Aaron Copland: Music in the Twenties; 2; Paris: Les Six

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Upstairs, above the shop, lived George Antile, the young American composer from Trenton, New Jersey who became a sort of composer mascot to the literary crowd. Going to Shakespeare and Company always provided me with considerable excitement. In the first place, it was my point of contact with what was going on in the arts back home. And at the same time, I had the feeling I was close to one of the nerve centers of the artistic life of Paris. Joyce used to come there almost every evening around six o'clock. During, I think it was 1922, in order to pick up the proof sheets of his novel Ulysses, which Miss Beach was publishing because he couldn't get it published in America or England. As repound was active musically at that time, writing the words and music of his own kind of opera.

And I remember a concert given by George Antile, attended by the literary lights with Ezra Pound turning pages with great passion. It was a hectic and a stimulating time. Paris has always encouraged the grouping together of gifted people in the arts. The symbolists, the impressionists, the serialists were all groupings of that sort. During the 20s in the field of music, it was undoubtedly the group of six who best represented the new attitudes in music. Many different composers were heard about for the first time in the 20s, but not all of them could be said to have really belonged to that period. But that was precisely what one could say about the group of six. They represented what might be called a 20th century type of composer. Their appearance on the musical scene signaled the end of the Germanic approach, the Brahmsian approach. It seems to imply listening to music in a very solemn and sacrosanct manner, with your head in your hands deeply immersed in what you're listening to, or perhaps just dreaming off while the music is going on.

Now, these new young musicians wanted you to listen to their music with your eyes wide open, and they wanted their compositions to sound like an everyday kind of music. These composers laughed at the long-haired musicians with big bow ties. They were not at all the romantic genius type, which even today is so dear to the hearts of the big public. These fellows, these six, they were actually five men and a girl. Well, what we'd call regular guys, they liked to travel to go to the movies. And for a while, they used to meet in a favorite night spot, which became famous under the name of Le Befzil at Twak, the Bull on the Roof. No one was surprised to learn that they were perfectly aware of the value of publicity in furthering their careers, or that they acted like somebody, you or I might know, not like a remote and solemn figure in the arts. That was the touch of the 20s.

As a matter of fact, it was not their idea to be joined together as a group. It happened by chance that the French critic, Henri Colle, having heard some of their music and knowing they knew each other, devoted an article to discuss the music. The famous group from five in Russia, seeing a parallel with this group of young Frenchmen, who he thought, might well be dubbed the group of six, and the name stuck. The six realized how little justified the critic was in naming them, but they also immediately saw the advantages of sticking together and acting as if they were a group. As it turned out, they were a distinctly variegated collection of personalities. There was Francis Pulanc, and George O'Rique, who were both bouncy characters lively and galleck by temperament, very smart and witty, very bright youngsters. Two of the older and more sober members were Arthur Onigair and Darius Mio. Onigair was of Swiss parentage and much closer to the German romantics than any of the others. Mio, on the other hand, was a descendant of an ancient Jewish family who had settled in the south of France 500 years before.

He was definitely combative in those days, a man who liked to say exactly what he thought, and rather enjoyed shocking people. When others were thinking, down with Wagner, he was the one who yelled, down with Wagner, so that a lot of the nasty words that were thrown at the group of six were aimed at his head. Then, too, there was a German tie affair, a beautiful young woman, who wrote in a rather post-impressionist style. Finally, there was a composer named Louis Durée, who seems to have been included because he happened to be, so to speak, standing around at the time. Though he composed some few pieces in the 20s, he hasn't been heard of since, as far as I know. In seeking an aesthetic of their own, the six, with the possible exception of Onigair, turned to an older French composer, Eric Sati, who was himself one of the four runners of the spirit of the 20s, and whom they looked up to as a sort of musical godfather. His ideas became widely disseminated through the writings of the young French critic Jean-Cukto, his friend and collaborator. Sati is without any doubt a unique figure in musical history.

There's no one else quite like him. He became a leader because he had what amounted to a program for French music. He thought he knew what young French composers ought to be doing, and one of his main tenets was that their music should be anti-German, anti-grandiose, anti-impressionist, and even anti-impressive. In fact, it was free to do anything except try to impress you. That was a primary idea, and as you can see, after Beethoven and Mahler, a rather startling one. I remember Sati myself because in 1923 I used to eat lunch in a restaurant where he came every day. I can still see his face buried in his plate, very concentrated, looking neither to the right nor the left while he ate, always alone, having the appearance of a distinguished elderly gentleman who is slightly batty. Stravinsky once said about Sati that he was a crafty fox full of slyness and intelligent lid naughty. He loved causing trouble, like to start fights and say things that mystified people. He was also very funny, very witty would be a better word for it, both in his prose and in his music.

He loved to debunk other composers and the names he chose for his pieces. Thinking of the Debussy preludes, he called one of his own pieces real, flabby preludes. Another title he used was three pieces in the form of a pear. He printed compositions without bar lines for no good reason, and added completely irrelevant comments to the musical text. He was unpredictable and as we would say, a character. The most obvious heir to Sati among the six was Frosty's Pulang, the youngest member of the group. He began composing as a gifted youth and retained something of the gifted amateur status all his life. But he had a charming and sensuous and personal gift which he knew very well how to use. His was a facile and eclectic talent.

He wasn't ashamed to write music that suggested other composers all the way from Mozart to Stravinsky, and definitely including Chopin and List along the way. But there's always something about his pieces that brings to mind the period in which they were written, which is a very invaluable asset I find. It's one of the things that keeps the court vial alive, for instance. Music that belongs to its own period takes on an importance which the actual notes themselves might not have. Pulang's music with its alert and snappy and thoroughly French character, sometimes even French salon character, despite its unevenness and inspiration and its technical limitations, can well be said to have added something to the joy of life. As an example, let me play for you, the opening movement of a set of three little piano pieces, written in 1919 by Pulang, called Movema Peppette-to-El. Even at age 20, it already has the easy charm of the man, and shows the kind of lyrical and relaxed music he liked to write.

Here's a little piece that was issued. A little piece that was issued in 1920 as part of an album of compositions by Lacey's. It was one of the rare times that they all appeared in a single publication together.

This is a short piece called Simply Waltz, and has some of the print, I suppose one might call it Impertinent Spirit, of Pulang. I will play it all, but here's a taste of it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

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