Madness in great ones must not unwatched go,” is one of the most famous lines from Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. Derangement amongst the most greatest of thinkers certainly has not been overlooked. The world of music presented itself ghd uk with many examples of odd notoriety, but no composer received such harsh scrutiny as Erik Satie. Composer biographer, James Harding, states: Satie in his time was, except for a small band of loyal admirers, an obscure and ridiculed musician. Today, when the astringent nature of his music is recognized by an age which can appreciate its modernity and its refusal to strike romantic cheap ghd poses, he has become a cult figure. No other minor composer is the object of so many picturesque legends. (1975, p. xi) These ‘picturesque legends’ run rampant amongst the critics. This most eccentric composer from the Contemporary period got himself ostracized from the army with self-induced bronchitis by standing outside, naked, in mid-winter. His odd superstitions kept him from washing himself with soap. A “fetishist compulsion” for umbrellas left him with over two hundred found in his apartment after his death (Dearling, 1986, p. 19). The same is often ugg boots for sale said about his vast collection of identical gray velvet suits, and handkerchiefs (Fogwall, 1996). His religious convictions and propensity for the mystical led him to form his own church. “It had one member: himself” (Harding, 1975, xi). Pierre-Daniel Templier makes a striking reference in his biography of Satie (1969). When you first start listening to him, all he says seems utterly grotesque. You catch glimpses of his thoughts only through a cloud of vulgar words and expressions, which clothe him like the skin of an impertinent satyr. He speaks only of armor-plated donkeys, of blacksmiths, of shoemakers, of curriers; and cheap ugg boots he seems always to be repeating the same thing in different words, so that ignorant men are tempted to laugh at him. But take the trouble to unfold his words, penetrate their inner meaning; then you will come to believe that they alone have meaning- you will find them all to be divine, containing the most noble images of virtue and encompassing almost everything that one must have before his eyes if he wishes to become an accomplished man. (p.55) Templier puts it best when he states: “These words are about Satie’s “Socrate,” but they could well apply to Satie himself” (1969, p.55) Grotesque and provoking titles of his works such as “Dried up Embryos,” “Genuinely Flabby ugg boots sale uk Preludes for a dog,” or “Memories of an Amnesiac” would send the critics of his day into fits of rage. Many critics were long ago antagonized by his witty titles and eccentricity; and they negated his music without knowing it… Others claimed that Satie, ignorant of the fundamentals of music, had as a shrewd Norman exploited the rich possibilities of humor to mask his technical inadequacies. We must not forget that Satie was certainly the most insulted of musicians during the whole of his long artistic existence. He was obliged ugg outlet to develop great courage in the face of his systematic malevolence and the sneers directed at him. His evident talent was despised, his sincerity questioned, his intentions misinterpreted; he was constantly criticized for his ignorance, his dilettantism. Only foreign musicians did not levy these charges against him, because they judged him by his works alone. (Templier, 1969, pp.114-15) Satie applied this same principle in his score for René Clair’s film Entr’acte (p.198). Orledge explains that “in Cinéma, Satie discovered the ideal medium for his technique of composing in short juxtaposed contrasting motifs…Here it was the non-realistic musical equivalent of a film cutting ghd salon styler from image to image that was revolutionary” (1990, p.240). This “brilliant score, which seems to have no independent life of its own, is as inseparable from its film…” (p.243). It is impossible to imagine a film today without a musical score to influence one's emotions.