Suite bergamasque a vigorous beginning and ending. It is a festive piece, which holds much of the Baroque style that is commonly found in preludes. The second part of the "Suite bergamasque" is the Menuet, in A minor. Its playful main theme contrasts with an alternatively mysterious and dramatic middle section. This piece is particularly original, as it does not conform to the particular style that most minuets share. Rather than being very airy and dainty, it shows much more raw comedy. Again, Debussy sets a very novel piece in the guise of an old dance style. The third and most famous
Choses vues à droite et à gauche (sans lunettes) aside, Satie was painstaking in his efforts to redevelop these old musical forms in modern terms, harmonically and structurally. He rejected the first movement he completed, an untitled 31-bar chorale in G Major, and experimented with several fugue subjects (including a quotation of the folksong "Au clair de la lune") for the "Fugue à tâtons". In his analysis of Satie's composing methods Robert Orledge remarked on "how ordinary his first thoughts often were", and this certainly applies to the "Choses vues". Satie's original order for the pieces - "Fantaisie", "Choral", "Fugue" - would have given the suite a conventional fast-slow-fast