Music is one of his most challenging inventions, it remains explicable only in terms of the Dancers that preceded it and the Bathers that were to follow. Originally, to judge from two photographs made while the picture was in progress, the composition was less rigid. In fact the compositional changes may be detected today beneath the final painting. A far cry from the muscular, faceted studio models of ten years before, yet coloristically related, these five figures attest once again to Matisse’s insistent simplification of a given problem as he worked at it over the years.  The evolutionary changes which affect chiefly three figures to the right lead to a bold frontality.