Composer of the Week - Erik Satie (1866-1925) - Le Fantaisiste

In 1905, Satie renounced his bohemian lifestyle and decided, rather improbably...to go back to school, at the tender age of 39. After two years of hard graft, he graduated with flying colours - and with typical perversity, set about composing some of the most surreal piano works ever written... In today's episode, Donald Macleod explores his famously eccentric character, as expressed in works like Desiccated Embryos and the six 'monkey dances' from his Dadaist opera Medusa's Snare. He ends with Satie's most famous stage work - the irreverent ballet Parade.