Erik Satie Three Piece Suite

by Ian Penman

Composer, pianist and writer Erik Satie was one of the great figures of Belle Époque Paris. Known for his unvarying image of bowler hat, three-piece suit and umbrella, Satie was a surrealist before Surrealism and a conceptual artist before Conceptual Art. Friend of Cocteau and Debussy, Picabia and Picasso, Satie was always a few steps ahead of his peers at the apex of modernism. There's scarcely a turn in postwar music, both classical and popular, that Satie doesn't anticipate. Moving from the variety shows of Montmartre's Le Chat Noir to suburban Arcueil, from the Parisian demi-monde to the artistic avant-garde, cult critic Ian Penman's masterful Erik Satie Three Piece Suite is an exhilarating and playful three-part study of this elusive and endlessly fascinating figure, published to mark the centenary of Satie's death.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Essays, Biography, British Literature, France

208 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 24, 2025

Reviews

[Graham Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with Satie in my late-teens, or perhaps it was my early-twenties; somewhere around there and certainly at the point when I felt the need for something other than the pop and rock I had previously listened to almost exclusively. From pop to Satie is perhaps a sideways step. He is in many ways a pop culture figure rather than a classical one. As Ian Penman observes he wrote music of ‘pop single length, not grand classical excursion’. He combined ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. He made his living playing popular songs in nightclubs. Like any good pop star he had an artfully crafted image through which he both presented himself to and protected himself from the world: ‘beard, bowler hat, pince-nez, three-piece suit, umbrella’. He is as enigmatic as Syd Barrett, Nick Drake, David Bowie.

For Penman Satie is a postmodernist at work while modernism was at its height. A surrealist before Surrealism really got going and one who, like so many others, wound up on André Breton’s blacklist. Satie breathed eccentric new life into traditional forms. He gave his pieces titles like Flabby Preludes (For a Dog), The Three Distinguished Waltzes of a Jaded Dandy and Sketches and Exasperations of a Big Wooden Dummy. His written instructions about how his music should be played were equally unorthodox: ‘Be an hour late’; ‘Look like a fraud’; ‘Behave yourself, please: a monkey is watching you’.

Satie invented ambient music more than half a century before Brian Eno, calling it Furniture Music (‘OFF THE PEG OR MADE TO MEASURE!’). Unfortunately, at a time when music was still heard mainly in the concert hall, he just couldn’t get people not to listen to his music, however much he implored them. In March 1920 he played some of this music during the interval of a play at the Galerie Barbazanges. He invited the audience to ‘walk about, eat, drink’ and talk. To his consternation, they all sat and listened in reverential silence. Furniture Music, like so much of Satie, is better suited to our own time, when music is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere: the soundtrack to your life.

‘In fact’, states Penman, ‘there’s scarcely a turn in post-war music, both classical and popular, that Erik Satie doesn’t anticipate or invent or suggest’. It sounds like hyperbole, but might well be true. Reading this book it struck me how much of my favourite music, or at least a certain strand of my favourite music, is infused with Satie’s spirit: Terry Riley, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Ryuichi Sakamoto, the Necks, Gavin Bryars, Arvo Pärt, Harold Budd, Howard Skempton, Ólafur Arnalds, Max Richter, John Luther Adams, Eno (Brian and Roger). Some of this music sounds a bit like Satie and some not at all. All of it, like Satie’s music, occupies the space between the conservatoire and the street; art and life. A great deal of it, again like Satie, exists on the boundaries of wakefulness and sleep: wistful yet enchanting, as light as consciousness, music that slows down time, and, to use a word that drifts through these pages, induces ’reverie’.

