Groupe des Six

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Jacques-Émile Blanche : Le Groupe des Six (1921). In the center the pianist Marcelle Meyer . Left (bottom to top): Germaine Tailleferre , Darius Milhaud , Arthur Honegger , Louis Durey . Georges Auric sits on the right , behind Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau .

The Groupe des Six or Les Six for short was a rather loose association of six French composers (five men and one woman).

Belonged to the group

This group initially formed around their musical mentor, the Parisian composer Erik Satie , who introduced four members to the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier as “les nouveaux jeunes”. From 1918 the writer Jean Cocteau became its spokesman. The name, an allusion to the Russian group of five , they received in 1920 through a newspaper article by the group's close critic and composer Henri Collet .

The members were less connected by an aesthetic program than by a common rejection of romantic (especially Wagnerian ) music, the turning away from Claude Debussy's musical impressionism and turning to contemporary forms of popular music , e.g. B. Jazz , variety and circus music. Some of her works can be assigned to neoclassicism .

The group as a productive unit only existed for the first few years in the 1920s, after which each composer pursued his own development and what remained was a kind of circle of friends.

Joint works

While it was not the group's stated goal to collaborate on compositions, there have been five opportunities within 32 years in which at least some of the group members have collaborated. Only once were all six involved and sometimes composers outside the group took part. Auric and Poulenc were involved in each collaboration, Milhaud in four, Honegger and Tailleferre in three, Durey in one.

  • L'Album des Six
  1. “Prelude” (December 22, 1919) - Auric
  2. “Romance sans paroles”, op. 21 (August 1919) - Durey
  3. "Sarabande", H 26 (January 1920) - Honegger
  4. "Mazurka" (1914) - Milhaud
  5. “Valse en ut”, FP 17 (July 1919) - Poulenc
  6. "Pastorale" (September 4, 1919) - Tailleferre
  • Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower), ballet based on a text by Jean Cocteau; 1921
  1. "Overture" Le 14-Juillet "" - Auric
  2. “Marche nuptiale” - Milhaud
  3. “Discours du Général” - Poulenc
  4. “La Baigneuse de Trouville” - Poulenc
  5. “La Fugue du massacre” - Milhaud
  6. "Valse des dépêches" - Tailleferre
  7. “Marche funèbre” - Honegger
  8. "Quadrille" - Waistferre
  9. "Trois ritournelles" - Auric
  10. "Sortie de la noce" - Milhaud
  • L'éventail de Jeanne , Children's Ballet, 1927, by Auric, Milhaud and Poulenc, and seven other composers.
  1. "Fanfare" - Maurice Ravel
  2. “Marche” - Pierre-Octave Ferroud
  3. "Valse" - Jacques Ibert
  4. "Canarie" - Alexis Roland-Manuel
  5. "Bourrée" - Marcel Delannoy
  6. "Sarabande" - Albert Roussel
  7. "Polka" - Milhaud
  8. "Pastourelle" - Poulenc
  9. "Rondeau" - Auric
  10. Final: "Kermesse-Valse" - Florent Schmitt
  • La guirlande de Campra , 1952, orchestral work on motifs from André Campra's opera Camille (1717); Collaboration by Auric, Honegger, Poulenc, Tailleferre and three others.
  1. "Toccata" - Honegger
  2. “Sarabande et farandole” - Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur
  3. "Canarie" - Alexis Roland-Manuel
  4. "Sarabande" - Waistleferre
  5. “Matelote provençale” - Poulenc
  6. "Variation" - Henri Sauguet
  7. "Écossaise" - Auric

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt : "Eric Satie", in: Creator of New Music , DTV Muenchen 1962, p. 36.