Perhaps because their piano music was so different, Satie and Debussy were close friends from the time of the Gymnopédies onwards and whereas Satie’s titles here look back to ancient Greek civilisation, Debussy derived the individual preludes in his first collection from more contemporary literature, art or nature. But, like Satie, he wanted to make them look different in publication and placed their titles at the end, although he must have realised that once played, their titles would never be forgotten.