What it Means to be French

I was reminded a few days ago of certain aspects of French culture when I received an email from the music publisher Harmonia Mundi. This letter concerned a new recording of music by Erik Satie, played by the brilliant French pianist Alexandre Tharaud. Ordinarily, this would be not be of great note since there have been dozens of recordings of the music of Satie. However, Harmonia Mundi made a special little "mini site" on the Web to present different ideas and views about Satie, with quotes from some of his letters and clips from the music.



In a letter to a correspondent written in 1915, he wrote of himself in the third person:

"He has also written works of a rare stupidity... Mr. Erik Satie is taken for, justly so, a pretentious cretin... His music has no sense, and provokes laughter and a shrug of the shoulders."

Satie was born in Honfleur, a very picturesque town in the department of Calvados, Normandy. The painter Eugene Boudin was also born there. Marcel Duchamp was born in Normandy, as was Maupassant.

There is a real joie de vivre in Satie, but also an absurdist attitude closely related to Dada and Surrealism. He gave absurd titles to many of his pieces, such as Trois Morceaux en forme de poire, (three pieces in the shape of a pear), and others in a similar vein.

The French have a zest for life. When Francois Mitterand died, his mistress was permitted to attend the funeral. When the world is being torn apart by nationalism and sectarian violence, there is still culture to consider.