As its title suggests this book is in three parts. The first, a conventionally structured biographical essay on Satie, is followed by an encyclopaedia of Satie (Satie A-Z) and finally a diary Penman kept while writing the book. These two sections are encyclopaedic and intimate, dryly factual and touchingly subjective. Things become determinedly unconventional and fragmented as Satie’s antic spirit is reflected through Penman’s prose. There are lots of odd facts and strange connections: Satie and Burt Bacharach; Satie and the poker-faced Northern English variety comedian Les Dawson. A critic in a British periodical took exception to the autobiographical aspects, accusing Penman of ridiculous self-importance. Personally, I think his accounts of his buying and listening habits (like myself Penman loves charity shops: he found all of his Satie vinyl in charity shops), and his dreams about Satie, take you closer to the actual experience of collecting, listening to and living with music than most music writing ever does.

In its fragmentary and mild-mannered way this is a coherent and heartfelt polemic for a certain kind of art. Art that is modest in scale rather than epic. Art that is seriously playful and playfully serious. Art that is an antidote to all that Sturm und Drang. Art as a beautiful object in an ugly world rather than a reflection of its ugliness. Art that lets in the light. Art that is slyly subversive. Art that is technically simple rather than flashily complex. Art that is easy rather than difficult. As Penman says apropos ‘easy listening’:

‘Why ‘easy’? As opposed to…? What is supposed to be over there, crouching in the shadows, that is darker and edgier and therefore more real. How, when and why did ‘easy’ come to sound so pejorative? Music to swoon or daydream to - is that such a bad thing? One of the few spaces left under capitalism where the logic of reverie might still hold sway….Let the mind drift where it may’.

Three cheers for that, I say. And five stars for this delightfully unusual, richly imaginative, and strangely moving book.

[Ulysse · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange man in a bowler hat
Walks into Le Chat Noir
Hangs his brolly on the rack
And heads straight for the bar

Orders an Alsatian drink
Made from a plum called quetsche
So stiff it makes his left eye blink
And his subconscious stretch

Glass in hand he gazes at
The people round the room
The young the old the slim the fat
The withered the in-bloom

Most of them are friends of his
Gathered here tonight
Having left their families
To go out and get tight

There is Pablo and friend Max
Deep in conversation
While Francis sneezes and attacks
His feline dehydration

Not far from them Suzanne who’s drunk
Picks up her wet sous-bock
And flings it at a filthy monk
Asleep in just one sock

It bounces off his belly and
Slips under the piano
Precisely when our stranger’s hand
Lands on a key turned yellow

A sound appears like a drawn note
That penetrates the riot
Soon others follow suit and float
Above the crowd gone quiet

Then in the mind of every eye
A teary palace rises
Where joy and sadness multiply
In manifold disguises

What is this music they all wonder
Drunker than they thought
What is this spell he’s put us under
What magic has he wrought?

For hours do they dream and listen
Barely noticing
When rows of liquor start to glisten
At seven in the morning

A dying chord—the man gets up
Without a wave farewell
Takes his umbrella off the knob
—Crawls back into his shell

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who rates this any less than a 5* was looking for a fucking textbook. This is so much more than that (maybe I'd even go as far as to say that if you were expecting (or worse, demanding) Penman to 'educate' you on Satie, well that's mad insulting/asking for the wrong thing, no? Look elsewhere, this isn't for you), and it's so fucking spectacular. The second half is better than the first, but all in all fucking brilliant. I love the tone and texture of the writing so very much. Ian Penman never disappoints (not yet/not that I know of yet anyway). Better/fuller RTC later

[Marnie S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would I go as far as to say that this is the greatest non-fiction book I’ve ever read?… yes. I would. Am now totally in love with Ian Penman (and now more than ever before, Satie).

Also introduced me to this quote from Rozanov: ‘All religions will pass away, but this will remain: sitting in a chair and looking into the distance’.

[Justine Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ian Penman’s Erik Satie Three Piece Suite is a playful and joyous celebration of the composer and pianist. Most of you know Satie’s pieces The Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes, you may have even played the songs to soundtrack to your melancholic, nostalgic, and contemplated moments (I know I have). But there is much more to Satie, a whimsical, eccentric, proto-surrealist, who dipped in and out of various genres and artistic mediums, an artist was a product of but also often just slightly ahead of his time.

