With music of outrageous frivolity and good humour, Erik Satie was the inspiration for the notorious group of French composers known as ‘Les Six’, whose numbers included Milhaud and Honegger. Now famous through his hypnotic Gymnopédies, Satie scandalised audiences with his bizarre ballets, Parade and Relâche. Even now his ribald fun, using such unmusical items as a typewriter and siren, is undiminished, his scores full of brilliant and uninhibited orchestral colours, the impudent melodies still fresh and invigorating.