Erik Satie — Gymnopédies 1, 2, 3

Satie began publishing the three Gymnopédies in Paris in 1888, aged twenty-two and working as a café pianist in Montmartre. They run on a device almost nobody else was using then: a chord pattern that declines to resolve, repeated slowly enough that the ear stops waiting for it to. Debussy orchestrated two of them a decade later, which is a good part of why they survived at all.

Satie later coined "musique d'ameublement" — furniture music, written to be present without being listened to — and was reportedly irritated when the audience at its premiere sat down and paid attention. That is a fair description of what this hour is for. He also scored René Clair's Entr'acte in 1924, one of the first purpose-written film scores, and cinema has been borrowing him back ever since: My Dinner with André, The Royal Tenenbaums, Mr Nobody.