Les Six, Arcueil School, L'Ecole de Paris, and related

[indutrial]

I'm interested in hearing what people's experiences and opinions are surrounding these different groups of French-ish composers who worked in the period of roughly 1920-1970 (though some individuals among them outlasted that long period).

For those who aren't aware, 'Les Six' refers to a loosely-knit group of Parisian composers who, for a short period, worked towards similar musical goals, in reaction to both Wagnerism and France's own Debussyism. Erik Satie was a sort of on-again off-again associate of the group and they frequently collaborated with Jean Cocteau and other French poets from the period. The original members (all six associated for a year at the most) were:

Georges Auric
Darius Milhaud
Francis Poulenc
Germaine Tailleferre
Louis Durey
Arthur Honegger

By 1923, the group had lost its unity and Satie ironically noted that "Les Six are Auric, Milhaud and Poulenc." I'm not as interested in the short period where they worked together (1920-1923) as much as the individual careers that each composer developed. Most of them composed for many decades to follow and produced some incredible libraries of pieces.

Info at https://www.scena.org/lsm/sm6-1/coq-en.html

Following the fragmentation of Les Six, another group called the Arcueil School came together under the influence of Erik Satie. This group consisted of:

Henri Sauguet
Maxime Jacob
Henri Cliquet-Pleyel
Roger Desormières

Though I've not heard all that much about these composers, any info would definitely be appreciated. Lastly, I am interested in hearing about my favorite loosely knit group of composers who were not only influenced by Les Six, but were all emigres from different countries from around Europe. "L'Ecole de Paris", as they came to be known, consisted of:

Bohuslav Martinu (Czech)
Tibor Harsanyi (Hungary)
Marcel Mihalovici (Rpmania)
Conrad Beck (Switzerland)
Aleksandr Tcherepnin (Russia)
Alexandre Tansman (Poland)

Tansman was invited by Milhaud and Honegger to become the "seventh" member of Les Six in the early 1920s, though he abstained.

Anyway, this topic is considerably broad, but that's on purpose, since this is a period that seems to often get a little lost in the mix as it is overshadowed by the great period of French romantic/impressionistic music (Faure, Ravel, Debussy) that preceded it and the more radically innovative twentieth century trends that came later (serialism, minimalism, Messiaen). While there is a goodly amount of recordings dedicated to these works, it would seem that there's not all that much dialogue surrounding it, although it is a period of intense profundity and several instances of musical experiment and innovation. I've recently been studying a crapton of different works by the composers I listed above and I'm astounded at how a lot of this stuff gets brushed by. Anyway, I'm very interested to hear anybody's thoughts on this stuff and would love to discuss any number of individual pieces by any of these composers. Some recent things I've come across that I like very much are Auric's Sonate in Fa for piano and Martinu's Piano Quartet.

[s_bussotti]

I'd classify most of their music as pretty, but not particularly interesting, from a listener's or academic's point of view.  I haven't looked into them enough to really make any sort of deep and analytical commentary, and of course any broad comment regarding all of their work is pretty silly, but I have trouble finding much to appreciate.  The only ones I would be remiss in not having would be Tailleferre, Honegger and Tcherepnin.

[indutrial]

I'd classify most of their music as pretty, but not particularly interesting, from a listener's or academic's point of view.  I haven't looked into them enough to really make any sort of deep and analytical commentary, and of course any broad comment regarding all of their work is pretty silly, but I have trouble finding much to appreciate.  The only ones I would be remiss in not having would be Tailleferre, Honegger and Tcherepnin.

One thing about them that I've definitely noticed is that their most well-known works (especially Poulenc and Milhaud) are usually some of their most light-hearted and frivolous ones. Milhaud's most famous work is obviously the Scaramouche for two pianos, which was actually a rearrangement of a piece of incidental music that he wrote. Even later in his life, Milhaud never saw much importance in that work, despite the fact that it's been arranged for all sorts of settings and played out the ass. Similarly, he quickly grew tired of orchestras doing version after version of Creation du Monde while his 12 symphonies were not getting much play at all.

