right hand so he can think better, he watches snakes cling to his uniform, toads calling each other by name, and a mangrove bathing its filthy roots on the banks of a river. Shadows from ancient trees indicate it is 9:17 - "not a good time for lovers" - and after a brief lively moment the plodding theme limps to a dissonant halt. 2. Crépuscule matinal (de midi) (Morning Twilight [At Midday] ) Accompanied by a light march motif, the narrator airs his grievances against the sun, which "looks like a good fellow" but cannot be trusted because of its tendency to burn up crops and give people sun stroke. These observations conclude with a droll non-sequitur: "Behind the barn an ox is eating itself sick". 3. Affolements granitiques (Granite Panic) While a rainstorm descends on a dusty old village, the town clock dodders and prepares to strike thirteen hours at 1 PM ("Alas, not the legal time"). Trees slap each other with their branches and granite boulders jostle to see which one can be the most annoying. Near the beginning and end of the piece the clock is illustrated with 13 lugubrious "ticks" in the bass. Satie wraps up the score with one of his favorite musical tricks, disguising an ordinary upward scale passage in arbitrary enharmonic notation. The warning At the bottom of the published score's first page, by all appearances a footnote, is Satie's "avertissement" to the players. It has sparked some controversy about his texted piano pieces over the years. To Whomsoever I forbid the text to be read out loud during the performance of the music. Failure to conform with these instructions will cause the transgressor to incur my just indignation. No special exceptions will be granted. The haughty tone is reminiscent of the half-serious public pronouncements Satie made as a young Montmartre bohemian and leader of his own fictitious church in the 1890s, leading some scholars to believe the statement was tongue-in-cheek. But it confirms that by 1916 some pianists were declaiming the texts for added entertainment value, and the composer evidently took issue with this. Francis Poulenc, who knew Satie well, flatly stated that the warning was no joke and offenders would suffer "pain of major excommunication" when caught; he also recalled the composer telling him "The stories and funny remarks...are rewards for the player" and must not be read out before the