The works of Erik Satie swing widely between audacity and tenderness, irony and mysticism, reflective of a personality whose effervescence and eccentricity can be discerned even in his earliest works. The preface to his very first published piano compositions, for example, boasts of the works' grace, easy elegance, and "tendency toward reverie," while the title of one of the works, the Valse-ballet, is appended with the comically inflated opus number 62. A composer with a habit of fulfilling obligations by affixing new opus numbers to old pieces, the Op. 62 inaugurates Satie's infamous practice of using irreverent titles—see also, for example, Indiscreet Blunder, 1909, and Flabby Preludes (for a dog), from 1912, both for piano. The Valse-ballet appeared in print in 1887 alongside another solo piano piece, Fantaisie-Valse, under the joint title Musique des Familles; both works are thought to have been composed two years earlier, thus predating in conception the better-known and more serious four pieces Ogives (1886). Unassuming in its expressive scope, the Valse-ballet takes a simple ABA form built of clear, clean-cut phrases and dapper, meandering melodies. The call and answer feel of the main tune is articulated through lucid, cadential gestures, as well as through the characteristic pause on the upswing that disrupts the triple-meter momentum between phrases, and in the second half of the outer sections in a coy melodic alternation between upper and lower octaves. Announced by an overly officious chordal interlude, the middle section is rather less predictable, with greater melodic interplay between the right and left hands, and with considerably more variability in phrase lengths as repeated thematic gestures overrun their allotted portion of one measure and tumble into the next. Here Satie makes greater use of syncopation and hemiola, as well, creating a sound akin to the popular Latin-tinged piano works of Gottschalk, or even the jaunty polyrhythmic gestures of early ragtime. An even more flowery chordal interlude affords the harmonic transition back to the opening music, which repeats as before to draw the piece to its close.

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