Erik Satie (1866-1925) was a French composer and pianist, one of music’s great originals. Born in Honfleur, he became part of the artistic world of Montmartre and later influenced several younger French composers.

His works include the Gymnopédies, Gnossiennes, Parade, Socrate and many piano pieces with teasing or eccentric titles. His music often resists conventional grandeur.

Satie’s style is spare, ironic, tender and deliberately plain, with harmonies that can seem both naïve and strangely modern. He made simplicity feel subversive.

His influence reached Debussy, Ravel, Les Six, Cage and later minimalists. Satie remains a composer of small rooms, dry jokes and quietly unexploded bombs.