Erik Satie - Gymnopedie No.1

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colorful figure in the early 20th-century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, Surrealism, repetitive music, and the Theater of the Absurd. An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a “gymnopedist“ in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a “phonometrician“ (meaning “someone who measures sounds“), preferring this designation to that of “musician“, after having been called “a clumsy but subtle technician“ in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911. In addition to his body of music, Satie was “a thinker with a gift of eloquence“ who left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to