I’ve been listening to Erik Satie a lot lately. I’ve always liked his music from when I first heard one of the Gnossiennes on the radio as a teenager – my ears pricked up and I had to go and check the listings in The Listener (the New Zealand equivalent of the Radio Times) to find out what it was. I would then have visited either the public library or the French Embassy library (which my piano teacher had told me about) and found a whole LP of his piano music. I was hooked.

Last year was the centenary of his death, and there were a few albums released to celebrate that event. One of them was my AW album of the year, the Chinese classical guitarist Xuefei Yang’s – Chapeau Satie.

There are a couple of other box sets that celebrate Satie’s music.

1. Erik Satie: Old Sequins and Ancient Breastplates. Historical recordings 1926-1961. It’s a 4CD box set compiled by our friends at Cherry Red. The first disc is Italian pianist Aldo Ciccolini’s interpretations of Satie, which for me are the best. Most of Disc 2 is Satie’s contemporary Francis Poulenc performing Satie’s piano music. Discs 3 and » Continue Reading.