Rachel Silveri’s new book, The Art of Living in Avant-Garde Paris, offers a fresh look at the artists of interwar Paris, who created an “art of living” by weaving creative practice into their daily lives. Moving through the book’s chapters, artists, and eras, Silveri has created a playlist that transports us into the world of the avant-gardes. With the playlist and listening guide, Silveri walks us through the sights, sounds, and scenes these artists inhabited. Turn up the music, peruse the playlist listening guide, grab a copy of the book, and explore the artistry of avant-garde Paris.

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Playlist Listening Guide

Jean Cocteau & Les Six, “Le Bœuf sur le toit” (1920), performed by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, from the album Once Upon a Time (Él Records 2008)

This song is intended to place us in the middle of the exhibition opening for Dada artist Francis Picabia’s show at the Galerie Povolozky in December 1920 (pages 44–47). Among Picabia’s paintings and works on paper, which hung on the walls of two small galleries, the vernissage featured a “Parisian Jazz-Band” performed by Jean Cocteau, Georges Auric, and Francis Poulenc. The latter two musicians, together with Darius Milhaud and others, comprised a loose group of composers called “Les Six.”

“Le Bœuf sur le toit” (The Ox on the Roof) is a short orchestral work by Milhaud that served as the score for Cocteau’s namesake play that opened earlier that year in February. Its title was soon adopted for a cabaret-bar that became a beloved avant-garde hangout and drinking spot. While the original scoring called for far more instrumentation than was available at the Galerie Povolozky, I think the song captures the energy of Paris circa 1920 and the frenzied atmosphere of Picabia’s show, which featured a performance by fellow Dadaist Tristan Tzara.

If opening this playlist with a 13-minute song tests your patience, allow me to quote the words of Tzara, whose work serves as a main case study for the book: “Dear audience, I love you so much, I assure you and I adore you” (page 72).

Darius Milhaud, “Scaramouche, Suite for Two Pianos: 3. Brazileira (Mouvement de samba)” (1937), performed by Katia Labèque and Marielle Labèque, from the album Poulenc/Milhaud: Concerto in D minor for 2 Pianos/Scaramouche (Philips 1991)

Another song by a member of Les Six. During Picabia’s opening, Tzara read his sixteen-part “Dada Manifesto on Weak Love and Bitter Love,” which was interrupted by bits of abrupt jazz by Cocteau’s band. Throughout this manifesto, Tzara repeated variants of the phrase “I find myself very likeable. Tristan Tzara.” This was a key tactic of the Romanian poet during his early years in Paris: drawing attention to his body and personhood but then presenting himself in a way that was ultimately obtuse and unreadable. Such a Dadaist strategy for living was useful for Tzara as he found himself the target of various forms of xenophobia and antisemitism; this dynamic is the center of my analysis in Chapter 1 (pages 17–74).

Like “Le Bœuf sur le toit,” “Scaramouche” borrows heavily from Brazilian music. (Milhaud spent two years living in Rio de Janeiro.) These Latin American connections continue in the next song.

Ángel Villoldo, “El Choclo” (1903), performed by Trocadero Salon Ensemble, from the album Grand Café Concert (Intermusic 1990)

This popular Argentinian tango song takes us into Chapter 2, which is centered on the painter Sonia Delaunay. Delaunay adored tango and began creating innovative dresses in her Simultanist style to wear to the lively Bal Bullier nightclub throughout 1912–1913. She later recalled, “The Bal Bullier was, for me, what the Moulin de la Galette had been for Degas, Renoir, Lautrec… The fox-trot competed with the tango in this new temple for popular dancing” (page 78). I discuss in the book how Delaunay’s dress was more than just a pastime; it became a signature work for the artist based on her media-savvy self-promotion of it (pages 75–102).

Duke Ellington, “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)” (1931), featuring Ivie Anderson on vocals, from the album The Essential Duke Ellington (Columbia/Legacy Records 2005)

After World War I and some time spent living in Portugal and Spain, Delaunay returned with her family to Paris. She opened a commercial fashion business and diligently worked to ensure that her designs would be treated seriously as avant-garde art (pages 102–152). Her music tastes also shifted, from popular tango to jazz. In July 1933, she went to a Duke Ellington concert in Paris, where she saw in the audience the fellow painter Piet Mondrian, photographer Florence Henri, and fashion designer Jacques Heim.

