"Erik Satie's music is singular in numerous respects, in particular its simplicity of harmony and repetitions. The composer's occasionally minimalist writing seems to stem from a desire for music that was airier and easier to 'digest' at a time when works calling for large forces and playing times that were sometimes very long [Wagner operas, perhaps] were very much in fashion. Hence a return to a certain simplicity and the search for elementary emotion.

I hope that listening to this disc will be both a caress for the soul and a spark for the mind! As Satie would say in his prologue to the 'Descriptions automatiques': 'it is quite obvious that the flattened, the insignificant and the bloated will take no pleasure here. May they swallow their beards, may they dance on their belly.'" [from the booklet note by Christoph Deluze]

Christoph Deluze's selection of Satie's eclectic piano music is followed by 'Parade' in a recording from 1959. "Astonish me", Diaghilev reputedly said to Cocteau one evening. In 1915 the latter would bring together the painter Picasso, the dancer/choreographer Massine, and Satie for the music of this ballet. The premiere took place on 18 May 1917 at the Théatre du Châtelet and provoked a real scandal, comparable to that of 'The Rite of Spring', four years earlier.