The Harlequin Years. Music in Paris, 1917-1929

Based on the author´s series of 12 programmes broadcast on BBC Radio 3, this book fills a large gap in the literature of 20th-century music, being an account of the classical music scene in Paris between 1917 and 1929.Composers working in or near the city at that time included Satie, Ravel, Faure, Stravinsky and Prokofiev, as well as members of "Les Six" like Milhaud, Poulenc and Auric. Among their collaborators were painters such as Picasso and Braque, and impresarios abounded, Diaghilev, Rubinstein, de Mare and Koussevitsky among them. Horowitz, Perlemuter and Casadesus all made their Paris debuts in this decade, as did the young violin prodigies Neveau and Menuhin.Nichols charts a course through these "turbulent waters", noting currents as well as personalities, and a few statistics, confirming Stravinsky´s statement at the time that Paris was the hub of the musical world.