Piano music plays a major role in Satie's oeuvre. On many levels, the composer breaks with tradition here. He does away with romantic vituosity, emotionality, or attention to established musical forms. Instead, there is something visionary in his short pieces, which often have a caricaturing character, occasionally supported by textual elements in the music, that influenced not only his friends Debussy and Ravel, but also Varèse, Milhaud, Poulenc, and much later John Cage.

This collection appears as part of a series of popular works from the Bärenreiter catalogue celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publishing house. It contains an attractive selection of Satie's piano pieces, which Bärenreiter has presented in numerous Urtext editions, complete with informative prefaces, notes on interpretation by Satie specialist Steffen Schleiermacher, as well as glossaries and text translations.