In 1891 Satie became the official composer and chapel-master of the Rosicrucian Order "Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique, du Temple et du Graal". The Rosicrucians, under the leadership of the novelist and mystic Joseph-Aimé Péladan, were a sect of aesthetes whose artistic aims included the "ruin of realism," and the promotion of idealism. Satie produced this and a number of other works under the influence of Péladan and his brotherhood, but later distanced himself from this rather bizarre and eccentric group.
