CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

JEAN COCTEAU AND THE MUSIC OF

POST-WORLD WAR I

A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

Music

by

Marlisa Jeanine Monroe

January 1987 The Thesis of Marlisa Jeanine Monroe is approved:

B~y~ri~jl{l Pfj}D.

Nancy an Deusen, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)

California State University, Northridge

l.l. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

ABSTRACT iv

INTRODUCTION • 1

I. EARLY INFLUENCES 4

II. DIAGHILEV 8

III. STRAVINSKY I 15

IV • 20

v. LE COQ ET L'ARLEQUIN 37

VI. 47

Background • 47 The Formation of the Group 54 Les Maries de la tour Eiffel 65 The Split 79 Milhaud 83 Poulenc 90 Auric 97 Honegger 100

VII. STRAVINSKY II 109

VIII. CONCLUSION 116

BIBLIOGRAPHY 120

APPENDIX: MUSICAL CHRONOLOGY 123

iii ABSTRACT

JEAN COCTEAU AND THE MUSIC OF

POST-WORLD WAR I FRANCE by Marlisa Jeanine Monroe Master of Arts in Music

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was a highly creative and artistically diverse individual. His talents were expressed in every field of art, and in each field he was successful. The diversity of his talent defies

traditional categorization and makes it difficult to assess the singularity of his aesthetic. In the field of music, this aesthetic had a profound impact on the music of Post-World War I France.

Cocteau was not a trained musician. His talent lay in his revolutionary ideas and in his position as a catalyst for these ideas. This position derived from his ability to seize the opportunities of the time: the need

iv to fill the void that was emerging with the waning of

German Romanticism and ; the great showcase of Diaghilev • s ; the talents of young musicians eager to experiment and in search of direction; and a congenial artistic atmosphere. This study examines and evaluates Cocteau•s essential role in the formation and realization of the music of Post-World War I France. The strength of his influence during this period is revealed upon tracing his development from his childhood through his collaborations with Diaghilev, the Satie, Stravinsky, and members of Les Six, and an examination of the ideas expressed in his book, Le ~ et l'arleguin.

v INTRODUCTION

Post-world War I France was ripe for an artistic

catharsis. The old guard, in the form of impressionism and German Romanticism, had yielded to a rapid succession of •isms• (primitivism, , ), which had yet to

coalesce into an answer. The need for a strong new direction was mandated by the explosion of Le Sacre du printemps, but the uniquely French situation in the arts

dictated a different direction. An answer, more closely aligned with this situation, emerged toward the end of the war in the form of Parade. Parade was the indigenous product of a unique society. The Parisian art world of the early twentieth century was characterized by a democratic attitude unparalleled in

any other country. There was a strong sense of camaraderie among the writers, musicians and painters

frequenting the cafes of the city. Collaborative artistic efforts were the natural outgrowth of this exchange of ideas and shared spirit. An appropriate vehicle of expression, one which could incorporate a multiplicity of

arts, was the ballet. Parade set the precedent. It heralded the direction of the post-war years and formally introduced the prime exponent of that direction: Jean

Cocteau.

l 2

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) possessed a prolific and multi-faceted talent, and a personality of great wit and charm. This talent was expressed in many fields: in writing as a poet, playwright, novelist, critic, journalist and essayist: in ballet as a scenarist: in film as a scenarist and director: in art as a painter, sculptor, and illustrator: and in as a set and costume designer, and librettist. A partial accounting of Cocteau's musical collaborators yields another long list: the artists Pablo

Picasso, Leon Bakst, and Raoul Dufy: the choreographers , Leonid Massine, Roland Petit, , and Maurice B~jart: the composers , the members of Les Six, , , Ned Rorem, and Gian-Carlo Menotti: and the great impresario Serge Diaghilev. As their names are important in assessing the accomplishments of Cocteau, so too is his in assessing theirs.

Unfortunately, the great number of labels that may be attached to Cocteau, and the variety of personalities with whom he was associated, tends to paint a negative picture: one who excelled in no particular field, but dabbled in many. This picture diffuses Cocteau's impact on the arts and belies the singularity of his aesthetic. In the field of music, the strength of this aesthetic is traceable from his childhood through his collaborations with Diaghilev, 3

Stravinsky, Satie and Les Six, and in his personal manifesto, Le ~ et l'arlequin. The formation and realization of Cocteau's musical aesthetic, and the extent to which he influenced the aesthetic of his collaborators, constitutes an invaluable contribution to the music of Post-World War I France and,

therefore, to the history of twentieth-century music. This contribution has never been fully assessed or comprehensively isolated. To that end, this investigation (consolidating newly-discerned and extant information) of Cocteau's musically relevant literary works and musical collaborations (including earlier works without which his achievements cannot be fully comprehended) will elucidate and provide evidence of his significant contribution to the music of Post-World War I France. CHAPTER I

EARLY INFLUENCES

Jean Cocteau was not a trained musician, nor did he methodically pursue the study of any of the fields in which his creativity was ultimately expressed. He did, however, have a childhood rich in artistic inspiration.

He feasted on the cultural delights of , from the

colorful and earthy entertainments of the circus and the

streets, to the spectacular productions of the city's great stages.

Cocteau was raised in Paris. His parents were avid opera-, concert- and theater-goers, and he was included in

these activities. In addition Cocteau's father, a broker in his father-in-law's firm by profession, possessed an avid interest in painting, which he shared with his son.

The world of the circus also featured prominently in

Cocteau's creative development. He was especially fond of the expressive antics of the clowns and the drama of the acrobatic acts.l Clowns and acrobats would often enter into his later artistic endeavors, elevated, of course,

lJean Cocteau, Professional Secrets, tr. by Richard Howard ([: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1970]), p. 14.

4 5 from the circus ring to the stages of the great opera and concert halls of the world, to project through their lucidity that heightened sense of reality Cocteau found so appealing. Cocteau's maternal grandfather, M. Eugene Lecomte, provided his grandson with valuable musical stimulation. Lecomte was an accomplished cellist who played quartets with friends (among whom was the renowned violinist

Sarasate); he owned a collection of Stradivarius violins, and had once lived in an apartment above Rossini.2 In his autobiographical writings, Cocteau reveals how the enchanted atmosphere of his grandfather's apartment, with its cabinet of precious violins, and also one of masks, and the many evenings of , supplied his inventive young mind with precious source material.3 Sarasate, with his nhuge mustache, his grey mane, his frogged Prince Albert, his watch-chain, and his trousers strapped under tiny patent-leather boots • n invoked the image of a lion tamer.4 This colorful image led to the creation of a little scenario. Cocteau and his cousins invented a game wherein they ntrappedn the lion tamer. A gate, installed on the second floor landing of

2Margaret Crosland, Cocteau (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), p. 6.

3cocteau, ~· cit., p. 10. 4Loc. cit. 6

Lecomte's apartment, covered the exposed drop between the second floor and the hallway below. From this vantage point, the cousins could observe the image of Sarasa~e as he arranged his hair in the hallway mirror. Then, with much ceremony, they would close the gate over the dramatic vision below--" ••• the lion tamer caged!"S Thus, at an early age he was already inventing tableaux. Paradoxically, Cocteau found something lacking in the rich cultural environment of his childhood: "My family was too artistic for me to be able to rebel against them, and not artistic enough to give me useful advice.•6 He was bursting with artistic potential, but it was not being channeled or passionately nurtured. He would never be content to be merely a patron of the arts, as his parents were.

His education proved no more helpful. He was recognized as a bright student, but he showed little interest in his subjects and was expelled from one school after another. In the end, he failed to pass his baccalaureate. It remained for Cocteau to absorb the riches of his childhood experiences, assimilate them, and guide his own innate artistic capabilities.

