Les Six at John G Shedd Institute for the Arts

In 1920, a group of 6 composers—Darius Milhaud, Frances Poulenc, Germaine Taileferre, George Auric, Arthur Honegger and Louis Durey—formed a loose coalition based on the desire to turn away from Impressionism and Wagnerian/German Romanticism and create a new French music out of newer currents in music (such as advanced by the likes of Stravinsky and Satie) and an aesthetic filled with the sadness, joy, sounds and rhythms of everyday life, especially as reflected in popular genres of their day (Poulenc, for instance, loved French vaudeville, especially Maurice Chevalier; Milhaud liked American jazz and Brazilian dances)...

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In 1920, a group of 6 composers—Darius Milhaud, Frances Poulenc, Germaine Taileferre, George Auric, Arthur Honegger and Louis Durey—formed a loose coalition based on the desire to turn away from Impressionism and Wagnerian/German Romanticism and create a new French music out of newer currents in music (such as advanced by the likes of Stravinsky and Satie) and an aesthetic filled with the sadness, joy, sounds and rhythms of everyday life, especially as reflected in popular genres of their day (Poulenc, for instance, loved French vaudeville, especially Maurice Chevalier; Milhaud liked American jazz and Brazilian dances). Artistically, “Les Six” (as they were called) allied themselves with Cubism; in literature, with the French surrealist poets Jean Cocteau, Paul Éluard and Guillaume Apollinaire. No survey of the musical currents in 1920s-’30s Paris would be complete without a look at their work, so Ken has asked Ted and Siri to join him in an afternoon of their music. They open with the only piece “Les Six” actively participated in as a group, L’Album Des Six, followed—after a nod to that great figure of modern French music, Claude Debussy—by a series of pieces by individual members of “Les Six”. Ken comments: “Although this concert is a ‘classical’ recital, Ted Rosenthal and I can’t resist the temptation to improvise on the last two numbers: Auric’s Farewell, New York, which he described as an ‘amiable fox-trot’, and Song From Moulin Rouge, which was an unabashed popular song from Auric’s score to the film of the same name.

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