Embryons desséchés: III. de Podophthalma-Jacques Fevrier

Podophthalmia are stalk-eyed crustaceans, like crabs and lobsters (and various types of mostly larger shrimp), now grouped as Decapoda (i.e. ten-legged crustaceans).In the score, Satie mentions the "hunter"-like qualities of podophthalmia, so the music is conceived as a miniature hunt. Note that hunts have quite a tradition in classical music, from early baroque keyboard music, over Vivaldi, several classical era composers and romantic opera composers to César Franck. Nonetheless, in music a hunting sea animal can be considered a one-of-a-kind.Satie also points out that podophthalmia are delicious food: he was particularly fond of this kind of sea-food himself.Satie concludes his triptych with a coda marked, "Obligatory cadenza (by the composer.)" Consisting, as it does, of more than half a page of fortissimo F-major chords and arpeggios, this grandiose flourish is hilariously incongruous with the modest proportions of the piece as a whole. It appears to be a pastiche of the end of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, and of Beethoven's style, the "endless coda".