In his piano works especially, Erik Satie (1866–1925) was a witty musical caricaturist. The eccentric French composer loved to satirize academic rules in general and the impressionistic titles of Debussy's compositions in particular, giving his own works such surrealistic names as Pieces in Pear Form and Dried Embryos, and annotating them with equally bizarre musical directions: ''Tres 'neuf heures du matin'' (Very ''nine in the morning''), ''Corpulentus'' (Corpulent), and so on. His comic spirit is equally embodied in the music itself, as this delightful selection of seventeen piano works amply proves. They are as spare, lively, and capricious as they are hauntingly melodic. In addition to the well-known Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes, the pieces reproduced here include Sarabandes, Pièces froides, Poudre d'or, En habit de cheval, Morceaux en forme de poire, Embryons desséchés, Aperçus désagreables, Descriptions automatiques, and more.

This volume, the largest collection of Satie's piano works yet published, has been reprinted on fine-quality paper from authoritative original editions, and sturdily bound to provide you a lifetime of study and enjoyment. In its pages are some of the most original and appealing achievements of a turbulent era in music, compositions that influenced such modern masters as Ravel, Milhaud, and Poulenc.