SLoe. cit. 6Jean Cocteau, La Difficulte d'etre (Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 1947), p.~S, as quoted by Francis Steegmuller in Cocteau (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, [1970]), p. 8. 7

As a young poet living in Paris, Cocteau was aptly matched with the tenor of his times. His manner of dress (that of a dandy), his wit, and his talent, lent themselves to the prevailing milieu of the cafe society. The burgeoning artistic circles in the city were constantly open and searching for new stimuli. Romanticism and impressionism were waning, and none of the new "isms• were developing into movements with obvious growth potential. Cocteau would play an active role in the continuous search for a new direction. CHAPTER II

DIAGHILEV

The avant-garde contingent of early twentieth-century Paris was notable for its democratic attitude. The arts thrived in an amalgam of venues from the traditional , cafe and theater to the more recently established cabaret and cinema.

This democratic attitude was also fostered by like sensibilities. Cocteau observed that 's great friends {himself included} had been Apollinaire, Andre

Salmon, , Gertrude Stein, , and

Paul Eluard, all poets because, Cocteau said, Picasso himself is a poet.1

Moreover, when Cocteau was living in {1914-1918}, he recalled:

• • a life of poverty unencumbered by political, social, or national problems of any kind. When asked to name the great French artists of my time, I could answer: Picasso, forgetting he was Spanish; Stravinsky, forgetting he was Russian; Modigliani, forgetting he was Italian. We formed a common front where contention was ordinary enough but where a kind of international patriotism prevailed. Such patriotism is a privelege of Paris and renders

1Jean Cocteau, Professional Secrets, tr. by Richard Howard ([New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1970]), p. 77.

8 9

the city, more often than not, indecipherable to the world outside.2

Collaborations among the arts were encouraged, and .the list of foreign participants also included Serge Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes.

The advent, in 1909, of the Ballets Russes was auspicious, for it would serve as the showcase for the musical talents who would finally banish the ghosts of

Romanticism and impressionism. Notable among these talents were, of course, Igor Stravinsky and Erik Satie.

In 1909, Cocteau first attended a performance by the

Ballets Russes. At this time, he was gaining recognition in Paris as an outstanding young poet, but his highly theatrical imagination was searching for a sui table conceptual vehicle. Seeing Nijinsky in established the direction and gave Cocteau the vehicle he had been searching for, and through which he would begin to realize his full artistic potential.

Diaghilev had brought the Ballets Russes to Paris because it had become a "trivial appendage• to the opera house in his native country.3 Though Diaghilev's company captured the attention of Parisian society and regained the stature to which he felt it was entitled, the lavish

2Ibid, pp. 70-71.

3Robert Fizdale and Arthur Gold, Misia {New York: [Alfred A. Knopf, 1980]), p. 133. 10 productions were expensive, and financing was a problem.

Misia Sert, an inspired and intelligent patron of the arts, who had long been a champion of the new in Paris, was mesmerized by Diaghilev's 1908 production of Boris Godunov. She became a devoted, but power-wielding patron of the Ballets Russes.4

Misia, acquainted through the Parisian social circuit with the witty and charming young poet, Jean Cocteau, was responsible for bringing him into contact with Diaghilev.S

Cocteau soon ingratiated himself with the impresario. As Mi sia observed: "God knows Jean was irresistable at twenty. n6 Misia and Cocteau's first meeting marked the beginning of a long relationship, a relationship characterized by success and failure, and complicated personal entanglements. Diaghilev was to establish a reputation for combining the talents of those who possessed "a kind of genius that seems never to have existed before or since. "7 He found

Cocteau lively, intelligent and charismatic, and he must have immediately sensed the potential wealth of working

4rbid., p. 130.

Srbid., p. 135.

6As quoted in Fizdale and Gold, ~cit., p. 137.

7Fizdale and Gold, ~cit., p. 137. 11 with him. Their first collaboration, however, was a disappointment. At the time Cocteau and Diaghilev met, the impresario was looking for a showcase piece for Nijinsky. He wanted a ballet which would highlight his talents in the way that

L'Oiseau de feu had highlighted the talents of the ballerina Karsavina: isolated from the other characters; a supernatural being.B Cocteau, anxious to please Diaghilev, asked Karsavina to tell him the story of L'Oiseau de feu, and he subsequently borrowed elements from it for his own scenario, Le Dieu bleu.9

Le Dieu bleu was first produced in 1911, with choreography by Fokine, music {never published) by

Reynaldo Hahn, sets and costumes by Bakst, and scenario by

Cocteau. The production was an unsuccessful pastiche. The Bakst costumes and sets have been positively appraised; they were lavish and grand, in keeping with a

Ballets Russes production. Criticism varies as to whether

Hahn or Cocteau was more to blame for the ballet's failure.

The scenario of Le Dieu bleu concerns a young man's initiation into the priesthood of an unspecified Oriental sect. His abandoned girlfriend tries to intervene and is

8Richard Buckle, Diaghilev {New York: Atheneum, 1979) 1 p. 174. 9rbid., pp. 174-75. 12 condemned to death by the Priests. At night, monsters appear to torment her, but are suppressed by the apparition of first, the Goddess, and then the Blue God

(Nij insky) , who reunites the lovers and earns the adoration of the Priests, before ascending to heaven.10

Robert Brussel, music critic of Le Figaro at the time of Le Dieu bleu's premiere, found that Hahn "tended to write with increasing simplicity.•11 Simplicity was not what Diaghilev had had in mind for this production. In a 1913 London production, also danced by Nijinsky, the Illustrated London News had similar criticism for the music:

M. Hahn's art is not for the large canvas •••• His score lacks the primitive savagery, the suggestion of the supernatural, the touch of the bizarre that the Russian composers appear to command and the Russian dancers to express.12

The same review praised Cocteau's contribution: "To be sure, there is an attractive scenario.•l3

10rbid., p. 222.

llLe Figaro, May 14, 1912, as quoted in Buckle, ~ cit., p. 222.

12As quoted in Margaret Crosland, Cocteau (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), p. 29. 13Loc. cit. 13

In retrospect, Cocteau referred to the scenario as

"not very good. n14 He had failed to achieve the resurrection of an ancient myth in the idiom of "today" which, later in his career, would make him famous.15 The failure must have been especially difficult for Cocteau, followed as it was two weeks later by Nij insky' s appearanc~ in the startling Pr~lude a l'apris-midi d'un faune. Despite the failure of Le Dieu bleu, it was not to be the end of Cocteau's career as a ballet scenarist, which would extend through Le Jeune homme et la mort of 1946. In addition, it was from this early association with Diaghilev that Cocteau learned an invaluable lesson in attention to detail. He learned to devote his full attention to every aspect of a production, in relation to the effect of the whole.16

Cocteau's proximity to Diaghilev has been popularly immortalized by the famous and dramatic command issued by the impresario to his fledgling collaborator. One night in 1912, after an evening at the theater, Nijinsky, Diaghilev and Cocteau were strolling across the Place de

14As quoted in Francis Steegmuller, Cocteau (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, [1970]), p. 77.

15Buckle, ~ cit., p. 222.

16crosland, ~cit., p. 32. 14 la Concorde. Cocteau' s recollection of what happened follows:

Nijinsky was sulking as usual. He was walking in front of us. Diaghilev was laughing at my jokes. As I asked him why he was so reserved [in his praise for Cocteau, for he was the only person who did not constantly tell him how brilliant he was], he stopped, adjusted his monocle, and said 'Etonne-moi.•l7

Five years would pass before Cocteau could fulfill

Diaghilev's challenging command.

17rbid., p. 34. Translation: "Astonish me." CHAPTER III

STRAVINSKY I

Cocteau recalls having first met Igor Stravinsky at the time of Petrouchka (1911).1 Stravinsky's memory is somewhat fuzzy on this point: "I believe I was first introduced to Cocteau at a rehearsal of

[1910}, but it might have been some time after the n2 Firebird • • • • In any case, the two men saw little of one another until the premiere of Le Sacre du printemps. It was this work which caused Cocteau, as well as the rest of the musical world, to proclaim a new spirit: "Musically, impressionism was the order of the day. And then, suddenly, among those charming ruins, grew the tree of Stravinsky. n3

Though the first contact between Stravinsky and

Cocteau may not have made a memorable impression on the , it was memorable, as well as auspicious, for

lJean Cocteau, Professional Secrets, tr. by Richard Howard ([New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 197 0]), p. 51. 2Igor Stravinsky and , Dialogues and a Diary (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1963), p. 44.