This Three Piece Suite is not a straightforward biography, but in snippets, a dictionaries, and a journal, it strays beyond Satie, but Satie still stands at the heart of the book. Penman tackles the enigmatic Satie but also modernity with an infectious enthusiasm that brings a hope and lightness to our own times:

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here are my thoughts on this book. Read it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...

[Aurelija · Rating 3 out of 5]

Penkios už pirmą dalį, nes įdomus ir įvairakampis esė
Keturios už antrą, nes alfabetas kartais atrodė forsuotai privinguriuotas (dvylika Umbrella variantų, nes būtinai reik pacituot Rihanną)
Trys už trečią, nes retai kada sutiksi tikrai įdomių dienoraščių. Paties Satie būtų buvę geriau.
Tai vidurkis 3.5 ne 4, nes Penmano dienoraštis sužlugdė mano skaitymą. Bet be jo buvo labai smagu.

[Lejla Levin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ian Penmans Three piece suite represents three in one (dictionary, biography and a journal) study on Erik Satie. Very inspirational writing with sense of calm and detachment while opening up for further contemplation on music and artist in general. The enigmatically beautiful music of Satie now more then before touches parts where I can hear a silent music within me …

[Oliver Goddard]

Projects a genuine enthusiasm for the subject, which in turn rubs off on the reader (me*). Is this the ultimate goal of non-fiction? An amazingly creative book.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started very slowly with this book and wasn’t sold on it but the last day I read it, suddenly the material seemed to be of great emotive importance. The third section which are Penman’s own thoughts was absolutely my favourite but throughout I took a lot of delight in the way he speaks about music and the language he uses to articulate certain elements of the human experience which really can’t be explained with words at all.

This bit at the end felt like the perfect antidote to the tech bro nonsense I’ve been reading lately:

“Stare into space and let your thoughts drift where they may. Detach from the relentless push to always be at work that has invaded every possible facet of life today.
To work on yourself has become an irremediable duty. To do the work. To be the best version. To be on a journey.”

Just nice all together, to crawl into the space between the words and just exist as the life and the music comes to you.

[Darren Betts · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a real vibe Ian has going on here. Not an academic treatise or a biography, just a series of feelings and energies and some lightly done Googling and listening. Similar to his Fassbinder book. But you’d have to be a real heathen to not love it and not to wish he’d turn his eye to the next wonderful thing. He enlightens, lightens, elucidates and compels. He explores and creates interest and joy. Roll on plenty more of these slim gorgeous books.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

as clear as glass. as joyful as the rain. this book made me want to return to the world of art criticism

[Amir G · Rating 2 out of 5]

I may be in a unique position of picking this up just because I was intrigued by the title. I didn’t know who Erik Satie was, never heard the name, and It was quite an unwelcoming and uninteresting read if you’re not familiar with the man or his work.

The three piece suit thing sort of gets over and done with on the first page. The rest of it feels like you sat in on a random lecture for fun, and the lecturer, noticing an unfamiliar face, tries his best to prove the esotericism of his classes.

New rule: don’t judge a book by its title.

If only there was a popular phrase which invoked something like that. Shucks!

[Omar Muñoz Cremers]

De paus van het Subjectivisme is goed bezig met alweer zijn derde boek voor het onvolprezen Fitzcarraldo Editions (essays altijd met smaakvol witte omslag). Dit keer bespiegelingen over de pianist Erik Satie, ooit een half-vergeten avantgardist, nu populair onder pianoleraren en profeet van ambient. Penman probeert om Satie weer zijn mysterie terug te geven en dat lukt goed, want een zekere excentriciteit was de man niet vreemd. Tegelijkertijd wordt deze luisteraar duidelijk hoe beperkt zijn kennis is van het complete oeuvre van Satie, vaak de vroege, beroemd geworden werken (in ultra trage uitvoering van Reinbert de Leeuw.) Er valt dus nog veel te ontdekken, ook van zijn tijdsgenoten trouwens. Dat wordt de tweedehandsbakken afstruinen, iets waar kringloper Penman alles van weet. Het eerste deel is nog enigszins conventioneel historisch, daarna wordt het steeds persoonlijker. Deel 2 is een Barthesiaans alfabet vol interessante associaties, termen, tijdgenoten (muzikaal maar ook schilders en filmers) terwijl deel 3 bestaat uit een dagboek tijdens het schrijven van het boek vol dromen, inzichten, vragen, kringloopvondsten, boeken, et cetera, (zoveel tips). Alles bij elkaar veroorzaakt het een heel vreemd effect, het voelt vluchtig en diep tegelijk, kortom het Satie-effect.

