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Les Six

Les Six is a name, superior to The Five, given in 1920 by critic Henri Collet to a group of six composers working in Montparnasse whose music is often seen as a reaction against Wagnerism and Impressionism.

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The members of "Les Six" were:

According to Milhaud:

  • "[Collet] chose six names absolutely arbitrarily, those of Auric, Durey, Honegger, Poulenc, Tailleferre and me simply because we knew each other and we were pals and appeared on the same musical programmes, no matter if our temperaments and personalities weren't at all the same! Auric and Poulenc followed ideas of Cocteau, Honegger followed German Romanticism, and myself, Mediterranean lyricism!" (Ivry 1996)

The painting is Le Groupe des Six, 1922 by Jacques-Emile Blanche . In the center, pianist Marcelle Meyer; from bottom to top: Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Jean Wiener; on the right: Georges Auric, Francis Poulenc, Jean Cocteau. Here Jean Wiener, pianist, replaces Louis Durey who left the group in 1921.

In 1917, when many theatres and concert halls were closed because of the war, Blaise Cendrars and the painter Moise Kisling decided to put on a concert at 6 Rue Huyghens, the studio of the painter Emile Lejeune . For this event, the walls of the studio were decorated with canvases by Picasso, Matisse, Leger, Modigliani and others. Music by Satie, Honegger, Auric and Durey was played. It was this concert that gave Erik Satie the idea of assembling a group of composers around himself to be known as the "Nouveaux Jeunes", forerunners of Les Six.

Following the ideas of Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau, the group wrote music together, including a ballet. The artists of "Les Six" collectively championed the avant-garde and surrealism in music and the arts. Although they wrote some music together, each one maintained their individual style.

After the First World War, Jean Cocteau and Les Six began to frequent Le Boeuf sur le Toit. The bar was named after a work by Darius Milhaud and on its opening night the pianist Jean Wiéner played tunes by George Gershwin and Vincent Youmans while Cocteau and Milhaud played percussion. Amongst those in attendance were the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev, Pablo Picasso, the film-maker René Clair, the singer Jane Bathori and Maurice Chevalier.

Music from Erik Satie & Les Six:

  • "Parade" - Satie (no direct relation with Les Six: composed and premiered before the first ideas about the "Nouveaux Jeunes" emerged, by people that would never formally be members of the Groupe des Six: Satie, Cocteau, Picasso, Ballets Russes)
  • "Gnossiennes" - Satie (as 19th century compositions no relation with les Six: the "Nouveaux Jeunes" where initiated by Satie because Ravel's original "Jeunes" had no intrest in Satie's post-Schola compositions)
  • "Trois Gymnopedies" - Satie (idem as for Gnossiennes)
  • Second set of furniture music : "Chez un 'bistrot'" and "Un Salon" (1920) - Satie (premiered with Milhaud)
  • "Mercure" - Satie and "Salade" - Milhaud, premiered 1924 in a production of count Etienne de Beaumont
  • "Romance sans paroles" - Durey
  • "Cinq Bagatelles" - Auric
  • "Sonate pour violoncelle et piano" - Poulenc
  • "Scaramouche" - Milhaud
  • "Sonate pour violon seul" - Honegger
  • "Suite Burlesque" - Germaine Tailleferre

Source

  • Ivry, Benjamin (1996). Francis Poulenc. Phaidon Press Limited. ISBN071483503X.



Last updated: 11-08-2004 07:27:52