3cocteau, ~cit., p. 51.

15 16

cocteau. He recalled that on their first meeting,

Stravinsky •struck me as the very image of artistic rebellion, rebellion against the habitual, even though he

had so far written only ballets of a pleasing kind7 he had not yet written .•4 Stravinsky had

supplied Cocteau with the element he had found lacking in

his childhood environment--a catalyst. Stravinsky's great impact on Cocteau, especially

great after the premiere of Le Sacre du printemps, led him

to approach the composer concerning the idea of collaborating on a ballet, . Cocteau attempted to win Stravinsky's favor by dedicating his first book, Le

Potomak (1913-1914), to him. Initially, Stravinsky expressed reserved interest in the project. To further his cause, Cocteau asked Misia Sert to exert her influence, and presumably she did, for shortly thereafter

Cocteau wrote to her that "David will be a great surprise for you. Prodigious Need I tell you, dearest Misia, that it belongs to you?•S Misia's support was

important. Stravinsky, who had been a recipient of her patronage, was likely to be amenable to one of her

4Jean Cocteau, Disque Perry (autobiographical monologue recorded privately, under the direction of M. Jacques Perry, 1958, unpublished), as quoted in Francis Steegmuller, Cocteau (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, [1970]), p. 77. SAs quoted in Fizdale and Gold, Misia (New York: [Alfred A. Knopf, 1980}), p. 167. 17

projects, thus helping to insure the plans for a

Stravinsky/Cocteau collaboration.6 However, the project was besieged by complications. At the time of the proposed David, Stravinsky was occupied with other responsibilities. His wife was ill, and he had taken her to for medical treatment. In addition, he was busy with other compositional projects. Despite the complications, he did agree to have

Cocteau join him in Switzerland, but Cocteau's arrival was delayed by what Stravinsky viewed as trivial details. The matter of Cocteau 1 s attempt to join Stravinsky in

Switzerland is chronicled in a long string of correspondence between the two. The correspondence reveals Cocteau's fears of a scarlet fever epidemic, the availability of suitable rooms, and other anxieties, all of which greatly taxed the busy composer's patience.?

Finally, Cocteau arrived in Switzerland to begin work with Stravinsky. However, by this time Stravinsky had little time to devote to the project, and he found

Cocteau's conception of the ballet vague: •I never did know exactly what Cocteau had in mind about David. I think David was biblical, and at that time I avoided

6Fizdale and Gold, ~ cit., p. 79.

7steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 102. 18 anything biblical.n8 Cocteau was extremely disappointed about the aborted project, but placed the blame on Misia and Diaghilev. Diaghilev, apparently still smarting from the failure of Le Dieu bleu, never fully condoned the collaboration. Cocteau wrote to Stravinsky: ni find

Serge intolerable. Misia is completely under his thumb, and she is becoming offensive.n9 Though David was never to be, and though Cocteau had succeeded in annoying Stravinsky, it was not to be the end of his association with the composer. Two years after the David mishap, Cocteau wrote Misia that at the time of the project, his relationship with Stravinsky had been:

• • • heavy and full of misunderstandings • • • • You know of my love for and dedication to Igor, of my sadness for a blot on the beautiful snows of Leysin, and perhaps of my project for a book about him • • • • I came up against Igor unaware that I was moving toward Satie, but Satie is coming, and perhaps he can reconcile things for Igor and me. [Dated July 14, 1916]10

This letter would prove to be prophetic. Cocteau was about to embark upon a collaboration that would successfully realize his aesthetic ideals. This

8unpublished letters of Igor Stravinsky, as quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., p. 103.

9As quoted in Fizdale and Gold, ~cit., p. 168. 10As quoted in Vera Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents (New York: Simon and Schuster, [1978]), p. 111. 19 collaboration would fully involve him in the activities which would, ultimately, constitute the history of the music of Post-World War I France. CHAPTER IV

PARADE

In the program notes for the first performance of Parade, the poet wrote:

Parade brings together Satie's first piece of orchestral writing, Picasso's first stage designs, Massine's first choreography, and the first attempt for a poet, to express himself on several different levels. Mas sine and Picasso have realized this ballet by perfecting, for the first time, that alliance of painting and the , of the plastic and the mimic arts, which symbolizes the advent of an art complete in itself. We hope that the public will look on Parade as a work that hides poetry beneath its crude Punch and Judy wrapping.l

At the time of Parade's inception, Cocteau was serving ambulance duty in the war. He applied his art to the war, and wrote movingly of his experiences:

We 1 i ved under the canopy of our own shell, roaring overhead like express trains, and German shells punctuating their sinuous course with a sudden black ink-blot of death. At this time Rheims was at the peak of its confusion, its nerves at the breaking point.2

lAs quoted in James Harding, The Ox on the Roof: Scenes from Musical Life in Paris in the TWent:ies (New York: St. Martin's Press, TI972]), p:-3r 2Jean Cocteau, The Imposter, tr. by Dorothy Williams (New York: Noonday Press, 1957), p. 46.

20 21

Cocteau and Satie first met during the second year of

the war while Cocteau was on leave from ambulance duty.

They were introduced by their mutual and influential

friend, Valentine Gross. Gross was a prominent painter, designer and illustrator, and an ardent supporter of

Satie's music.3

Cocteau and Sa tie were eminently sui ted to one another. Satie, though he had written many of his

works at this point in his career, had yet to achieve the

notoriety and public visibility that a stage production

might afford. Cocteau had the failure of Le Dieu bleu and

the aborted David to contend with. With the enthusiasm of

Gross• belief in their talents to support them, the idea

for a collaboration was launched.

As Diaghilev's company was still the cultural focal

point of Paris during the war years, Cocteau and Satie

aspired to a Ballets Russes production. This meant,

however, that Cocteau had to deal with the impresario's

currently unfavorable impression of him. Satie was in a better position. Misia Sert had earlier broached the idea

of a Satie ballet, and Diaghilev was impressed upon hearing the composer's Trois morceaux en forme de poire.

But Cocteau and Sa tie needed additional help from the

3Francis Steegmuller, Cocteau (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, [197 0] } , p. 135. 22

influential Misia, and so the two plotted to keep

cocteau's participation a secret, even from Misia, for a

time.4 Satie began by wooing Misia7 he told her that the ballet would, of course, be dedicated to her.S Once he was assured that Diaghilev was definite about presenting a ballet by him, he had the full and enthusiastic support of

Misia. Cocteau then wrote to her of his and Satie's plans for the project, and pleaded for her love and approval.6

However, when Diaghilev heard of all this, he balked at the idea of Cocteau' s participation. Misia, presumably out of allegiance to Satie, intervened and softened

Diaghilev's attitude toward Cocteau.7 The conspiracy had succeeded. Unfortunately, before Cocteau and Satie could fully realize their ballet, Cocteau was called back to ambulance duty, but he left Satie with a rough draft of the scenario. He had sketched three characters, the Chinese magician, the little American girl, and the acrobat, all of whom would perform burlesque scenes outside a sideshow

4Robert Fizdale and Arthur Gold, Misia (New York: [Alfred A. Knopf, 1980]), p. 185.

srbid., p. 186.