Duke Ellington, “Mood Indigo” (1930), from the album The Duke: The Columbia Years (1927–1962) (Columbia Records 1999)

Delaunay adored the concert with Ellington. She wrote in her journal: “Summary of the concert—extraordinary vitality—Vitality—potential—the vibrations emanating from a personality—that is the only individual value that acts in the world. The expression of these vibrations may differ, but it is the only force—therefore the only quality to be developed and studied in the universe, because it is only with this that we give to others and rise above” (Le Journal de Sonia Delaunay, February 27, 1933–February 3, 1934, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Fonds Robert et Sonia Delaunay, NAF28443).

Duke Ellington, “In a Sentimental Mood” (1935), from the album Best of Duke Ellington (Curb Records 1992)

Did you think we were done with Duke Ellington on this playlist? Not yet. Delaunay went to the concert on Thursday, July 27, 1933. She loved it so much that she went back for a second concert with the Duke Ellington Ensemble two days later on Saturday, July 29.

Freddy Johnson, “My Baby’s Gone” (1933), from the album Jacques Canetti: Mes 50 ans de chansons (Jacques Canetti Productions 2015)

Delaunay was particular in her music taste. She once claimed that she “never understood [composer Arnold] Schoenberg” (“Sonia Delaunay by David Seidner,” Bomb Magazine, January 1, 1982). Indeed, there is a reason why Schoenberg is not on this playlist. After seeing Duke Ellington in the summer of 1933, Delaunay went to another jazz concert that October featuring Freddy Johnson. She summarized it in her journal: “More constructive, more purely abstract than Duke Ellington, but less brilliant” (Le Journal de Sonia Delaunay, February 27, 1933–February 3, 1934).

Django Reinhardt and the Quintette du Hot Club de France, “Fly Fishing” (1947), from the album Django Reinhardt – Memorial Album, Volume 2 (Period Records 1957)

Delaunay’s love of jazz was infectious. Her son, Charles Delaunay, became a leading jazz expert and was one of the founders in 1931 of the Hot Club de France, a French organization which supported jazz, swing, and blues music. Together with the guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Charles also helped organize the musical group the Quintette du Hot Club de France, whose song “Fly Fishing” is featured here.

Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli, and the Quintette du Hot Club de France, “Minor Swing” (1937), from the album Djangologie, volume 6 (Parlophone 1970)

Another song from Reinhardt and the Quintette. While Charles had a discerning ear for the latest developments in jazz, he later claimed that he was “not very keen” on the most advanced forms of modern painting. He made an exception, however, for his mother’s gouaches: “Their cheerful, radiant colors warm the room like a ray of sunshine when the shutters are opened” (Charles Delaunay, Delaunay’s Dilemma: De la peinture au jazz, Éditions W, 1985, page 28).

John Lewis, “Delaunay’s Dilemma” (1954), from the album Improvised Meditations & Excursions (Atlantic 1959)

The American jazz pianist John Lewis wrote and dedicated this composition to Charles, who later used it as the title for his memoir, Delaunay’s Dilemma: De la peinture au jazz (Delaunay’s Dilemma: From Painting to Jazz). Those writings were a key source in my research for the chapter on Sonia Delaunay, particularly the passages where Charles described the gendered division of labor that existed between his parents, as his mother’s fashion business in the 1920s provided the full income for the family (pages 110–111).

Louis Aragon, “Un air d’octobre” from Le Nouveau Crève-cœur (1948), arranged by Lino Léonardi in 1966, featuring Monique Morelli, from the album Poètes & Chansons: Louis Aragon (EPM 1992)

Here, the voice of Monique Morelli singing a Louis Aragon poem takes us into Chapter 3, which is dedicated to Surrealism (pages 153–236). Aragon wrote this poem in 1948, in the years following the Liberation of Paris and the end of World War II, speaking of the nostalgia for an October romance. Perhaps, though, Morelli’s vocals can carry us some twenty-four years earlier when, in October 1924, a different Surrealist element was in the air: the founding of the Surrealist Research Bureau, a public office space that serves as a key case study in the book. Aragon worked weekly in the Bureau on Mondays, where he called for the “multiplication by every means possible of individual Surrealist initiatives” (page 184). 