[David Miodrag · Rating 4 out of 5]

Facilitating and whimsical. Makes me want to read more about Dadaism and read Satie’s writing.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not a big fan of Satie’s music, but this is an exceptional book which makes him a fascinating character. Full of insights into all sorts of musicians and into life at large.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Erik Satie was a late 19th/early 20th century French composer whose work you almost certainly have heard without knowing who it was by (a constant for me who doesn’t know much about classical music) - if you listen to his Gymnopedies or Gnossiennes (nonsense words that he made up), you’ll probably recognise them from a thousand adverts selling anything from coffee to package holidays.

Music critic Ian Penman writes an unusual biography of the composer in Erik Satie Three Piece Suite wherein he divides up the book into three pieces (“3” was important to Satie): the first part is a straightforward biographical essay; the second part is an A-Z of Satie, a sort of Devil’s Dictionary of important elements that made up his life; the third part is a diary Penman kept when he was researching/writing the book from 2022 to 2024.

I appreciate the unconventional, creative and original approach taken for this book - entirely appropriate for the subject matter - but I would’ve preferred a simpler, ie. less stylistic, treatment of this fascinating artist.

But who was Erik Satie? A pioneer of the genre that would morph into easy listening or muzak (he called it “furniture music”), he was one of the first film composers, his pieces were short (many were roughly 3 minutes or less, like modern pop music singles), he always wore a bowler hat and umbrella, he was part of the Surrealist and Dada artistic movements, hanging out with the likes of Marcel Duchamp and Picasso, he was terrible with money and lived in squalor despite his dandyish appearance and doing quite well in his career later in life, he lived in the southern Parisian suburb of Arcueil for the last 25 years of his life and is where he was buried, and he died of alcoholism shortly before his 60th birthday.

The essay that makes up the first part is excellent - Penman knows how to perfectly write about his subjects in this format in a way that is informative, beguiling and balanced. I wouldn’t have minded if this treatment had been applied to the entire book.

Because the A-Z dictionary of Satie is much less satisfying. The short-entry format makes the reading very staccato in its rhythm. That style is why I rarely enjoy reading diary or letter books much. Some of the entries made me aware of interesting figures like Jean Cocteau and Paul Klee, as well as Satie’s strangest piece of music, Vexations, which repeats 840 times. Mostly though, this section was slow going and I don’t think this style did anything to better understanding of Satie than a traditional biographical approach would have done.

The third part, that is Penman’s diary of writing this book, was easily the worst part here. I learned little to nothing about Satie and all I got out of it was finding out that Penman doesn’t think much of the phrase “be the best version of yourself”. A pointless addition and a poor way to close out the book.

Ian Penman is a brilliant music critic and a helluva writer but I don’t think he had the material for an entire book on Erik Satie. That first essay is enough and if the rest of the book was made up of similarly-sized essays on other artists, this would be a better book. As it is, it’s a decent biography of Satie - I learned about as much of the artist as I’m likely to - although the playful stylistic approach, while fitting given the subject, ends up bringing down the quality of the book rather than improve it. Beyond the first part, the book is a chore to get through and, while I’m not going to check out any more Satie biographies, I’m sure the others that are out there are better to read than Ian Penman’s Erik Satie Three Piece Suite.

