thumb|[[Erik Satie]]
Embryons desséchés ("Desiccated embryos") is a piano composition by Erik Satie, composed in the summer of 1913. The composition consists of three little movements, each taking about two to three minutes to play.
The music
left|thumb|Cover of the original edition of Satie's Embryons desséchés (1913)
The parts of the composition are:
1. (Desiccated embryo) of a Holothurian (30 June 1913), dedicated to Suzanne Roux:
:* See: sea cucumber. This type of animal has no eyes.
:* The music of this first part of the composition concentrates on the so-called "purring" of the holothurian, besides making fun of Loïsa Puget's song Mon rocher de Saint-Malo ("My rock of Saint-Malo" – a then popular salon composition, which Satie had probably played numerous times in his cabaret pianist career). That this song is intended is already suggested by the introduction: Satie writes above the score, "[...] I observed a Holothurian in the bay of Saint-Malo." Further he writes following remarks in the score, when "quoting" the melody of the song: "What a nice rock!" and the second time: "That was a nice rock! How sticky!". Going submarine in a bay in Brittany, might also have been a wink from Satie to his (former) friend Debussy: three years earlier this composer had published the piano piece La cathédrale engloutie (Préludes, book I, No. 10), alluding to the legendary city of Ys, submersed in a bay in Brittany. There's even a reproach implied: as friends, they had renounced romanticism in the late 19th century: since, Debussy apparently had turned to romanticised myths about submersed cities and the like, as a subject for his compositions. Satie's statement is clear: he had remained true to himself, taking as subject for his composition something "he had seen with his own eyes".
2. (Desiccated embryo) of an Edriophthalma