ERICK SATIE - FURNITURE MUSIC

In the 1916 French composer Erik Satie, created so called Furniture music- the genre of music, which is performed "not to be listened to but to pay no attention to this music." His haunting melodies, repeated dozens or even hundreds of times without any changes and interruption pass ahead of their time on the good half a century, and were no doubt the beginning of minimalism. But even earlier example of this kind of background music is a piano piece «Vexations» (or the "irritation"), written by the same Eric Satie in April 1893 in a state of extreme anger. The author is strictly required to play it continuously eight hundred and forty times without the slightest interruption. The total duration of such performance could be up to 24 hours.

Background music of the Court of Spanish King Ferdinand II