With Erik Satie, the connection between the beguilingly simple music and the sometimes very strange titles remains enigmatic.

Steffen Schleiermacher does not even attempt an interpretation. In what is now the eighth instalment of his Satie recordings, he lets the associations work that the title, texts and playing instructions trigger. The result is music of that captivating clarity that Satie’s avantgarde contemporaries admired so much in the eccentric maverick.

The “cycles” collected here are mostly in three parts and all of them are surprisingly short, some move only in the five-tone range and seem to be almost children’s pieces.

For all the supposed simplicity of the music, Satie’s manuscripts are true masterpieces of calligraphy, which, together with the curious playing instructions (“without blushing of the finger” - “from the tip of the eyes and held back in advance”), do not pass an artist like Steffen Schleiermacher by without leaving a trace.