6 Ibid. I p. 187 •

7 Ibid. I p. 189. 23 booth. a Cocteau intended that the performers would be accompanied by Satie' s score, as well as by words, phrases, or sounds, conceived to blend with the music or stand in relief against it.9 Other than augmenting the one acrobat to two, and omitting the use of words and phrases, Cocteau's first draft would serve as the basis for the ballet, the scenario of which follows:

The scene is a street in Paris. Three managers are occupied with luring an audience into their

burlesque show. The entertainers, a Chinaman, two acrobats, and a young American girl, take

turns displaying their talents. The managers try to convince the crowd in the street that they are

confusing the outside performance with the real

show which is to take place inside. They fail in their appeal.

Before he returned to ambulance duty, Cocteau had procured Picasso's participation in the ballet. This was to remain one of the great coups of his career. In addition, Picasso (to whom Cocteau was introduced by Edgard Varese), provided him with one of the great artistic revelations of his life:

8Jean Cocteau, A Call to Order, tr. by Rollo H. Myers (New York: Haskell House, 1974}, p. 51.

9steegmuller, ~cit., p. 147. 24

From him I learned to waste less time gaping open-mouthed at things that are no use to me, and to understand that a ditty sung by a street singer, if listened to for what one can get out of it, may prove more rewarding than G~tterd4mmerung.10

In turn, Cocteau had much to offer Picasso who, depressed over the recent death of his mistress Marcelle Humbert, found a welcome distraction in his intelligent wit.11 As mentioned in Apollinaire' s program notes for

Parade, Picasso had never before designed theater sets or costumes. (With characteristic lack of modesty, Cocteau would later remark that thanks to him, Picasso became a theatrical designer.)12 Cocteau's notebooks for Parade reveal a preference for cubist painters. He indicates

"Chinese-Braque, girl L~ger, acrobat-Picasso. n13 And

"Make the dancing realistic like cubism • • • which always carefully plans the grouping of forms, and which seeks to render relief, volume, the texture of objects.n14 Cocteau's biographer, Francis Steegmuller, feels that in obedience to Diaghilev's "Etonne-moil" the choice of a

10Jean Cocteau, Oeuvres compl~tes (Lausanne: Marguerat, 1946-1951}, vel. IX, p. 251, as quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., pp. 137-38.

11steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 137. 12Ibid., p. 165.

13As quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., p. 179. 14Loc. cit. 25 cubist painter was obvious, for in 1917, cubism was still shocking .15 Unfortunately for Cocteau, the choice of Picasso as a collaborator almost eclipsed his own contribution to Parade. Upon Cocteau' s release from military service, the collaborators set to work. However, as the work progressed, Satie found himself drawn to Picasso's ideas over Cocteau's. In a letter to Valentine Gross dated September 14, 1916, he wrote: "Parade is changing for the better, behind Cocteau's back! Picasso has ideas that I like better than our Jean's." He goes on to say that Picasso has written a dazzling text and that Satie is heartbroken to have to set Cocteau' s lesser ideas to music.16 Unfortunately, we have no record of Picasso's ideas. On the same day that Satie wrote to Gross, Cocteau wrote: II . . • make Satie understand • that I really do count for something in Parade, and that he and Picasso are not the only ones involved •••• "17

In the end, Picasso's friendship and admiration for Cocteau led him to side with him. Cocteau and Picasso decided to use Cocteau's ideas, but to let Satie think

15steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 179.

16As quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., p. 167.

17As quoted in Fizdale and Gold, ~ cit., p. 192. 26

picasso was in control.18 This is not to say that Cocteau

had complete control. One of his original ideas for the ballet was completely dismissed by both Picasso and Satie. Cocteau had the idea of using an anonymous amplified voice to announce and describe each character's performance.19 According to Douglas Cooper, who discussed Parade with Picasso, the artist had urged Satie to oppose

this device. Both felt it would interfere with the music, choreography and theatrical design.20 Cocteau, whose most natural medium was literary, must have naturally felt

compelled to express himself verbally. In later collaborations with Les Six and Stravinsky, he would employ a method similar to the one rejected for Parade.

Cocteau's highest aspiration for Parade was, as he told Stravinsky, to •distill all the involuntary emotion given off by circuses, music-halls, carousels, public halls, factories, seaports • . . . n21 His intent was to capture and communicate the poetry he found in his experiences of these places. The success of the choreography was crucial to this goal.

18Fizdale and Gold, ~cit., p. 193.

19steegmuller, ~cit., pp. 165-66. 20Ibid., p. 168.

21As quoted in Dore Ashton, •cocteau and His Times: An Intellectual Backdrop,• in Alexandra Anderson and Carol Saltus, project editors, Jean Cocteau and the French Scene (New York: Abbeville Pres~1984]), pp:-55-56. 27

In Le .£Qg et 1' arleguin, Cocteau described the gestation of the dancing:

The managers are a sort of human scenery • • • and their very structure necessitates certain choreographic formulas. In the case of these four characters, the problem was to take a series of natural gestures and to metamorphose them into a dance without depriving them of their realistic f orce • • •• 22

With Cocteau, the choreographer Mas sine invented a new method of choreography. They endowed the everyday, such as the earthy atmosphere of the music-hall and the circus, with a deeper significance. As he had transformed the image of Sarasate primping in front of a mirror into a dramatic vignette, so too, he strove to evoke the magic inherent in the music-hall and the circus. Massine's and Cocteau' s eventual realization would be one from which subsequent choreographers would borrow for decades to come.23

It was not just the choreography which was precedent- setting. After Parade, there were numerous ballets on commonplace themes with modern music and sets, including compositions by such Cocteau disciples as Poulenc, Auric and Milhaud, and decors by Picasso, Braque and Chirico.

22cocteau, A Call to Order, ~cit., p. 53. 23Margaret Crosland, Cocteau (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), p. 54. 28

Cocteau also contributed to the evolution of satie's score. satie said "I composed a background to certain noises that Cocteau says he needs to paint his characters.•24 These •noises" are of special note. Though they were originally conceived as an adjunct to satie's score, they now form an integral aural part of the whole. The noises called for include sirens, typewriters, airplanes, and gunshots. Cocteau's intent was to augment the score "in the same spirit as the cubist painters used optical illusion.•25 (Satie was not at all enthusiastic about these sound effects.)26 The history of "noises" is of importance here.

The theories of Luigi Russolo and Babilla Pratella, as outlined in the 1913 manifesto, The Art of Noises, led to the formation of an of noise-making machines.27 The experiments of Russolo and Pratella, though ground-breaking, never achieved any artistic success.28 A 1921 Paris performance of a work called

Bruiteurs managed only to generate a great clatter of

24Jean Cocteau, Oeuvres completes, .2.2.!. cit., pp. 53-54, as quoted in Steegmuller, .22.!_ cit., p. 186. 25Jean Cocteau, Oeuvres completes, .2.2.!. cit., pp. 53-54, as quoted in Steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 186.

26steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 186.

27Rollo Myers, Modern French Music (New York: Praegerl [1971]) I p. 15.

28Ibid. I p. 17. 29 various noisemakers,29 whereas the sound of the siren in the score of Parade presages the successful integration of the siren in Varese• s Ionisation. Satie is ofte+~. erroneously credited for Cocteau•s sound effects. This is an honest assumption since the score of Parade and recordings do not credit Cocteau.

Parade's sound effects were unsuccessfully realized in the first performance. Cocteau attributes their failure to "material difficulties and hurried rehearsals . . . . We supressed them nearly all. In other words, the piece was played incomplete and without its principal

'clou 1 !"30

Moreover, the premiere, in 1917, of Parade, was not well received by the audience or critics. The public disliked the vulgarity of the music-hall turns.31 Poulenc has been quoted as saying that Satie•s music, "so simple, so raw, so nalvely intricate, shocked everybody by its breeziness.n32

The music critics blamed the failure of Parade on

Picasso•s stupidity, Satie•s banality, or both.33 The

29Loc.---- cit .. 30cocteau, A Call to Order, .2e..:. cit., p. 23. "Clou" translates as "attraction."

31crosland, .2e..:. cit., p. 52.