Erik Satie, “Sonatine bureaucratique: II. Andante” (1917), performed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet, from the album Satie: The Complete Solo Piano Music (Decca Classics 2003)

Erik Satie, a French composer and pianist, was a frequent collaborator with the artistic avant-garde in Paris, having provided the musical scores for Cocteau’s Parade (1917) and Picabia’s Relâche (1924). Here, I’ve selected the second movement of his short parodic “Bureaucratic Sonatina” whose title aptly matches a major theme of the chapter: I argue that the Surrealist Research Bureau replicated elements of French interwar bureaucracy, including its styles of leadership and management (pages 182–218).

Erik Satie, “Pièces froides: 1. Airs à faire fuir I” (1897), edition Robert Caby, performed by Jean-Yves, from the album Erik Satie: The Complete Solo Piano Music (Decca Classics 2016)

Another work by Satie, this time edited by his friend, the composer and author Robert Caby. Caby was one of the visitors to the Surrealist Research Bureau. When he stopped by the office on Monday, November 17, 1924, the Surrealist leader André Breton complained in the office’s notebook, “Visit from Mr. Caby, chatty and unbearable. Thanks to him, we could not accomplish anything from 5:45 pm onward” (page 168).

Paul Éluard, “En vertu de l’amour” from Le Temps déborde (1948), arranged by and featuring Gérard Pitiot, from the album Poètes & Chansons: Paul Éluard (EPM 1998)

Sung by Gérard Pitiot, this song features a poem written by Paul Éluard celebrating love as a grand animating force within the world, which was a key Surrealist theme. “If you love LOVE, you will love SURREALISM” proclaimed one flyer for the Surrealist Research Bureau (pages 177–178). Éluard, who worked weekly at the Bureau, later wrote the poem after the death of his longtime partner, Nusch Éluard. Despite the Surrealist penchant for passion and desire as motivating themes in both art and life, love does not figure heavily in my analysis of the Bureau. Indeed, the chapter ends with André Breton’s partner, Simone Breton, quitting the office and, years later, leaving her marriage (pages 218, 236).

NMB Brass Band, “Retraite (feat. Tristan Tzara),” from the album Soixante Huit (Independent 2012)

The two closing songs of the playlist, like the Epilogue of the book, look outward to our current moment, seeing how we might take inspiration from the avant-gardes of interwar Paris (pages 237–246). The contemporary French musical group NMB Brass Band created this song featuring Tzara’s poem “Retraite” (Retreat), which originally appeared in the Dadaist’s collection Vingt-cinq poèmes (Twenty-Five Poems; 1918). With its opening words of “birds childhood plows quick / inns / battle at the pyramids,” the poem epitomizes Dada’s attack on traditional, communicative language, which is here juxtaposed with NMB Brass Band’s irresistible horn-driven melody (Tristan Tzara, Œuvres complètes: Tome I, 1912–1924, Flammarion, 1975, page 97).

David S. Lefkowitz, “Prelude & Fugue No. 11, Book 2 ‘Sonia Delaunay’: I. Prelude,” performed by David Kaplan, from the album David S. Lefkowitz: Preludes & Fugues for Pianos (Bridge Records 2025)

David Lefkowitz, a contemporary composer and professor of music composition and theory, created this prelude in 2025 after inspiration from Sonia Delaunay’s magnificent painting Prismes électriques (Electric Prisms; 1914), which opens my discussion of the artist in the book (page 75). Citing Delaunay’s own description of her work as “an extreme exaltation of color with complete flatness,” Lefkowitz created this composition of a “recurring quite simple chord progression” in which the sound is blunted by covering the center of the piano with a blanket or set of heavy towels. This experimental gesture not only creates a sonic equivalent of Delaunay’s “complete flatness,” it also references her own avant-garde engagement with fabric and textiles. (“Sonia Delaunay by Sonia Delaunay” [1968], in The New Art of Color: The Writings of Robert and Sonia Delaunay, ed. Arthur A. Cohen, Viking Press, 1978, page 194; David S. Lefkowitz, “Orphic Color: ‘Sonia Delaunay’—Prelude and Fugue No.11, Book II,” David. S. Lefkowitz Blog, July 29, 2025, https://www.davidlefkowitz.com/blog/Orphic_Color).

Listening to Lefkowitz’s series of piano notes—which have their own sense of optimism, like Delaunay’s colors—my mind wanders to how we today might “look for ways to live, creatively, beyond what we have been given” (page 246).

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Rachel Silveri is assistant professor in the School of Art + Art History at the University of Florida.

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