Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Erik Satie remains one of the most bizarre figures in music history, yet everything he did has its own curious logic, once it can be perceived. In this important new study Dr Orledge reveals what made Satie 'tick' as a composer, dealing with every aspect of Satie's complex career and relating his achievement to the other arts and to the society in which he lived. Almost every figure in contemporary art was involved with Satie in some way or another, from Matisse and Picasso to Apollinaire, Cocteau and Brancusi. This, however, is no mere life-and-works study but rather an exploration of the technique behind Satie's art, which foreshadowed most of the 'advances' of twentieth-century music from serialism to minimalism, and even muzak. As the book progresses Satie appears as far more than just the composer of the popular Gymnopédies and Parade.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chronology
• Some descriptions of Satie
• 1 Satie's career as a composer: some interpretations
• 2 Why and where Satie composed
• 3 Parody, pastiche, quotation and the question of influence
• 4 Satie and Debussy
• 5 Satie's compositional aesthetic
• 6 Satie, counterpoint and the Schola Cantorum
• 7 Orchestration versus instrumentation
• 8 Questions of form, logic and the mirror image
• 9 Compositional systems and other sources of inspiration
• 10 Composition and the other arts
• 11 Satie on other composers
• 12 Satie and the wider world
• Appendix: chronological catalogue of Satie's compositions
• Notes
• Select bibliography
• Index of Satie's works
• General index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Orledge, who has written books on Faure, Debussy, and Koechlin, examines the compositional methodology of the seminal 20th-century French master, attempting to solve the riddle of the composer's genius through a detailed musical analysis. As noted in the text, one must search elsewhere for comprehensive biographical coverage (e.g., Ornella Volta's Satie: His World Through His Letters , Marion Boyars, dist. by Rizzoli, 1989; Roger Shattuck's The Banquet Years , 1968, Random; and Allan M. Gillmor's Erik Satie , LJ 4/15/88). The author brings impressive musical erudition and technical knowledge to the investigation, but falls short of his stated goal of deciphering Satie's genius. He tends to describe or list compositional attributes without elucidating their broader significance, and his study lacks interpretive vision. Nonetheless, his work's admirable scholarship renders it indispensable for research on Satie and his times. Included are a biographical chronology and catalog of compositions. For colleges and specialized collections.-- Daniel Fermon, Museum of Modern Art, New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Erik Satie was one of the most innovative and unusual composers in the history of European music. This book is a remarkable achievement of scholarship in that after studying the 200 books of Satie's compositions the author is able to explain the composer's mental processes in the composition of his music. Orledge does this by showing us Satie's counterpoint exercises (with corrections by his teacher, the composer Albert Roussel) and by illustrating the composer's progress from first drafts to final versions of various compositions. In addition there are chapters on Satie's friendship with and animosity toward Debussy and his relationship with and inspiration from the other arts. All information is well documented. There is an exhaustive list of compositions, with the locations of manuscripts, as well as a list of Satie's borrowings from serious and popular music. The book is illustrated with many photographs as well as diagrams of musical analysis. This is a serious book of sound musical scholarship and should be in all music libraries. -W. Ross, University of Virginia