32As quoted in Ashton, .2e..:. cit., p. 56.

33Harding, .2e..:. cit., p. 38. \ 30 music writer Jean Poueigh--who worked as an unsuccessful composer under a pseudonym--said that Satie had tried to impress by writing a few pitiable bits of fugue, and had sought to conceal his lack of invention by putting rattles and typewriters into the score.34

Recalling opening night in an article published in the September, 1917 issue of Vanity Fair, Cocteau wrote:

"I had heard the cries of a bayonet charge in Flanders, but it was nothing compared to what happened that night at the Chatelet Theatre."35 Cocteau claimed that women armed with hat pins sought to gouge out his eyes, but that he was spared by sympathy for his companion, Apollinaire, with his war uniform and bandaged head.36 Cocteau also recalled overhearing one man say to another that if he had known what Parade was about, he would have brought the children.37

It seems doubtful that an overtly negative response to Parade would have displeased Cocteau. After all, the great musical centerpiece of the decade, Le Sacre du printemps, had met with outrage. In fact, Cocteau has

34Ibid., p. 35.

35As quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., p. 187.

36Harding, ~ cit., p. 38. 37 Jean Cocteau, Cahiers #7 ([Paris] : Gallimard, [1978]), p. 138. 31

been accused of exaggerating the audience response to his

ballet.38

Though perhaps not the milestone that Le Sacre du printemps was, Parade made a significant impact on the art world. The ballet would prove a riveting experience for a

new generation of young French composers, and it cast all

its collaborators into the spotlight. Parade also earned

the praise of Stravinsky, who remarked that:

• • • the performance gave me the impression of freshness and real originality. Parade confirmed me still further in my conviction of Satie' s merit in the part he had played in French music by opposing to the vagueness of a decrepit impressionism a precise and firm language stripped of all pictorial embellishments.39

And, Serge Lifar acknowledged:

Massine' s felicitous touches in Parade and subsequent ballets go back directly to Cocteau, with their literary flavor and their circuslike stylization. It was the turn of literature to have its say in ballet - music and painting already having had theirs. Everything that is now current in ballet was invented by Cocteau for Parade, which he knew by heart, and every step of which he had suggested.40

38steegmuller, ~cit., p. 187.

39rgor Stravinsky, An Autobiography {New York: w. w. Norton, [1962]), p. 93.

40serge Lifar, Serge Diaghilev, ~ vie, ~ oeuvre, sa legende (Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 1954), pp. 268-69, as quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., p. 190. 32

Diaghilev, too, had come to acknowledge Cocteau' s essential role in Parade. During the work's inception, he worried about Cocteau being called back to milita.ry service before completion of the project.41

Cocteau's fondness for popular entertainments such as the music-hall and circus is evident in his scenario for

Parade. Naturally, these elements have been transformed.

Parade's subtitle, a •ballet realiste," is indicative of the use of everyday, or familiar, events which have been endowed, through artistic means, with a heightened sense of reality. On the day of Parade's premiere Cocteau said "Our wish is that the public may consider Parade as a work which conceals poetry beneath the outer skin of laughter.•42 Cocteau's approach led Apollinaire to coin, in his program notes for the first performance of Parade, a now common term. In considering the aesthetic nature of the work, he describes:

• • • a sort of sur-realism in which I see the point of departure for a series of manifestations of that New Spirit which promises to modify the arts and the conduct of life from top to bottom in universal joyousness.43

41Fizdale and Gold, ~cit., pp. 193-94.

42As quoted in Steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 183.

43As quoted in Myers, ~ cit., p. 20. 33

Parade's "sur-realism" is evident in the ballet • s

components. Picasso's fairytale-like depiction of a circus scene (a winged horse nuzzles its foalr harlequins, jesters and musicians socialize around a table) contrasts with the cubistic masks and costumes of two of the managers. The third manager, in turn, offers another contrast in the form of a classic music-hall horse. The other characters (the little girl, the acrobats and the

Chinese conjuror) are costumed in stylized versions of their classic dress. Massine's choreography mixes elements of classic ballet with exaggerated miming and gymnastics. The score balances Picasso's and Massine's contributions. Cocteau's sound effects, such as the siren and typewriter, are heard as instruments. Finally, that all this takes place on a Paris street, underlines the elements of the "real• which have been transformed into the "surreal." Despite its innovations, Parade did not gain a firm place in the ballet repertory. Following the first Paris performances, Diaghilev mounted the ballet in 1920. In this production, he again employed Cocteau's sound effects, to Satie's dismay. In a letter from the composer to (formerly Gross), he wrote:

Cocteau is repeating his tiresome antics of 1917. He is being such a nuisance to Picasso and me that I feel quite knocked out. It's a mania with him. Parade is his alone. That's all right with 34

me. But why didn't he do the sets and the costumes and write the music. for this poor ballet?44

The revival of Parade was well received and subsequently performed again in Paris in 1921, 1923 and 1924. It also received a London performance in 1919 and 1926. However, except for a performance in 1966,

filmed unde~ the direction of Massine, Parade remained unperformed for many years. The New York City Ballet

tried to revive it for a fiftieth anniversary production

in 1967, but was caught in a mire of legal technicalities pertaining to the rights to costume reproduction and other matters.45

Finally, in 1973. the Jeffrey Ballet mounted a production which included duplication of the original sets and costumes. Even more recently, in September, 1986, the

Jeffrey again staged Parade. In a review of a Los Angeles performance, a critic for the Los Angeles Times wrote:

"Here were transformations of everyday sights and sounds that left us looking at our world with childlike wonder. "46 Cocteau's writings on Parade indicate that this is exactly the response he had always hoped for:

44As quoted in Steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 261.

45steegmuller, ~cit., p. 189.

46Lewis Segal I "Jeffrey Is Historic • Parade I In Los Angeles Times, September 20, 1986, sec. V, p. 4. 35

••• ne cassez pas Parade pour voir ce que'il y a dedans. Il n'y a rien. Parade ne cache rien. Parade n•a aucun sens. Parade est un parade. Parade est sans symbole. Parade n'est pas malin. Parade n'est ~as sublime. Parade est simple comme bonjour. 7

And Apollinaire aptly summed up the place of Parade in its historical context when he wrote "it mirrors the marvelously lucid spirit of France itself.•48

The experience of Parade would lead Cocteau to proclaim a new musical direction for France. The ballet had succeeded in establishing his place in a newly emerging aesthetic. He would explore this aesthetic in his book, Le Coq et l'arleguin. In addition, with Parade,

Cocteau felt he had finally done what he had been trying to do for many years--astonish Diaghilev.49

Misia Sert, who had played an important role in the realization of Parade, was to reamin Cocteau' s close friend for life.SO She would also continue as a

47cocteau, Cahiers #7, ~ cit., p. 138. Translation: " ••• do not dismantle Parade in order to see what is within. There is nothing there. Parade makes no sense. Parade is a parade. Parade is without symbol. Parade is not clever. Parade is not sublime. Parade is as simple as pie." (Translation by this author.) 48Guillaume Apollinaire, Chroniques d'art (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), as quoted in Steegmuller, ~ cit., Appendix VII.

49steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 190.

