Milhaud

This week's composer on Radio 3 is Darius Mihaud. The only piece of his music I am familiar with is his Scaramouche Suite. Everybody knows it or some of it anyway. From that I (illogically) deduce that he is a wonderful composer. And I have to say that the works so far played on the Composer of the Week programme are good, easy on the ear, splendidly orchestrated, lively, happy. I wonder if he is capable of doing anything profound. In a way I hope not.
They had a recording of him speaking. He was saying that he visited America in the sixties to attend a festival devoted to his music; he gave a talk to students there in the course of which he said that he was and always had been a happy man. The next day a girl student approached him and said that she had been unable to sleep the night after he said how happy his life had been and still was because her idea of a classical composer was that they suffered for their music and his remarks disappointed her.
Years ago I heard him speaking on radio about the composer Satie. Milhaud knew him well and liked him though he was extremely eccentric - but loveably so. He said that Satie collected umbrellas and scarves. He didn't know why. He didn't suggest that they were stolen, just "collected". When Satie died, Milhaud and his wife went to Satie's home and there they found the place full to the rafters of umbrellas and scarves.
I know only one piece of music written by Satie and knew, until today, only one piece by Milhaud. Composer of the Week does a great job of playing the works of composers not played often in concerts. Darius Milhaud composed over 400 works. I don't know how many compositions Satie composed but surely it must have been more than one.
I don't know how many umbrellas he collected either. Or scarves.