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The French composer Erik Satie was born on May 17, 1866, and died on July 1, 1925, was the son of an English mother and a Parisian music publisher. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1879 but failed to benefit from academic education, which he embarked on again ....

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.... his association with a so-called Rosicrucian group, while he earned his living as a cafe pianist in Montmartre. Satie was a conscious eccentric and a determined enemy of all establishments, including the musical. The comical titles that he attached to his small piano pieces are characteristic of the Bohemian wit in the Paris of his day. Irony and a deceptively childlike attitude, a dislike for pomposity of all kinds, and an instinctive secretiveness were hallmarks of both the man and his music. In 1916, Satie was befriended by Jean Cocteau and wrote the music for a ballet, Parade, on which Pablo Picasso and Leonid Massine also collaborated. B ....