IF Satie is known to the general music-loving public for one thing, it is for his oddly titled piano works: the three Gymnopédies (1888) are among the earliest of these. And from the early 1890s, Satie further extended his imaginative approach to words in connection with piano pieces where he introduced unusual performance directions, the meaning of which continues to intrigue and baffle performers and listeners alike. His Gnossiennes feature the first eccentric performance instructions. The first, unbarred, Gnossienne (1890), dedicated to Roland-Manuel, features such directions as ‘Très luisant’ (Very shiny), ‘Questionnez’, ‘Du bout de la pensée’ (On the tip of the thought), ‘Postulez en vous-même’ (Wonder in yourself), ‘Pas à pas’ (Step by step) and over the final phrase, ‘Sur la langue’ (On the tip of the tongue). All these directions appear above phrases which have already been heard earlier in the piece and there is therefore no simple connection to be made between music and text as, at the first appearance, no words were present. Perhaps, by including verbal stimuli, Satie is prompting the pianist to consider repeated material differently on each occasion of its appearance. The performance indications for Prélude à la Porte héroïque du ciel (1894) – a work the composer dedicated to himself – include ‘Superstitieusement’, ‘Avec dèfèrence’ and ‘Très sincèrement silencieux’, the latter appearing not over a pause, but over a notated section.

However, there is a difference between these short, quirky performance directions (italicised) and the more substantial, prose poem-like texts (in roman) which appear from 1912, when he started to compose what are commonly, if misleadingly, known as his humoristic piano works (I prefer the neutral term ‘texted piano works’). Satie's enthusiasm for short piano works, which are almost invariably grouped in threes, is evidenced by his composing no fewer than sixty pieces of this type in 1912–15. The year 1912 also marked the beginning of the explosion of Satie's creativity in other art forms, which was eventually to include playwriting (Le piège de Méduse, 1913) and in 1914, the Trois poèmes d’amour, for which he wrote both poems and music.