50Fizdale and Gold, ~ cit., p. 195. 36 formidable figure in the Parisian art world. Her subsequent achievements would include interesting Diaghilev in three members of Les Six: Auric, Milhaud and Poulenc. 51

Slrbid., p. 224. CHAPTER V

LE £QQ ET L'ARLEQUIN

, In 1918, the publishing house Les Editions de la sirene issued Cocteau•s book Le Cog et l'arleguin. The house was founded by Cocteau and his friend, the poet . Le Cog et l'arleguin would soon serve as the testament of the young group of composers known as Les Six. At the time of the book's publication, Cocteau had the success of Parade behind him. Parade most of all represented a personal success for Cocteau, the realization of an aesthetic. With the ballet, all the seemingly disparate elements of Cocteau's creativity had

coalesced. In Le £2g et l'arleguin, he articulates his aesthetic identity. It is his testament as well as a chronicle of that identity, arrived at through trial and error, but deeply rooted. In the preface to Le Cog et 1 'arleguin, Cocteau defends his use in Parade of the elements culled from the circus and music-hall: "What I turned to the circus and music-hall to seek was not, as is so often asserted, the

37 38 charm of clowns ••• but a lesson in equilibrium.•! The use of the word •equilibrium" refers to the balanced totality and purity of the circus and music-hall environments. It is reminiscent of the great lesson he learned from Picasso concerning the rewards of seemingly mundane entertainments. Cocteau dedicated his book to Auric, who would become a lifelong friend and collaborator. Auric's music shuns the characteristics antithetical to Cocteau' s proposed aesthetic: paradox, eclecticism and the colossal-- especially as represented by German Romanticism.2

Cocteau advocates simplicity, but not defined as poverty or retrogression: "Simplicity progresses in the same way as refinement, and the simplicity of our modern musicians is not the same as that of our clavecinists.•3

Simplicity which proceeds as an act of refinement detaches and condenses that which is rich. The style of Le Coq et 1 'arlequin is largely aphoristic:

lJean Cocteau, The Cock and the Harlequin, as published in A Call to Or~ tr. by Rollo H. Myers (New York: Haskell-House, T974), p. viii. 2 Ibid., p. 3. 3Ibid., p. s. 39

Art is Science in the flesh.

The musician opens the cage-door to arithmetic •• . . Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not attained by sentimental

blackmail.4

The key elements of Cocteau's aesthetic are traceable in this aphoristic maze: the case for simplicity: the rejection of German Romanticism and impressionism: the declaration of a new music, using Satie as a model.

Cocteau goes so far as to dictate elements of form, melody, and orchestration. The book also includes a criticism of Stravinsky and an appendix, added years later, amending the criticism, and heralding the talents of the new generation of young composers he had helped establish. Cocteau cries •oown with Wagner."S He criticizes the composer for writing long, drawn-out works which use boredom to stupefy the audience.6 The excesses of Wagner form an obvious anti thesis to Cocteau' s ideal. Less obvious is his distaste for Beethoven, whom he finds

4rbid., pp. 7-9. srbid., p. 14. 6Loc.---- cit. r 40 •irksome in his developments • . . . •7 " ••• Beethoven develops the form • • • •8 By way of contrast, he upholds Bach, who develops the idea. Cocteau clarities

his point:

Beethoven says: 'This penholder contains a new pen1 there is a new pen in this penholderr the pen in this penholder is new •••• • Bach says: 'This penholder contains a new pen in order that I may dip it in the ink and write •••• •9

In France, Cocteau rails against Debussy for the

picturesqueness and exoticism which cause misunderstanding

because they require a convoluted, imprecise musical

language:

Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water sprites, and nocturnal scents; what we need is a music of the earth, every-day music. Enough of hammocks, garlands, and gondolas; I want someone to build me music I can live in, like a house.lO

Fantasy, melodrama and fog must be replaced by clarity.

Satie embodies the qualities Cocteau advocates: the

emphasis on the melodic 1 ine necessitates a return to

design and opens the door once again to originality.l1

7cocteau, The Cock and the Harlequin, 2E..:. cit., p. 10.

BLoc. cit.

9Loc. cit.

10 Ibid., p. 19.

11 Ibid., p. 17. 41

The spirit of the composer is then free to "dance" in a structure stripped of pretense and decor.12 Through the example of Satie, Cocteau further advocates a peculiarly French music, once that will dominate music in the way the art of Chardin, Ingres, Manet and Cezanne dominated European painting, and one which will influence the whole world.13 Cocteau writes:

"The music I want must be French, of France.•14

Cocteau does not consider Debussy a French composer:

Debussy missed his way because he fell from the German frying-pan into the Russian fire. Once again the pedal blurs rhythm and creates a kind of fluid atmosphere congenial to short-sighted ears. Satie remains intact. Hear his 'Gymnopedies' so clear in their form and melancholy feeling.15

Satie manages to charm without the use of pedals, "like an inspired village band.•16

Thus Cocteau states his case for simplicity, an emphasis on the melodic line, rejection of the pretentious--as exemplified by Satie's outrageous titles,

12 Ibid., p. 18.

13 Ibid. I pp. 22-23. 14 Ibid., p. 17. 15 Ibid.! p. 16.

16rbid., p. 54. 42 a reaction to Debussy's •precious• ones.17 He even advocates •an orchestra where there will be no caressing strings. Only a rich choir of wood, brass, and percussion.•18

Cocteau knows that the public will not readily adopt this new sound. They are wooed by lies7 the truth is too simple: "Socrates said 'Who is that man who eats bread as if it were rich food and rich food as if it were bread?' Answer: The German musical enthusiast.•19

Cocteau finds it ludicrous that a public who respects the "ponderous absurdity" of the libretto of Parsifal is shocked by Satie's titles and system of notation.20 The propagation of Satie is further complicated because his charms offer scant encouragement to deification.21 Cocteau has already observed that audiences were not receptive to Parade:

The Chinaman, the little American girl, the acrobats, represent varieties of nostalgia hitherto unknown, so great is their degree of verisimilitude with which they are expressed. No humbug, no repetition, no underhand caresses, no feverishness or miasma. Satie never 'stirs up

17rbid., p. 15. 18rbid., p. 22.

19rbid., p. 15. 20rbid., p. 16. 2lrbid., p. 15. 43

the bog. 1 This is the poetical image of childhood moulded by a master technician.22

But the audience, "accustomed to the incongruous gra~es of opera ballets, mistook the dances based on the familiar gestures of life for mere grimacing.•23 They would have been satisfied, Cocteau conjectures, if the acrobat had fallen in love with the little girl, then been killed by the jealous Chinaman who, in turn, would be murdered by the acrobat 1 s wife "or any other of the thirty-six dramatic combinations.•24

Tradition appears at every epoch under a different disguise, but the public does not recognize it easily and never discovers it underneath its masks.25

Cocteau's plea for a "French," French music has the requirements of the classical French tradition of Couperin and Gounod. It emphasizes the sonorous quality of music devoid of extramusical associations. It is further characterized by lyricism, economy of means, simplicity and reserve. Cocteau's appeal also shuns all foreign influences, notably the German Romantic tradition.

22Ibid., p. 2s. 23Loc. cit.

24cocteau, The Cock and the Harlequin, 2£.!. cit., p. 26. 25Loc. cit. 44

An emphasis on tradition often implies the propagation of nationalistic elements, specifically folk elements. However, there is less of a tradition of folk music in France than in most countries. To compensate for this historical gap, Cocteau advocates the tradition of his beloved music-hall. He had, of course, already made this point with Parade. The environment of the music-hall was perfectly suited to an ideal where the gestures of an acrobat or clown are allowed because they serve the whole.26

In the future, Cocteau' s pursuit of a classical tradition would lead him to neo-classicism, and include such works as and Oedipus ~· In Le Coq et 1 'arlequin, Cocteau rethinks his attitude toward Stravinsky. The "tree• (in the form of Le

Sacre du printemps, that had sprung up in the midst of the ruins of impressionism) no longer stands quite so tall.27

Cocteau continues to view the piece as masterful, but he is critical of its theatricality. He discerns a "religious complicity" equal to the "hypnotism" of

26James Harding, The Ox on the Roof: Scenes from Musical Life in Paris in the 'i'wentles (New York: St. Martin • s Press-;- [197 2] ) ;-p.Ef?.

