Pariser Portraits

The portraits look back on the attractive eras that the French call "beautiful" and "crazy": the Belle Époque and the Années folles, the 1920s. They are about:
Emmanuel Chabrier and his special relationship with the Impressionist painters—they portrayed him, and he collected their paintings.
Gabriel Fauré, who was not only Marcel Proust's beloved salon composer, but also a maître majeur of great originality.
Maurice Ravel, whose "bright and crystalline melancholy" and "erotic music" are conveyed in two essays by Theodor W. Adorno.
Misia Sert, a respected pianist and sought-after painter's model, as well as one of the richest women in Paris, who directed her monetary abundance toward art and artists, and
Marcelle Meyer, the beautiful muse of the group Les Six, who was not afraid of any pianistic challenge—not even Stravinsky's Petrushka.

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