Music: Erik Satie 'Gnossienne No. 5 (excerpt)

"Gnossienne" is the name given to several piano pieces by the French composer Erik Satie in the late 19th century.

Gnossienne No. 5

Modéré (French for Moderato). Dated 8 July 1889, this was probably Satie's first composition after the 1888 Gymnopédies: in any case it predates all other known Gnossiennes (including the three published in 1893).

"Gnossienne," however, was a word that did not exist before Satie used it as a title for a composition. The word appears to be derived from "gnosis"; Satie was involved in gnostic sects and movements at the time that he began to compose the Gnossiennes However, some published versions claim that the word derives from Cretan "knossos" or "gnossus" and link the Gnossiennes to Theseus, Ariadne and the Minotaur myth.

The Gnossiennes were composed by Satie in the decade following the composition of the Trois Sarabandes (1887) and the Trois Gymnopédies (1888). Like these Sarabandes and Gymnopédies, the Gnossiennes are often considered dances. It is not certain that this qualification comes from Satie himself—the sarabande and the Gymnopaedia were at least historically known as dances.(...)

(From Wikipedia Encyclopedia)