27 Cocteau, The Cock and the Harlequin, ..2.£!_ cit., p. 43. 45

Bayreuth, and is disturbed by what he perceives as

theatrical mysticism.28

In 1924, however, Cocteau amended his criticism of

Stravinsky, based on the strength of , in the form of an appendix. He states: "The 'Sacre' still

preserved some shadow: in 'Noces' the mystery takes place in full daylight and at full speed."29

Upon its publication, Le ~ et l'arlequin was widely

criticized. Paul Souday, writing in Le Temps, found a

contradiction in Cocteau' s advocation of a "French, " French music, while at the same time embracing American jazz.30

Marcel Proust found Cocteau's contradictions

charming. In a letter to Cocteau he wrote: "You

contradict yourself sometimes, and that enchants me, because I like people to show their different faces. I contradict myself all the time . . . . 1131 Even pointed out that before

Cocteau' s book, II a Strauss, a Stravinsky, a Schoenberg had already rebelled against Debussyism. n32

2 8 Ibid. , p. 3 4 • 29Ibid., p. 62.

30Francis Steegmuller, Cocteau (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, [1970]), p. 207.

31As quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., p. 208. 32Loc. cit. 1'["

46

aut Cocteau does recognize the prior accomplishments in

"the first fruits of a few young artists, the efforts of

the painters, and the tiredness of our ears.~33 Honegger

was, of course, one of Cocteau' s disciples. Another

disciple, , had this comment: "Cocteau's remarks, expressed with such originality and pungency,

sometimes anticipated our experiments and sometimes came

after them--they were almost always in harmony with our work."34

The minor discrepancies concerning concessions and

chronology aside, the important issue was the effect of Le

.£2g et 1 'arleguin on a new generation of musicians. Cocteau aspired to establish a new sense of order based on a personal aesthetic in conjunction with trends he was helping to shape, and aligned himself with the spirit of

Post-World War I France.

33cocteau, The Cock and the Harlequin, .2.P..!. cit., p. s.

34As quoted in Steegmuller, .2.P..!, cit., p. 207. CHAPTER VI

LES SIX

In 1920, six young composers, Arthur Honegger

(1892-1955), Louis Durey (1889-1979),

(1899-1983), Francis Pou1enc (1899-1963),

{1892-197 4), and (1892-197 4), were dubbed "Les Six" in an article by . The title

implied that the composers were somehow unified by method, means and phi 1 osophy. Some of the implications were valid, some not.

Jean Cocteau was closely associated with Les Six, on both a collective and individual level, and as both mentor and collaborator. His musical aesthetic is deeply tied to his association with the group. The relationship of

Cocteau and Les Six must be examined on several levels: the historical and personal evolution of the group as characterized by their individual backgrounds, Cocteau's relationship to the group as a whole, and his relationship to the composers on an individual basis.

Background

Before the members of Les Six began meeting formally under the jurisdiction of Cocteau and Satie, and before

47 r 48

they were publicly categorized by Collet, they established early ties with one another. During his years at the Paris Conservatory (1913-1915), Auric became acquainted with Milhaud, Honegger and Tailleferre. Previously, he had studied composition with Vincent d'Indy at the Schola Cantorum.1 At the Conservatory, Auric watched Tailleferre take first prizes in harmony, and accompaniment.2 His models were Satie, Stravinsky and Chabrier. Tailleferre's orientation differed. Her model was Ravel, with whom she studied orchestration.3 Milhaud's Conservatory experience coincided with that of Tailleferre • s and Auric • s, and included the study of orchestration with and fugue and counterpoint with Andre Gedalge.4 As a student, Milhaud was already a prolific composer, and he showed an eagerness to experiment. In the harmony class of Xavier Leroux, he resisted the traditional harmony being taught. He was advised to study with a more sympathetic teacher,

1James Harding, The Ox on the Roof: Scenes from Musical Life in Pari sin the-Twenties (New York:~ Martin's Press~ [1972])~p.~. 2rbid., p. 43. 3Arthur Hoenfe, "Germaine Tailleferre," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th ed., rs-([London: Macmillan, 1980]), p. 52.

4Harding, ~cit., pp. 45 and 46. 49

G6dalge.S During these years at the Conservatory,

Tailleferre recalled spending "long days in Milhaud's flat since classes were empty because of the war. He initiated us into everything the Conservatory despised and rejected! Everything that delighted us1•6

Honegger, who entered the Conservatory in 1911 was, like Auric and Milhaud, a student of Gedalge, but his stylistic inclinations differed. He was drawn to the German Romantic tradition of Brahms, Strauss, Wagner and, I 111! later, Schoenberg. The only French composer with whom he felt an affinity was , with his big orchestral effects.7 Honegger's early Germanic orientation would, viewed retrospectively, make him an unlikely candidate for the application of Cocteau•s proposed aesthetic. Moreover, he was not French, but

Swiss. In addition to attending the Paris Conservatory, he spent two years at the Zurich Conservatory. He also served military duty in his native country from 1914-1915, and visited there frequently.8

srbid., p. 46. 6rbid., p. so. 7 Ibid., p. 49.

8Fritz Muggler, "Arthur Honegger," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th e~ 8-(-[London: Macmillan, 1980]), p. 679. r 50

At nineteen, Durey was mesmerized by Debussy's

Pelleas et Melisande. He was so caught up in the work that he attended every Paris performance of the piece before the war.9 The experience led him to composition. He studied it at the Schola Cantorum and taught himself orchestration.lO In 1914 Durey came across an extract

from Schoenberg's Buch der h!ngenden G!rten, which turned him from the influence of Debussy to that of the German expressionist.ll However, he was not ircanune to the

growing vogue for Satie. His Carillons of 1917 is dedicated to him, though it also shows the influences of

Stravinsky and Debussy .12 In later compositions, the

influence of Satie's simplicity would become more apparent.l3

Poulenc's musical education differed from the other

future members of Les Six. By the time he would have entered the Conservatory, he was called away to military

service. The war would continuously interrupt his career

for many years. He did not begin the fully-fledged ii

I:,.I

i ! 9Harding, ~ cit., p. 55. lOLoc.---- cit. llLoc. cit.

12Arthur Hoeree, "Louis Durey," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th ed., -5- ([London: Macmillan, 1980]), p. 748. 13Loc. cit. 51 practice of composition until 1921.14 At this time, Milhaud arranged for him to study counterpoint with

Charles Koechlin.15 In spite of the interruptions of the war, Poulenc was assimilating musical influences: that of

Satie was especially strong. He dedicated his first published piece (which dates from the same year as Durey's tribute to Satie) to him.16

Poulenc was introduced to Satie at the time of

Parade. The ballet had astounded him as it had so many others.17 The young composer felt that initially Satie was put off by his middle-class background, but that his enthusiasm for Parade mollified the older man.18 Poulenc wrote rapturously of his experience of Parade:

I was conquered! Though I idolized Debussy, I allowed myself, with the shortsightedness of my youth, to renounce him a bit since I yearned for this new spirit that Satie and Parade were bringing us.19

14Harding, ~ cit., p. 52. 15Ibid., p. 53.

16Kei th W. Daniel, : His Artistic Development and Musical Style (Ann Arbor: Umi Research Press, [1980]), p. 14.

