Les Six French Composers

Les Six was a group of young avant-garde French composers, namely, Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre, formed by Eric Satie.

Initially Les Nouveaux Jeunes, the name was changed along with the line-up to crystallize as "Les Six" in 1923. With Jean Cocteau as the spokesman and Satie as the "guru", the group was formed and the name was given by French critic Henri Collet. With this identifying label, the individual composers gained public attention as a group in force.

Despite the elements the six composers had in common, their differences were far greater. In the 1920s each of them was pursuing solo careers. Today, best remembered are Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Arthur Honegger, and perhaps Tailleferre, for being the only woman of the group. Few pieces by Durey and Auric are performed, if at all.

Arthur Honegger (1892-1955). A major early modern influence on French music, Honegger was one of Les Six's founding members. He was probably the most "Germanically" influenced of the members of the group, in stated contrast to the original ideal as set by Cocteau. He devoted more time to serious study than most of his contemporaries. In time, Honegger rejected Satie, and strove in a way alien to the rest of the group. Honegger was a symphonist.

Louis Durey (1888-1979). Durey joined Les Six by accident, little aware that the artistic group he was joining was creating a music association based on little more than friendship. Like Milhaud, he collaborated with Cocteau on a piece, with his "Scenes de Cirque." Before long, he felt that Cocteau's influence was artistically compromising, in due time he ceased collaboration.

Georges Auric (1899-1983). Auric joined as a student of Satie. Together with Honegger and Durey, he was one of the founding members of the group, but his music had more in common with Poulenc, his contemporary, rather than Honegger and Durey. Together with Poulenc and Milhaud, Auric exemplified the ideals put in by Cocteau.

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963). Like Satie, Poulenc held a strong opposition to the excessive sensitiveness and refinement of French Impressionism. He was the best choral composer of the group and is still praised for his spontaneous melodic invention and originality.

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974). Milhaud, like some members of Les Six, joined somewhat unwittingly, being taken in before he really knew what was going on. Unimpressed by Cocteau's hands-on approach to Les Six as aesthetics were involved, he still collaborated with him and Satie in some projects, including his famous ballet Le Boeuf sur le toit. He was known for his atonality.

Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983). Tailleferre was the one woman in Les Six, and perhaps because of this, today, is also one of the most recorded. She was a student of Darius Milhaud, and was one of the late comers to Les Six.

Sources:

Classical Music, edited by John Burrows, Dorling Kindersley (2005)

Dictionary of Composers and their Music, by Eric Gilder, Sphere Reference (1987) Remove

The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, edited by Stanley Sadie, Macmillan (1994)

The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham, OUP (2002)

Les Six with Cocteau and a Singer

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