You have often walked down this street, but the pavement always stayed beneath your feet before.

Then you bought yourself a pile of special-interest guidebooks and learned that Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal that he pinched from the public conveniences on the corner and Victor Hugo once rented a room above the shop that now sells fridge-freezers. Paris was a living city at last.

Unless your particular thing was music. In which case, you will have had nothing but the occasional plaque to guide you as you wandered from street to street, wondering what happened where.

Enter Nigel Simeone. He knew that Paris was home to virtually every great French musician, to say nothing of Chopin, Liszt, Mozart, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Verdi and Wagner.

Where were they born? Where did they meet, perform, practice and teach? Where did they die and where are they buried? The answers are all here, including a guide to museums and four musical walks.