erik”. In Montmarte’s cabarets he was often announced as “Erik-Satie” with a hyphen.
When he was forty, Satie started to study again. Colleagues had reproached him for his flaws in composition so he thought he’d better do something about it. Claude Debussy told Satie that his pieces lacked form. Satie reacted to this criticism with a 1903 piece entitled “Trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire” - three pieces in the form of a pear.
Later, in 1968 and 1969, Satie’s friend, the dadaist photographer and artist Man Ray created three versions of the “Poire D’Erik Satie”: a print, a painting and an object. According to Man Ray, of all the fruits, pears have an “outspoken personality” and there are no two pears alike.
“Man Ray”, Andy Warhol repeats in the Netflix I’ve been watching, as if he liked the sound of it: “Man Ray. Man Ray…”
