Neoclassicism

• Came from the Greek word "neos"

which means "new" and the Latin
word "classicus" which means "of the
highest rank".
• Was a 20th century trend,
particularly current in the Interwar
period (between World War I and
World War II).
• A style of music that drew its
inspiration from traditional
elements of classical music namely
ORDER, BALANCE, CLARITY, and
EMOTIONAL RESTRAINT.
• It was a rebuttal to the much less
formal and more emotional
Romanticism's style of music.
 Sergei Prokofieff
• (16 January 1954 - 26 July 2014)

• Grandson of Sergei Prokofieve

• Born: 1954, Moscow, Russia
• Died: 2014, Dornach, Switzerland
• is a combined neoclassicist, nationalist and avant
garde composer.
• was a composer and a pianist.
• wrote the ballet of Romeo and Juliet and the opera
of War and Peace.
 FRANCIS JEAN MARCEL
POULENC
• French composer & pianist
• born on January 7, 1899
• son of Emile Poulenc and his wife Jenny Royer
• joint owner of the Poulenc Freres
• member of a Pious Roman Catholic Family
• described as "Half monk and half naughty" by
critic Claude Rostand
His compositions include MELODIES, SOLO PIANO
WORKS, CHAMBER MUSIC, CHORAL PIEACES,
OPERAS, BALLETS, And ORCHESTRAL MUSIC
• Best known Piano Suite: TROIS MOUVEMENTS
PERPETUELS (1919)
• Ballet: LES BICHES (1923) CONCERT CHAMPETRE
(1928)
• Orchestra: ORGAN CONCERTO (1938)
• Opera: DIALOGUES DES CARMELITAS (1957)
GLORIA FOR SOPRANO (1959), CHOIR AND
ORCHESTRA Complete works: 65
 OTHER
MEMBERS OF
“LES SIX”
"Les Six"
• (pronounced [le sis]) is a name given to a group of six
French composers who worked in Montparnasse. The
name, inspired by Mily Balakirev's The Five, originates in
critic Henri Collet's 1920 article "Les cinq Russes, les six
Français et M. Satie" (Comœdia (fr), 16 January 1920).
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.
“Georges Auric”
(French 15 February 1899 – 23 July 1983)
• was a French composer.
• born in Lodève, Hérault.

• He was considered one of Les Six, a group of

artists informally associated with
Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie.[1]
• Before he turned 20 he had orchestrated and
written incidental music for several ballets
and stage productions. He also had a
distinguished career as a film composer
• Georges Auric began his musical career at a
young age, performing a piano recital at the
Société Musicale Indépendante at the age of 2.
• Several songs that he had written were then
performed in the following year by Société
Nationale de Musique.[2]

• Along with his early successes professionally,

Auric studied music at the Paris Conservatoire,
as well as composition with Vincent d'Indy at
the Schola Cantorum de Paris and Albert
• Having gained recognition as a child
prodigy both in composition and piano
performance, he became a protégé of
Erik Satie during the following decade.
• During the 1910s and 20s, he was a
significant contributor of
avant-garde music in Paris and was
significantly influenced by Cocteau and
the other composers of Les Six.[5]
“Louis Durey”
27 May 1888 – 3 July 1979)
Louis Durey
• was born in Paris, the son of a local businessman.

• It was not until he was nineteen years old that he chose to

pursue a musical career after hearing a performance of a
Claude Debussy work.

• As a composer he was primarily self-taught. From the

beginning, choral music was of great importance in Durey’s
productivity. His L'Offrande Lyrique (1914) has been called
the first piece of French twelve-tone music.[2] The first of
his works to gain recognition in the music world was for a
piano duet titled Carillons. At a 1918 concert this work
attracted the interest of Maurice Ravel, who recommended
“Arthur Honegger ”
10 March 1892 – 27 November 1955)
-was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life
in Paris. He was a member of Les Six. His most frequently performed work is
probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which was inspired by the sound of a
steam locomotive.

 Born Oscar-Arthur Honegger (the first name was never used)

to Swiss parents in Le Havre, France,

 he initially studied harmony and violin in Le Havre. After

studying for two years at the Zurich Conservatory

 he enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire from 1911 to 1918,

studying with both Charles-Marie Widor and Vincent d'Indy.

 He made his Paris compositional debut in 1916 and in 1918

• In 1926 he married Andrée Vaurabourg, a pianist
and fellow student at the Paris Conservatoire, on
the condition that they live in separate apartments.
• They lived apart for the duration of their marriage,
with the exceptions of one year from 1935 to
1936 following Vaurabourg's injury in a car
accident, and the last year of Honegger's life, when
he was not well enough to live alone. They had one
daughter, Pascale, born in 1932. Honegger also
had a son, Jean-Claude (1926–2003), with the
singer Claire Croiza.
Darius Milhaud
(4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974)
• was a French composer, conductor, and teacher.

• He was a member of Les Six—also known as The

Group of Six—and one of the most prolific
composers of the 20th century.
• His compositions are influenced by jazz and
Brazilian music and make extensive use of
polytonality.

• Milhaud is considered one of the key

modernist composers.[1]
• Born in Marseille to a Jewish family from Aix-en-Provence, Milhaud
began as a violinist, later turning to composition instead.

• Milhaud studied in Paris at the Paris Conservatory where he met his

fellow group members Arthur Honegger and Germaine Tailleferre.

• He studied composition under Charles Widor and harmony and

counterpoint with André Gedalge. He also studied privately with
Vincent d'Indy.

• From 1917 to 1919, he served as secretary to Paul Claudel, the

eminent poet and dramatist who was then the French ambassador to
Brazil, and with whom Milhaud collaborated for many years, setting
music for many of Claudel's poems and plays. While in
Francis Poulenc
(January 1899 – 30 January 1963)
• was a French composer and pianist.

• His compositions include mélodies, solo piano works,

chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral
concert music.
• Among the best-known are the piano suite Trois
mouvements perpétuels (1919), the ballet Les biches (1923),
the Concert champêtre (1928) for harpsichord and
orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera
Dialogues des Carmélites (1957), and the Gloria (1959) for
soprano, choir and orchestra.
• Poulenc was born in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, the
son of Émile Poulenc and his wife, Jenny, née Royer.[1]
Émile Poulenc was a joint owner of the Poulenc Frères, a
successful manufacturer of pharmaceuticals (later
Rhône-Poulenc).[2]

• He was a member of a pious Roman Catholic family from

Espalion in the département of Aveyron.

• Jenny Poulenc was from a Parisian family with wide

artistic interests.
• In Poulenc's view, the two sides of his nature grew out of
this background: a deep religious faith from his father's
family and a worldly and artistic side from his mother's.[3]
Germaine Tailleferre
(19 April 1892 – 7 November 1983)
• She was born Marcelle Taillefesse at Saint-Maur-des-Fossés
, Val-de-Marne, France, but as a young woman she
changed her last name to "Tailleferre" to spite her father,
who had refused to support her musical studies. She
studied piano with her mother at home, composing short
works of her own, after which she began studying at the
Paris Conservatory where she met Louis Durey,
Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, and
Arthur Honegger. At the Paris Conservatory her skills were
rewarded with prizes in several categories. Most notably,
Tailleferre wrote 18 short works in the Petit livre de harpe
de Madame Tardieu for Caroline Luigini, the Conservatory’s