Commentary: Why Satie? Why now? How one composer embodies our time of loneliness and angst
Safe at home has not necessarily meant sane at home. One antidote is a mega-dose of Erik Satie.
The French composer's most beguiling and languidly becalming piano pieces, particularly the inescapable "Gymnopedies," began showing up in April and May on recorded compilations with such titles as "Work From Home: Classical Music for Peace and Calm," "Working From Home in Peace: Classical Tunes for Concentration," "Musique Pour Travailler, Lire, Dormire" (Music for Working, Reading and Sleeping) or just plain "Chill Piano."
With time on their hands, many a lapsed piano student has begun practicing again, turning to Satie's simplest scores, which have always been catnip to beginners. In a Zoom dance video, Mark Morris found that a tiny Satie tango proved perfectly suited for tenderly voicing our pandemic solitude. The exquisitely solitary "Lonely Tango" premiered May 29 on YouTube.
Yet two days later, just as America
