Erik Satie’s music makes negatives positive. Read what Jean Cocteau has to say about Parade — that strange third dimensional ballet with its mechanised morse code rhythm, its supplementary orchestra of lottery wheels, revolvers and typewriters, and its odd-and-end troupe of psychologically ‘caught in a trap’ actors and actresses.

‘The Chinaman, the Little American Girl and the Acrobats’, wrote Cocteau, ‘represent varieties of nostalgia hitherto unknown, so great is the degree of verisimilitude with which they are expressed. No humbug, no repetition, no underhand caresses, no feverishness or miasma. Satie never stirs up the mud.’