Peccadilles importunes was composed in 1913, a year in which Satie composed a large number of pieces for solo piano. The Peccadilles are beginner pieces, and number among the many pieces for children Satie wrote in the fall of 1913; in October alone, he composed the Trois Nouvelles Enfantines, and the three sets of "Enfantines": Menus propos enfantins, Enfantillages pittoresques, and the Peccadilles importunes. Satie's interest in the number three is clearly manifested with these pieces: there are three works comprising the Enfantines, and each work consists of three small pieces.

The Peccadilles were conceived in the same way as the two previous Enfantines, employing white keys only, with three different five-finger scales. The Peccadilles complete the entire set of Enfantines by returning to the same scale with which the first of the Enfantines, Menus propos enfantins, began. Peccadilles three pieces, Etre jaloux de son camarade qui a une grosse tete, Lui manger sa tartine, and Profiter de ce qu'il a des cors aux pieds lui prendre son cerceau, are designed to introduce children to the piano, and their simple patterns can be quickly learned and played. As musicologist and Satie scholar Robert Orledge has noted, the introduction to the piano for children that rivals Satie's Enfantines is Bela Bartok's Mikrokosmos, which similarly captures and maintains children's interest, "both visually and aurally."



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