Music Matters

Tom Service re-appraises Erik Satie, the man and his music, on the 150th anniversary of his birth. Satie was an eccentric figure in Paris: the velvet gentleman with identical suits, who lived in a cramped 'cupboard' in Montmartre before moving to the suburbs in Arcueil. He had an uncanny knack of being involved in all the latest artistic advances of the time, collaborating with Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso among others. Tom visits some of Satie's favourite haunts in Paris and endeavours to find the truth behind the colourful stories of his eccentric life. At the Musée de Montmartre he discovers Satie's connections with visual artists, and at the Lapin Agile he experiences the form of artistic cabaret as Satie would have encountered it. With expert opinion from musicologists Caroline Potter and Robert Orledge, pianist Pascal Rogé, composer Kurt Schwertsik, stage director Danielle Mathieu-Bouillon, and Satie enthusiast Alistair McGowan.