Erik Satie Three Piece Suite by Ian Penman review – the radical lord of light entertainent

This glorious biography of the whimsical, elusive French composer celebrates the depths of his seemingly sunny music and the impact he had on other formsMusic is extremely difficult to write about. First, because it has no plot, no figures, no images, and second, because it is, as the critic Walter Pater pointed out, the one artform to which all the others aspire. Remember those earnest mini-essays on the backs of album covers, which told us everything and nothing about the piece or pieces we were about to listen to? Ian Penman writes: “As with sex, we inherit a certain language to talk about music which only glancingly reflects how much of it really makes us feel.”Penman, a journalist, critic and biographer, has written not only for the London Review of Books but also the New Musical Express. To say that he is eclectic in his tastes is an understatement; he gives the same level of consideration to Burt Bacharach as he does to Bach, and along the way puts in a word for the genius of the likes of Les Dawson – that’s right, Les Dawson. Continue reading...

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