Contemporary Classics August 21, 2018 Paris 1920s - Dance Part 1

In Paris in the early twentieth century, French composer Eric Satie and French poet, writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau brought together 6 young French composers to form the group know as Les Six.   The members were  Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), Arthur Honegger (1892–1955), Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), and Germaine Tailleferre.  This group had no central musical style or philosophy but Their music is often seen as a reaction against the musical style of Richard Wagner and the impressionist music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Darius Milhaud traveled to the United States in 1922 and in his words  heard "authentic" jazz for the first time, on the streets of Harlem, [3] which left a great impact on his musical outlook. In 1923 he completed his composition La création du monde (The Creation of the World), using ideas and idioms from jazz, cast as a ballet in six continuous dance scenes. The libretto by Blaise Cendrars outlined the creation of the world based on African folk mythology. The ballet costumes designed by Fernand Léger (who also created the stage sets). The work was commissioned and choreographed by the Ballets suédois, a ballet company which was contemporary to Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. The company was very influential in the early 1920s, staging five seasons in Paris and touring continually.

In that same year 1923 Poulenc received a commission from Sergei Diaghilev for a full-length ballet score. He decided that the theme would be a modern version of the classical French fête galante   Fête galante  are paintings of well dressed individual in very pastoral settings.  This work, Les biches, was an immediate success, first in Monte Carlo where it premiered in January 1924 and then in Paris in May, under the direction of André Messager; it has remained one of Poulenc's best-known scores.

Mercure (Mercury, or The Adventures of Mercury) is a 1924 ballet with music by Erik Satie. The original décor and costumes were designed by Pablo Picasso and the choreography was by Léonide Massine, who also danced the title role. Subtitled "Plastic Poses in Three Tableaux", it was an important link between Picasso's Neoclassical and Surrealist phases and has been described as a "painter's ballet."   Mercure was commissioned by the Soirées de Paris stage company and first performed at the Théâtre de la Cigale in Paris on June 15, 1924.  By this time in his life Satie had a falling out with composers such as Milhaud and Poulenc because of his jealousy over their success.

Igor Stravinsky first achieved fame in Paris just before World War I with his revolutionary compositions for the Ballets Russes including the riot that broke out at the performance of Rite of Spring in 1913. In 1920 he returned for a production of a new ballet, Pulcinella.  The ballet premiered at the Paris Opera on 15 May 1920 under the baton of Ernest Ansermet. The dancer Léonide Massine created both the libretto and choreography, and Pablo Picasso designed the original costumes and sets. with sets designed by Pablo Picasso. The Pulcinella Suite, derived from the ballet, was written in 1922 and has no vocal parts. The first performance was in Boston, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Pierre Monteux on 22 December 1922.

Paris was also a mecca for foreign composers who wanted to study with the great French composers of the early 20^th century and the most famous composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. Among these was the American Aaron Copland.  During the composer's studies with Nadia Boulanger, Copland wrote the ballet Grogh (1922 - 25). Since the ballet was unperformed, and remained unperformed during Copland's lifetime, this music comes to as the Dance Symphony. Copland adapted some of the music from the ballet Grogh for a work to enter into an RCA Victor-sponsored contest for new orchestral music. The Dance Symphony won the prize, providing Copland the first major accolade of his career.   The ballet's plot was inspired by Murnau's 1922 film Nosferatu, Copland and the young theater director Harold Clurman crafted a gothic, grotesque scenario for Grogh rife with vampires, dancing corpses, and onstage coffins. Accordingly, much of the music is characterized by a dark, mournful quality.

The dancer Ida Rubinstein left the Ballets Russes in 1911 and started her own troupe, commissioning famous poets, including André Gide and Paul Valéry, and composers, including Stravinsky and Honneger, to write ballets for her. Her most famous creation was Boléro, written for her by Ravel, which she first danced at the Paris Opera on November 22, 1928. Ravel originally called the music Fandango, since it much more closely resembled that dance rather than a true bolero.