My favorite works of theirs are usually the more unusual ones I encounter, like Milhaud's string octet, which actually consists of two separate string quartets (#'s 14 and 15) being played simultaneously. I recently heard the disc by Quatuor Parisii where they play each quartet separately in their original forms before playing the combined Octet version with another quartet. Milhaud's quartet series on its own doesn't really mark a watershed in the format in the way that Bartok's or Carter's does, but is simply pleasing music that actually creates a lot of compromised tonalities with Milhaud's polytonal approach. I'm currently looking for copies of his string sextet and septet, which I've never heard.

I agree that the works have a tonally prettiness that can seem saccharine at times, but I appreciate their loose/tight approach to tonality far more than a lot of the exhaustingly tonal post-romantic/late-romantic stuff that was coming out around the same time. The light-heartedness of works like Poulenc's chamber pieces for winds and Tansman's big-handed piano romps is a good counterpart to the 'heavier' quality music of the later twentieth century usually has. My interest in this music grows mostly from 1.) me being tired of 19th century music (though I still like them), 2.) me being tired of the usual suspects from the early 20th century (though I still like them), 3.) me being a curious historian, and 4.) me not being able to withstand a constant barrage of stuff like Scelsi, Sorabji, Carter, Wuorinen, Ligeti, Xenakis, Lutoslawski etc... I admittedly like a lot of these composers more than the ones this thread centers on, but sometimes my musical sensibilities need to be treated to something a little simpler/traditional/fun.

[rachfan]

I've always enjoyed Poulenc's music.  When I was a kid in the 1960s, his music was the "talk of the town", but is not heard as frequently now.  The thing I found fascinating about Poulenc was that unlike Prokofiev or other composers who stood at a work table, heard the music in their heads, and put a pen to score paper right there, Poulenc didn't work that way.  He was an improvisatory composer.  He would simply improvise at the piano.  When he had three or so interesting improvisations, he would develop and refine them further by using his ears and hands.  Once he was satisfied, he'd invite his musical friends to his home, and at some point in the evening he'd play his improvisations.  Based on the feedback he received, if there was considerable interest in one or two of the improvisations, then he would invest time in formalizing the music on staff paper and would send it off to his publisher.  I think that's why whenever we hear a Poulenc piece, it's always fresh, witty, urbane, a bit sarcastic and not without ironic twists.  And his pieces always sound spontaneous like improvisations--because that's exactly how they originated!

I recorded Poulenc's "Melancolie" (composed in 1940) for the Audition Room.  Here's the link if you're unfamiliar with the piece and would like to hear it:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,27714.0.html

 

[slobone]

I love Poulenc's flute sonata, and I played his Perpetual Motion as a kid. The others I'm not so familiar with, though Martinu has an interesting piano quartet.

Oh, and Milhaud. Love the Brasilian suite for 2 pianos.

I certainly think their music would be worth exploring for anybody who wants to play something modern but is allergic to serialism.

[indutrial]

I love Poulenc's flute sonata, and I played his Perpetual Motion as a kid. The others I'm not so familiar with, though Martinu has an interesting piano quartet.

Oh, and Milhaud. Love the Brasilian suite for 2 pianos.

I certainly think their music would be worth exploring for anybody who wants to play something modern but is allergic to serialism.

What's interesting is that some of these guys came pretty close to the dodecaphonic sounds of serialism without ever calling it that or using set methodologies. This wasn't common in the 1920s, but a number of them brought it into their style during the later years when they were working separately. A good example of that would be Mihalovici's opera based on Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape.

I've always thought that some of Tansman's earliest surviving works were incredibly close to this. His second string quartet, for all of it's free-tonal moments, is loaded with passages with borderline-atonal harmonies and chromatic metamorphoses. Some of his works would explore what happens when you play in the keys of C and F# simulaneously. It doesn't take a genius to note that, while F/E# and B appear in both are might be granted ascendancy in the harmonic scheme, the combination of these two scales uses all 12 notes. In that case, I've always wondered why scholars are likely to quickly brush him over as just another neoclassical composer who flirts with polytonality, when I would say he's got more going on.

I too love the Poulenc flute sonata. That piece is extremely melodic and playfully mischievious. You might want to check out Milhaud's sonatine for flute/piano, op. 76, which is a nice counterpart to Poulenc's work. Both of those works bookend a CD that I have dedicated to the flute/piano works of Les Six.

