When Erik Satie died in 1925, those closest to him were shocked to discover that he had lived in a filthy, threadbare one-room apartment to which he hadn’t admitted a single visitor, not even the concierge, in 27 years… 🎹
It was found cut off from utilities and cluttered with hoarded umbrellas and piles of unsorted papers, which nearly buried the two grand pianos that Satie had stacked one on top of the other, the upper one used as storage for letters and parcels.
Amongst the papers scattered in the apartment were thousands of tiny notes, meticulously handwritten in black and red Indian ink. When deciphered, these revealed detailed descriptions of a make-believe castle, an invented religious order, and an unplayable musical instrument, among other fantasies. Also discovered were numerous notebooks filled with unpublished compositions.
Despite the bleakness of his private life, Satie had maintained an immaculate public appearance. Clad daily in one of a dozen identical grey suits (earning him the nickname “the Velvet Gentleman”) he would emerge daily from his squalid hovel for a 10km stroll to his favourite cafés in Paris.
from CLASSIC FM
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