‘Suave, witty, gossipy, occasionally whimsical … as entertaining as it is fascinating … a treasure box, disclosing priceless value as well as glitter and sparkle’ – Robert Maycock BBC Music Magazine

‘… not only absorbing but a positive delight to read’ – Gramophone

'… a marvellous book, and it deserves to be read by the widest possible audience. A Classic.' – The Musical Times

‘… absorbing, authoritative and well written…’ – Classical Music

Paris during the Twenties was a cheap place for travellers, so everybody went there. It was, as Stravinsky said, the hub of the musical world. Few decades in the life of any European city have been as rich in musical personalities and achievements.

Composers working in or near the city included Ravel, Fauré, Satie, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Dukas, Koechlin, d’Indy, Enesco and Roussel as well as the up-and-coming members of Les Six, notably Poulenc, Milhaud and Auric. Among their collaborators were the painters Picasso, Braque, Derain, Laurencin, Dufy and Gris. Jean Cocteau kept a watchful eye on the new trends and impresarios – Diaghilev, Ida Rubinstein and Serge Koussevitzky among them – did their best to dragoon these multifarious talents into ordered enterprises. Horowitz, Robert Casadesus and Vlado Perlemuter all made their Paris debuts in this decade, as did the young prodigies Ginette Neveu and Yehudi Menuhin.

It was also a time of tensions. Irreverence was in, short was beautiful, the circus was aesthetically as valuable as the symphony orchestra. It was also a time in which women were coming into their own: the composers Germaine Tailleferre and Lili Boulanger; salon hostesses the Princesse de Polignac and Mme Clemenceau; teachers such as Nadia Boulanger, Lili’s formidable elder sister; and the amazing harpsichordist Wanda Landowska.

The Harlequin Years charts a course through these turbulent waters, noting currents as well as personalities, telling stories as well as pondering the occasional philosophical problem.

The story starts in 1917, with the premiere of Satie’s extraordinary ballet Parade. As Auric was to write some sixty years later, ‘a breeze of fresh air had just begun to blow...’.

Also of interest
Paris Between the Wars: Art, Style and Glamour in the Crazy Years
Negrophilia: Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s
The Chronicle of Classical Music