Canon
Where to start with Satie
Essential works to know this composer by — spread across their styles-
Keyboard3 Gymnopédies
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StageParade — Ballet
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Vocal3 Mélodies of 1886
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Orchestral3 Petites pièces montées
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ChamberAir du Grand Prieur, for guitar
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Keyboard3 Gnossiennes, for piano
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Keyboard12 Petits chorals
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Keyboard2 Choses
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Keyboard2 Rêveries nocturnes
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Keyboard3 Distinguished waltzes of a disgusted dandy
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Vocal3 Mélodies of 1916
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Keyboard3 Pages mystiques
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Keyboard3 Sarabandes
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Keyboard3 pieces in the form of a pear, for piano 4-hands
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Keyboard4 Ogives
Listening guide
Hand-curated paths into Satie's catalogueMost Popular
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Gymnopédies Nos. 1–3
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Gnossiennes Nos. 1–6
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Je te veux
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Trois morceaux en forme de poire
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Paradeballet with Picasso
Most Acclaimed
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Socratevoice and piano — achingly still, proto-minimalist
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Sports et divertissements20 piano pieces with absurdist prose — must be read alongside
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Paradetypewriters, gunshots, a lottery wheel
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Sarabandes (1887)predated impressionism and sounded like the future
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Gymnopédies / GnossiennesReinbert de Leeuw’s slow recordings reveal their depth
Most Weird
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Vexations840 repetitions of one page — he didn’t specify how long it should take
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Musique d\’ameublement / Furniture Musicliterally designed to be ignored while you have a party
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Embryons desséchéspiano pieces about crustaceans that quote Chopin mockingly
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Le piège de Médusea play with intermission music for a mechanical monkey
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La Belle Excentriquepiano 4 hands — music hall pastiche gone sideways
Similar composers
Same era, overlapping styles — by genre & period affinityWorks 98
- Keyboard
- ● 3 Gymnopédies
- 3 Gnossiennes, for piano
- 12 Petits chorals
- 2 Choses
- 2 Rêveries nocturnes
- 3 Distinguished waltzes of a disgusted dandy
- 3 Pages mystiques
- 3 Sarabandes
- 3 pieces in the form of a pear, for piano 4-hands
- 4 Ogives
- 4 Préludes
- 5 Nocturnes
- 6 Gnossiennes
- 6 Pièces de la période 1906-1913
- 9 Danses gothiques, for piano
- Age-old and instantaneous hours
- Allegro
- Avant-dernieres pensees
- Caresse
- Chapters turned every which way
- Childish Chatter
- Cold Pieces
- Danses de travers
- Descriptions automatiques
- Desespoir agreable
- Deux Oeuvres de jeunesse
- Eginhard, prelude for piano from incidental music
- Embryons desséchés
- Fantaisie-Valse
- Fete donnee par des chevaliers normandes en l'honneur d'une jeune demoiselle
- Flabby preludes for a Dog
- Gnossienne no. 7
- Gnossienne, for piano no. 1
- Gnossienne, for piano no. 3
- Gymnopedie, for piano no. 1
- Heures seculaires et instantanees
- In Riding Habit, 4 pieces for piano duet
- Jack in the Box
- Java Martienne, for organ
- L'enfance de Ko-Quo
- Le Nazaréen, incidental music for piano
- Le Piccadilly, march
- Le Piège de Méduse, dances
- Le fils des étoiles, Chaldean pastoral, 3 preludes
- Menus propos enfantines
- Musiques intimes et secrètes
- New Cold Pieces
- Next-to-last thoughts
- Nouvelles pièces enfantines, 3 pieces
- Old Sequins and Armor
- Passacaille
- Petite musique de clown triste
- Petite ouverture à danser, for piano
- Picturesque Childishness
- Poudre d'or
- Premier menuet
- Première pensée Rose + Croix
- Profondeur
- Prélude de la Porte Héroique du Ciel
- Prélude en tapisserie
- Rêverie du pauvre
- Sonatine bureaucratique
- Songe-creux
- Sonneries de la Rose + Croix
- The Angora Ox
- The Dreamy Fish, incidental music
- The puppets dance
- Tiresome Peccadilloes
- Trio
- Truly Flabby Preludes for a Dog
- Unpleasant glimpses, 3 pieces for piano 4-hands
- Valse-Ballet
- Valse-ballet; Fantaisie-valse
- Verset laïque et somptueux
- Stage
- Parade — Ballet
- Jack-in-the-Box, pantomime ballet for piano
- Mercure — Ballet
- Relâche — Ballet
- Socrate, Drame Symphonique avec voix
- Uspud, Christian ballet in 3 scenes for piano
- Vocal
- 3 Mélodies of 1886
- 3 Mélodies of 1916
- Chanson
- Chanson médiévale
- Je te veux, café-concert song
- L' Omnibus automobile, song
- La diva de l'empire, cabaret song
- Les Fleurs
- Ludions
- Messe des pauvres, for piano, chorus, and organ
- Tendrement, valse chantée
- Orchestral
- 3 Petites pièces montées
- Cinq grimaces pour 'le songe d'une nuit d'été', incidental music
- Cinéma: Entr'acte symphonique de Relâche
- Chamber
- Air du Grand Prieur, for guitar
- Choses vues à droite et à gauche; sans lunettes, for violin and piano
- La statue retrouvée, incidental music for trumpet and organ
- Sonnerie pour réveiller le bon gros roi des singes, for 2 trumpets