[Dalton · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s rare that a nonfiction book, and especially a biography, successfully breaks from the trappings of the often overly restrictive nature of the genre. There’s little exploration in form in biographies with most following the standard, linear nature of chronicling one’s life from birth to death. It’s a tried and true method and is wonderfully successful, but sometimes you just need something different. Something a bit riskier and more creatively illuminating that can also work well to encompass the uniquely individualized life of the person being documented; not just through the prose of storytelling, but the very form itself. In comes Ian Penman’s Erik Satie Three Piece Suite. I knew little of Satie’s life and personality before this, but through Penman’s exploration, I came to find him, Belle Époque Paris, and his decades long influence after his death, wholly enriching. In just over 200-pages (not a single page is frivolous or unnecessary) you learn all that makes Satie think, feel, live, and critically why you as an average reader and likely enjoyer of history or music, should know of him and his influence. Of the nonfiction genres, memoir is the one I’m also most, I’ll say skeptical of, as it can so easily go awry and be self-centered and without psychological depth or, frankly, honesty. (I’m looking at you A Million Little Pieces). But Penman excels in also documenting how Satie has influenced him as a music critic and makes for an emotionally rich narrative experience. I had no idea what to expect with Erik Satie Three Piece Suite, but I was completely blown away. Without question one of my new favorite nonfiction books.

[Ben Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was led to this truly exceptional work by a book club, and a what an unexpected pleasure it was to read. It was clear from the beginning that this was not to be a traditional biography. Instead, what we have is a deeply personal and idiosyncratic work, written in a playful style meant to evoke the music of Satie himself. The book, like so much of Satie's music, is divided into three sections: a brief biographical record of Satie's life; an alphabetic mini-encyclopedia comprised of hundreds of entries related to Satie, his world in the Parisian demimonde of the late 19th and early 20th century, and many other disparate subjects of tangential interest/relevancy to the author; and a collection of brief journal entries by the author spanning less than two years.

This experimental structure results in a kaleidoscopic, highly evocative portrait of the artist. Penman succeeds in bringing Satie to life: his music, his temperament, his manifold quirks and eccentricities, his lack of pretension and airs, his small-scale triumphs and tragedies. From cover to cover, the writing is pristine, sparkling, witty, concise, and polished. Each encyclopedia and journal entry is like a miniature koan or aphorism, containing some kernel of knowledge or wisdom, meant to be meditated upon, underlined, and savored.

I immediately purchased Fassbinder Thousands Of Mirrors after reading this, and I can't wait to dive back into Penman's singular writerly universe.

[Justin Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr. Penman and I belong to different tribes, and that's okay. We can both love Satie, and I'm very glad to have read the first... two thirds of this book. The first third is about Satie. The second third is about things around Satie, and also the occasional thing that has nothing to do with Satie except in Penman's mind. The last third is about Penman ("8.4.24. Let your thoughts dawdle a bit.")

So, if you're big into fragments, and hate structure or system, and if you love the aleatory and pop music (groan), you'll be into this.

If, like me, you're big into completion, and structure, and think the aleatory and pop music are both just ways of diving into the muck of late capitalism or whatever you want to call it, read the first two thirds, and enjoy, and then move on--which is surely what Penman himself would recommend.

[Stephen Hull · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is mostly fascinating, and that is mostly due to the fact that Erk Satie’s life is fascinating. It’s divided into three parts (as you might guess) of diminishing interest. The first part is a biography of Satie which quickly and effectively conveys his life, his personality, his place in the cultural life of the Paris of the time and his musical legacy. The second part is an A-Z of people, creations, ideas and random things that caught the author’s fancy whilst writing the book. The third part is a very incomplete diary of ideas, images and musing that occurred to the author over the same period, some of which are quite illuminating, others of which are decidedly not. But I’m still glad I read it.

[James C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot say I have listened to Satie's music seriously; didn't really know who he was, even less so his creative connections - Cocteau, Picabia etc., so Ian Penman's book, for me, is like a proper introduction.

