Georges Auric (French: [ʒɔʁʒ ɔʁik]; February 15, 1899 – July 23, 1983) was a French composer born in Lodève, Hérault, France. He was part of a group called Les Six, which worked closely with artists Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie. Before he was 20 years old, he helped create the music for several ballets and stage productions. He also had a long and respected career writing music for films.

Early life and education

Georges Auric started his music career at a young age. At 14, he performed a piano recital at the Société musicale indépendante. The next year, several songs he wrote were performed by Société Nationale de Musique. While gaining early professional success, Auric studied music at the Paris Conservatoire. He also studied composition with Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris and Albert Roussel. Because of his talent in composing and playing piano as a young person, he became a student of Erik Satie during the next decade. In the 1910s and 1920s, Auric helped create innovative music in Paris. He was influenced by Cocteau and other composers in Les Six.

Career

Auric's early music showed a dislike for traditional music and used familiar themes. Because of this and his connection with Cocteau and Satie, Auric was grouped with Les Six by music critic Henri Collet and became friends with artist Jean Hugo. His involvement led him to write songs and musicals based on poetry and other texts. Along with the other five composers in Les Six, he contributed a piece to L'Album des Six. In 1921, Cocteau asked Auric to write music for his ballet, Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel. Auric was short on time, so he asked his fellow composers in Les Six to help. All except Louis Durey agreed. During this time, he wrote his one-act opera Sous le masque (1927). An earlier opera, La Reine de coeur (1919), is lost. In 1927, he also contributed the Rondeau for the children's ballet L'Éventail de Jeanne, a project involving ten French composers. In 1952, he participated in another collaboration, the orchestral variations La Guirlande de Campra. Les Six, though a short-lived group, became known for opposing traditional music and promoting absurdism and satire. The group rebelled against composers like Wagner and Debussy. The music of Les Six, including Auric, reflected the culture of Paris at the time and rejected styles from Russian and German music, as well as the impressionism and symbolism of Debussy. Auric's later work as a composer who created music for the general public was influenced by Les Six, especially their use of popular music and everyday themes. Music from circuses and dance halls often appeared in their work, especially during collaborations. However, Les Six eventually separated, with Auric and others taking different artistic paths.

After early success as an avant-garde composer, Auric experienced a period of change in the 1930s. He began writing for films in 1930 and composed the music for À Nous la Liberté in 1931, which was well received. While building a successful career as a film composer, his music went through a time of little progress and change. His Piano Sonata (1931) was poorly received, followed by five years of minimal output, including his first three film scores. His connection with Cocteau continued during this time, as he composed the score for Cocteau's Le Sang d'un poète. By 1935, Auric moved away from his earlier, complex style and focused on creating music for a broader audience. He joined leftist groups and publications, such as the Association des Ecrivains et des Artistes Révolutionnaires (AEAR), the Maison de la Culture, and the Fédération Musicale Populaire. He adopted four strategies: working with other leftist artists, writing in more genres to reach more people, creating music for younger audiences, and expressing political ideas more clearly in his work.

The films Auric chose to score were influenced by his new beliefs and past connections. He worked with Jean Cocteau, his longtime collaborator from Les Six, on eleven films. Over the years, he composed music for many films in France, England, and America. One of his most popular scores was for Moulin Rouge, and the song "Where Is Your Heart?" from that film became very popular. In 1962, Auric stopped writing for films when he became director of the Opéra National de Paris and later chairman of SACEM, the French Performing Rights Society. He continued writing classical chamber music, especially for wind instruments, until his death.

Music criticism was an important part of Auric's career. He focused on promoting the ideas of Les Six and Cocteau, known as esprit nouveau. His criticism targeted the perceived pretentiousness of composers like Debussy, Wagner, Saint-Saëns, and Massenet, as well as those who followed their styles. Auric, Les Six, and Cocteau believed that the music of these composers was disconnected from real life and preferred music rooted in populism.

Personal life and politics

In the 1920s, Auric criticized Satie for joining the French Communist Party. However, in the 1930s, Auric worked with groups that supported left-wing ideas and wrote for communist newspapers, including Marianne and Paris-Soir. The Association des Ecrivains et des Artistes Révolutionnaires (AEAR) aimed to bring together Soviet and French communist artists to share their ideas and discuss how to spread them to the public. Through this group, Auric met other artists and thinkers who supported far-left causes. These ideas influenced Auric’s concert music and the movies he chose to score. In 1930, Auric married the painter Eleanore Vilter, who passed away in 1982. Auric died in Paris on July 23, 1983, at the age of 84. He was buried at Montparnasse Cemetery, next to his wife.

Selected works

• Three Interludes for piano and voice (1914)
• Eight Poèmes de Jean Cocteau for piano and voice (1918)
• Adieu, New-York! for piano (1919)
• Prelude for piano (1919)
• Les joues en feu for piano and voice (1920)
• Overture and Ritournelle from Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel for orchestra (1920)
• Pastorals for piano (1920)
• Sonatine for piano (1922)
• Les Fâcheux (Ballet) (1923)
• Five Bagatelles for four hands piano (1925)
• Les Matelots (Ballet) (1925)