Les Six

Les Six was a collective of six young composers—five French and one Swiss: Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), Arthur Honegger (1892–1955), Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), and Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983)—who emerged in the aftermath of World War I as a loose avant-garde group dedicated to revitalizing French music. Formed around 1920 in the Parisian musical milieu, with several members having studied at the Paris Conservatoire, the group was initially mentored by Erik Satie, who encouraged simplicity and irreverence, and later guided intellectually by the artist and writer Jean Cocteau, who promoted their ideas through manifestos and public advocacy.

The name "Les Six" was coined by music critic Henri Collet in a January 1920 article in the journal Comoedia, drawing a parallel to the Russian Five, and it solidified the group's identity despite their diverse individual styles and limited collaborative output. Reacting against the perceived heaviness of German Romanticism, exemplified by Richard Wagner, and the atmospheric vagueness of French Impressionism associated with Claude Debussy, they advocated for brevity, clarity, humor, and parody in composition. Their influences extended beyond classical traditions to everyday French life, incorporating elements from jazz, cabaret, circus music, and even Brazilian popular styles via Milhaud's travels, while emphasizing national identity through folk-inspired motifs and modernist techniques like polytonality.