Erik Satie

French composer and pianist (Honfleur, 17 May 1866 – Paris, 1 July 1925). Starting with his first composition in 1884, he signed his name as Erik Satie. A colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde, he referred to himself as a "phonometrograph" or "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures (and writes down) sounds"), preferring this designation to that of "musician," after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911. Later, from the 1940s on, predominantly John Cage presented Satie's work as that of an inventor of a new and modern musical expression, and so he was slowly rediscovered and became a precursor to artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, ambient (called "Furniture Music" by Satie) and the Theatre of the Absurd. In addition to his body of music, Satie also left a remarkable set of often humorous and witty writings.