The stage had fascinated Alexandre Tansman ever since his youth. The libretto for Sextuor, the first work heard here, was written by Alexandre Arnoux. Sextuor is a dramatic love story of the passion shared by a violin and a violoncello for a flute, and Tansman believed that here he had found ideal material for a ballet. And so it was: the work, composed in 1923, was performed with great international success and made the young composer famous. Although he suffered a great loss when his mother died in 1935, Tansman found the strength to write a larger theatrical work. The result was the ballet Bric à brac. The director of the Grand Opéra in Paris wanted this ballet set between stalls of wood and corrugated iron at a flea market near the Porte de Clignancourt for a premiere during the 1939/40 season. However, the outbreak of World War II thwarted these plans. After long negotiations the work finally premiered on 30 November 1958.