There is a particular pleasure that comes with reading excellent criticism, even in humble, known genres like the book or film review. Over at the NY Review of Books, I absolutely loved concert pianist Jeremy Denk’s witty, humane, and generous (if occasionally spiky) review of rock critic Ian Penman’s new book on Satie. “Music typically has a hidden agenda of filling you up, possessing you with its emotion and inspiration, but the circles of the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes feel like they’re cultivating a void, an alternative emotional zone from which feeling is merely viewed. That’s precisely what makes them so fascinating.”