[mephisto]

Have you heard this piece by Poulenc:

Aubade, Concerto for Piano and 18 instruments. Pretty amazing IMO.

[indutrial]

Have you heard this piece by Poulenc:

Aubade, Concerto for Piano and 18 instruments. Pretty amazing IMO.

Here's a very interesting bit from allmusic.com, which has lots of informative little articles on works by Milhaud and Poulenc:

Poulenc described Aubade as "amphibious," implying that the role of protagonist is more or less shared between the onstage woman dancer and the pianist in the orchestra pit. The ballet is a series of tableaux said to be inspired by paintings from the École de Fontainebleau. At the work's center is Diana, the mythological huntress, who finds herself "burning with a love that consumes her purity." Awaking at dawn in the forest of Fontainebleau, she is dressed by her woman friends. Condemned to chastity and despondent over an impure love, she dances a variation, clasping to her breast a bow her friends had given her. Suddenly, she throws the bow away and darts into the woods.



The choreographer for the Paris production was George Balanchine, who ignored Poulenc's plot for the dance, introducing a handsome, muscular dancer to portray Actéon in a pas de deux with Diana. The composer complained that Aubade was to be exclusively "a woman's ballet," but Balanchine ultimately had his way.

I really like this piece musically and would love to see a ballet/concerto performance of it reconstructed in a way more in line with Poulenc's wishes. I'd especially be interested in seeing how the conclusion works in this regard. The development from the beginning of that part into the repetitive and increasingly intense figure at the end is really fantastic.

Thanks for bringing this one up. Poulenc's keyboard concertos (which includes this, a regular concerto, a two-piano concerto, a harpsichord concerto, and a piece for organ and ensemble) are all incredibly witty works that seem to show no interest in subscribing to the music of one given time period. Fun stuff.

Does anyone know if there's a recording of Auric's Partita for two pianos floating around anywhere? To my knowledge thus far it's only been recorded on a LP on the French Ades label a long time ago and that's a needle in a haystack. That Partita has been an ongoing MIDI project of mine and it's a lot of fun so far. Anyone who's in need of good two-piano repertoire should check it out. If you've heard the solo piano Sonata in Fa, it bears a bit of similarity.

[indutrial]

Here's a very nice broadcast I found on the Internet Archive that features some works by two of Les Six, in addition to some other great pieces. The program covers:

McKonkey’s Ferry Overture (1948) (9:20) / George Antheil
Sonatina, for two violins, Op. 221 (1940) (7:20) / Darius Milhaud
String Quartet No. 12, Op. 252 (1945) (15:45) / Darius Milhaud
String Quartet (1919-21) (10:35) / Germaine Tailleferre
Symphony No. 1 (1917) (31:10) / Willem Pijper

https://www.archive.org/details/OTG_1973_12_19

This is a nice selection of some less-commonly-heard Milhaud chamber works.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Much more Milhaud can be heard in this 1971 broadcast, "An Hommage to Darius Milhaud," including the following works:

La muse ménagère, Op. 245 (”The household muse”) (1945) (19:00)
Musique pour Graz, Op. 429 (1968–69) (15:30)
Suite de Quatrains, Op. 395 [text by Francis Jammes] (1962) (11:00)
Six Dances in Three Movements for Two Pianos, Op. 433 (1969-70) (6:45)
Musique pour Ars Nova, Op. 432 (1969-70) (14:00)
Five Etudes for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 63 (1920) (10:00)
Death of a Tyrant (1932) (6:00)

https://www.archive.org/details/AM_1971_04_26

[retrouvailles]

That's some good stuff there! Isn't this the same website that had that recording of Sorabji himself? That place is a treasure trove if so.

[indutrial]

That's some good stuff there! Isn't this the same website that had that recording of Sorabji himself? That place is a treasure trove if so.

The links I've posted above barely scratch the surface. Off the top of my head there is also a really good Ernst Krenek program included somewhere on their site that was recorded on one of his later birthdays with him in attendance. More radio institutions should be as diligent in presenting old material for the public to enjoy.