Choral inappétissant from Sports et Divertissements for piano (1914)

Sur un vaisseau from Descriptions automatiques (1913)

Daphénéo (1916)

La statue de bronze (1916)

Le pique-nique from Sports et Divertissements (1914)

“My chorales,” said Satie, “equal those of Bach, with the difference that mine are less numerous and less pretentious.” In the Preface to Sports et Divertissements, a collection of short piano pieces to go with etchings by Charles Martin, he characteristically dedicated the opening Unappetising Chorale to “those who don’t like me…I have put into it all I know about Boredom.” Mercifully, it is very short.

You wouldn’t know by just listening to it that Satie’s piano piece Sur un Vaisseau from Descriptions automatiques is as abundant in marine imagery as Haydn’s Sailor’s Song. The comments the composer makes in the score of this barcarolle, incongruously based on a tango rhythm, postulate “a little sea spray” (descending motif) “a gust of cool air ” (rising scale), “mild pitching” (repeated thirds)    and so on – all of them, as the composer intended in this gentle parody of descriptive piano music, meaningless. Le pique-nique, written to accompany a Charles Martin etching of an elegantly dressed déjeuner sur l’herbe in Sports et divertissements, is similarly annotated: “They have all brought very cold veal… You have a beautiful white dress… Look an aeroplane!… Oh no it’s storm.” The last observation brings