Octaves

In Montparnasse between the wars, Kiki, 'Queen of Montparnasse', danced and sang; Prévert created Baptiste there; Desnos travelled astrally, then woke to harvest the crop; painters Kisling, Pascin, Foujita, Modigliani, Derain and others laboured and partied there; Bronia came from Holland, destined to meet Radiguet, Cocteau's Boy Wonder; later she would marry René Clair; Satie opened umbrellas there, always hoping for rain. There are triumphs, infatuations, liaisons, marriages, deaths. As the Carousel of Montparnasse turns, John Watson deftly notes its music like Anton Walbrook in La Ronde or Jean Renoir in Les Enfants du Paradis. The octave 'at once same and different, like a waterfall' suggests the verse form, as unvarying as Ravel's Bolero and orchestrated in two thousand tetrameters

Dettagli