"THE MINIMALIST PIANIST"
Eric Satie, the pianist of the cabaret "Le Chat Noir" (The Black Cat), would eventually become one of the most exquisite composers of the French “Fin de Siècle”. But at the beginning, his piano technique was so scanty, and his shyness so great, that he restricted himself to pressing the same key for an entire evening. This exasperated the bourgeois clients, but delighted the artists because, combined with the ingestion of absinthe, it made them enter a kind of hypnotic trance. During an evening at Le Chat Noir, the painter and artists' model Suzanne Valadon fell into a deep hypnotic trance triggered by Satie's music. When at dawn Satie returned home, he received the unexpected visit of Suzanne who, to his amazement, fell into his arms. It’s thought that this was the first and last love affair of Satie, who maintained his whole life an almost supernatural love for Suzanne. This was the most pleasing incident that his minimalist music caused to the shy pianist and comp...