As a piano Dabbler, (perpetual-beginner) to me Satie's notation (e.g. 3rd 'Gnossienne') appears easy(ish) to play - lots of space...no time signature, no key signature, no bar lines...

Of course what might appear uncomplicated is anything but 'easy'.

But Penman's book has led me to seek out Satie's music on the page and then make music.

And I have no excuse not to make acquaintence with the Surrealists at a deeper level.

A lovely provoking production.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure what to make of this. It is most definitely not a biography but some sort of meta-textual survey of Satie and his contemporaries. It jumps right into the action — Entr'acte, Man Ray, Rene Clair, Jean Cocteau, Picasso, Juan Gris, dropping names like candy on Halloween. We're moving at breakneck speed, but alas, as soon as the shot is fired, it's fizzled out. It just *ends*, which is no fair, because I wanted more. So so much more. (Of Act 1, specifically.)

Now, what the heck is Burt Bacharach doing here? (Such a random addition. I love it.)

[Aggrey Odera · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tough for me to hear this book called a "Study" when, in reality, it seems like nothing more than a long night of Wikipedia and overstretched whimsicality. The initial twenty-something pages on Satie were actually a bit fun, if new in neither perspective nor information. But the freestyle glossary (whatever Satie seems to recall in Penman's mind at whatever time) and the diary? Terrible. I get that this gimmick worked for Penman in his Fassbinder book, but Jesus Christ, man, once seems quite enough, thank you.

[Christopher Walthorne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A postmodern take on a modernist artist, Ian Penman’s approach is at times delightful, at other times frustrating, and occasionally baffling. All this is probably intentional, and he should be praised for attempting to write something genuinely new, but to be honest I’m not sure that it entirely works, as there’s plenty of stuff in here that doesn’t relate to Satie at all, and you feel that Penman’s editor just let him do whatever he wanted. An unusual book, to be sure, but not always a successful one.

[Yasaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. A bit like listening to someone with a frequently refilled drink in their hand, expounding on Satie and all manner of related topics. Accordingly, sometimes fascinating or funny or enthralling, and sometimes tedious and eyeroll-worthy. More about getting the ~vibe~ of Satie and his life and music than anything else. Still, I think it counts for the bio about a musician category of the reading challenge!

[2025 READING CHALLENGE: STEEN]

[Cal Barton]

Instructions, written by Erik Satie, on How to Play His Music: Almost invisible / Be an hour late / Be unaware of your own presence / Bury the sound / Dance inwardly / Detached but not dry / Even duller if you can / Have a drink / Laugh without anyone knowing / Looking at yourself from afar / Look like a fraud / Put yourself in the shade / Take your hand off and put it in your pocket / Behave yourself, please: a monkey is watching you.

[Ollie ! · Rating 3 out of 5]

to be honest didn’t know much about Satie!! so this book was quite interesting. it’s is split into 3 parts - the essay is great! there is a “Satie Diary” at the end which I thought would be the composer’s diary but it’s actually just the authors’s experience listing and researching Satie which is also good (however lowkey hoping for more of a personal diary from Satie himself).

Nonetheless enjoyed the author’s witty sense of humour and the insight into Satie’s music and life.

[Nellie Ellinwood]

penman has realized a vision of criticism-as-lifeway that i have sought since my earliest conceptions of the vocation. he becomes satie in his abiding and lackadaisical romance with the work. he weaves and wanders in a voice that reads like marginalia from a teacher with absolute faith in their pupil. he is as curious as he is knowledgable, and for that he has ratcheted yet higher my already all-consuming drive towards literacy.

[Joe Skilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I now find I am looking at the different blue of a wider sky"

"Haunted, again and again and again, by some uneasy vexation. A disturbance in the air, like distant bells.
Omen vibrations. A particular set of mnemonic cues. Something stuck on repeat. A voice inside you not your own."

"Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. - Apollinaire"