Veritables Preludes flasques (pour un chien)

Satie biographer Rollo H. Myers, writing in 1948, remarked on the prophetic nature of this seemingly unassuming keyboard suite: "In the heyday of Impressionism...came the Flabby Preludes which in their linear austerity heralded the Neoclassic vogue which was to dominate Western music during the nineteen-twenties.

"[3] The Véritables Préludes flasques (pour un chien) represents Satie's determination to reconcile his belated education at the Schola Cantorum in Paris under Vincent d'Indy (1905-1912) with his own natural sense of wit and fantasy.

[4][5][6] In July 1912 Satie composed his piano suite Préludes flasques (pour un chien), but after it was rejected for publication by the Durand firm he informed his protégé Alexis Roland-Manuel that he was going to rewrite it from scratch.

Sévère réprimande, a lively and emphatic toccata with singing bass chords; Seul à la maison, a delightful two-part invention; On joue, with lightly bouncing fourths and fifths and minor sevenths climbing menacingly up the keyboard: no trace of humor here, in the music.

[14] Satie dedicated the Véritables Préludes flasques (pour un chien) to pianist Ricardo Viñes, who gave the successful premiere of the work at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique at the Salle Pleyel in Paris on April 5, 1913.