Aphorisms

1. “Les Cours”, Sports et divertissements. Erik Satie (France, 1914).

With his usual wit, Erik Satie quotes The Marseillaise—the restored national anthem of the newly-founded French Third Republic—as the hymn of the losers of a horse race, and refers to it in the score as ‘Les perdants’. I equate the horse track with the arms race between the UK and Germany in the years before the war. The parallel seems appropriate because Sports et divertissements has a distinctive British taste. In the ironic spirit of the composer, a curious quote by George V related to the motto ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’ has been included.