Erik Satie's Letters to Milhaud and Others

Abstract

O VER four hundred letters written by Erik Satie between 1892 and 1925 have been preserved in libraries' and in private collections. My own edition, with English translation,2 was regrettably obstructed by M. Joseph Lafosse-Satie, grandson of the composer's sister Olga, who threatened legal action if publication proceeded, despite the warm support and encouragement of the principal owners of the letters, in particular my teacher Darius Milhaud, his wife Madeleine, and M. Claude Roland-Manuel. This incident takes its place in a series of litigations which have a bizarre touch of Satiean eccentricity in their own right. In 1966, Pierre Aelberts was obliged to withdraw from sale a number of reprints he had issued of Satie's writings, despite his possession of a letter of authorization from Satie himself with regard to Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1953), the only volume allowed to escape; in 1972, Jean Barraque was the victim of a law suit for diffamation of character caused