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Do you like Erik Satie? Well, the acid test \u2013 though it\u2019s more like skimmed milk in this case \u2013 is Socrate<\/em>. A 30-minute setting of over 2,000 words from the Platonic dialogues, Erik Satie\u2019s \u2018drame symphonique\u2019 is deliberately featureless, neutral in expression, minimally colourful, scarcely symphonic and dramatic only by virtue of harmonic<\/a><\/strong> and instrumental abstinence. Having set out to create a work \u2018as white and pure as antiquity\u2019, Satie certainly succeeded.<\/p> \u2018How boring!\u2019 you might think, and you would be in distinguished company. Ravel<\/a><\/strong>, for instance, who did much to establish Satie\u2019s reputation as an authentic composer, flatly rejected Socrate<\/em>. <\/p>