17Francis Poulenc, ~ Friends and Myself, tr. by James Harding (London: Dobson, [1978]), p. 39. 18Loc.---- cit. 19As quoted in Stephane Audel, "Dernier souvenir de Francis Poulenc," Revue musicale de Suisse Romande, XVIII (1965), as quoted in Daniels,~ C:it., p. 12. r 52

Poulenc defined this new spirit, and identified some of the key personalities in the shifting musical climate, in

a colorful and evocative account of the premiere of Parade:

Everything was new--plot, music, spectacle--and patrons who knew the Russian Ballet in the years before 1914 were astounded to see Picasso's curtain, which had already struck them as unusual, rising on Cubist scenery. It wasn • t quite the frankly, strictly musical scandal of the Sacre du printemps. This time it was each of the arts throwing over the traces. And the production put on in 1917, in the middle of the war, struck some people as a challenge to good sense. Sa tie's music, so simple, so bare, so ingenuously clever, like a picture by the Douanier Rousseau, caused a scandal with its flippancy. For the first time--it's made up for it since--the music hall invaded art with a capital A. A one-step was danced in Parade. At that moment the house broke loose with hoots and applause. Up in the •Gods" the whole of Montparnasse was yelling: "Vive Picasso! 11 Auric, Roland-Manuel, Tailleferre, Durey and many other musicians bawled: "Vive Satie!" It was a fine scandal. Two figures stand out on the screen of my memories. One is Apollinaire in his officer's uniform with a bandage round his forehead • • • • For him it was the triumph of his artistic beliefs. Another figure, very shadowed this time, is of Debussy, at the gates of death, leaving the auditorium and murmuring: "Perhaps! Perhaps! but I'm already too far away from all that! •20

Poulenc's account of the first performance of Parade chronicles important developments in relation to the Satie/Cocteau alliance, and the musical climate of its time: the outrage provoked by the work's audacity,

20poulenc, ~ Friends, ~ cit., p. 68. 53

contrasted with the enthusiasm of the young French

composers, and the nostalgic picture of the old guard as

it yields to the new. We know something of the other members of Les Six•s reaction to Parade. Auric was powerfully affected. He called it •The work of which I would be the first to say equals the pages of Boris.•21 Milhaud, who was in Brazil

at the time of the premiere, was none the less devoted to Satie.22 Honegger was, however, opposed to the genre that

was rooted in Parade. He remarked that he did not •prefer

the cult of the music-hall and street fair, but on the contrary that of church music and symphonic music in their most serious and austere respects.•23 Later in life he

underscored his feeling in a letter to Poulenc dated May

10, 1954:

Tu declares ton amour pour Satie et ton incomprehension de Faure. J•ai, moi, commence par considerer Faure comme un elegant musicien de salon. Maintenant c'est une de mes plus grandes admirations, et j e considere Sa tie comme un esprit excessivement juste mais depourvu de tout pouvoir createur.24

21As quoted in Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years: The Arts in France 1885-1918 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, [1955:rf: p. 121.

22Poulenc, ~Friends, ~cit., p. 64. 23As quoted in Allen Hughes, "Les Six," Musical America, LXXIV (Feb. 15, 1954), 128. 24As quoted in Francis Poulenc, Correspondance: 1915-1963 (Paris: Editions du Seuil, [1967]), p. 221. Translation: "You declare your love for Satie and your (Footnote continued) 54 : ~ I

From their academic backgrounds and early musical tastes, we can see that the course of Les Six was set from the beginning. Honegger had his German Romantic models and a distaste for the Satie/Cocteau world of the circus and music-hall. Durey and Tailleferre, though we know from Poulenc's account that they applauded the premiere of

Parade, were inclined toward the style of Debussy,

Stravinsky and Schoenberg in Durey's case, and Ravel in

Tailleferre's. Milhaud would be strongly moved by his experiences in Brazil (1916-1918), but would manifest a highly flexible quality in his later ventures with

Cocteau. Auric and Poulenc, so deeply affected by Parade, would prove to be among Cocteau' s closest friends and collaborators.

The Formation of the Group

Less than three weeks after the premiere of Parade, an evening of music and poetry was scheduled in honor of the work. The presentation was sponsored by the poet and close associate of Cocteau, Blaise Cendrars. The site was a room at 6 rue Huyghens, later to be known as the Salle

24(continued) incomprehension of Faure. I had considered Faure an elegant salon musician. Now I admire him greatly, and I consider Satie an excessive spirit, admirable but devoid of creativity." (Translation by this author.) 55

Huyghens. It became a regular meeting place for the

talented youths of Paris, and for its most notorious musical attraction--Lea Six.25

Featured on the first Salle Huyghens program of June 6, 1917 were poetry readings by Cendrars, Cocteau, Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob7 a two-piano version

of Parade played by Satie and Juliette Meerovitch; Trio by

Auric; Carillons by Durey7 a collection of melodies on texts of Apollinaire by Honegger;26 and Poulenc•s Rapsodie negre, his first published piece, and dedicated to Satie.27

That same evening at Salle Huyghens Satie, a great champion of youth,28 conceived of establishing the Societe des Nouveaux Jeunes, with Auric, Durey, Honegger and Poulenc as its founding members.29 Not long afterward,

Satie heard Tailleferre play some of her own works for piano, and he asked her to join the group.30

One month after the first Salle Huyghens event, composers of the Societe des Nouveaux Jeunes

25oaniel, ~ cit., p. 13. 26Loc. cit. 27rbid., p. 61.

28Rollo Myers, Modern French Music (New York: Praeger, [1971]), p. 116.

29gughes, ~ cit., 128. 30Loc.---- cit.

i I'' r 56

assembled for a concert at the The!tre du

Vieux-Colombier31 sponsored by the literary figure Pierre

Bertin.32 On this evening's program were once agai~ the two works dedicated to Satie: Poulenc's Rapsodie negre and Durey's Carillons, plus the songs by Honegger, Auric's Gaspard et Zoe, and Tailleferre's Sonatine for string quartet.33 Cocteau was once again present.34

In 1919, the group grew to its most famous

proportion, six, when Darius Mil haud joined upon his

return from Brazil where he had served as 's secretary. An April 5, 1919 concert at the Salle Huyghens featured Milhaud's fourth string quartet, Durey's Images a

Crus~e, Poulenc's Mouvements perpetuels, with the renowned pianist and teacher of Poulenc, Ricardo Vines as pianist,

as well as works by Auric, Honegger and Tailleferre.35 Cocteau remembered evenings spent at Salle Huyghens:

I detest sentimentalizing over meager souvenirs, but the Salle Huyghens was not without its charm. We listened to music and poetry standing--not as a matter of respect, but owing to a lack of chairs. The stove used to burn well in the spring, but in winter it refused to draw. Beautiful ladies in furs could be seen next to "dijibbahs" of Montmartre and Montparnasse.

31Harding, ~cit., p. 61.

32Hughes, ~cit., 128.

33Harding, ~cit., p. 152.

34Hughes, ~cit., 128.

35Harding, ~ cit., pp. 68-69. r 57

These miracles did not last long, but while poets and painters were learning to hate each other, our musicians came together, supported one another, and formed under the title "Nouveaux Jeunes.•36

During the period from 1917 to 1920, Les Nouveaux Jeunes, who grew in number from four to five, and then six, were

featured in concerts sponsored by, among others, Cendrars,

Bertin, and the conductor Felix Delgrange.37 The musical

presentations were augmented not only by poetry readings,

but often by art displays with works by such artists as Picasso, Braque, Gris, and Modigliani.38

In 1920, Les Nouveaux Jeunes were rechristened "Les

Six" by the French critic Henri Collet. To recount a now famous story, the music of Les Nouveaux Jeunes came to his

attention when he heard the Salle Huyghens concert of

April 5, 1919, featuring the six composers. In the January 16, 1920 issue of Comoedia was an article by

Collet titled "Un livre de Rimsky et un livre de

Cocteau--les cinq Russes, les six Fran~ais et Erik Satie." The article dealt with a comparison of Cocteau's Le Cog et

1 'arleguin and some of Rimsky-Korsakov' s writings on

music, as well as a comparison of the music of the French

36Jean Cocteau, "The Six," Fanfare I, no. 6, tr. by Rollo Myers, as quoted in Daniel, ~ cit., p. 14.

37Daniel, ~ cit., p. 14. 38Loc. cit. r 58 \ and Russian composera.39 A second article by Collet

issued on January 23, 1920, treated the aesthetics and

music of "Lea Six fran~ais."40 The new designation ~tuck, and the articles publicly proclaimed the group's existence

and Cocteau' s association with the composers. The

previous title of "Lea Nouveaux Jeunes" had been used only

by Satie and Cocteau, and among the composers themselves.

It was never the public banner "Les Six" was to become.

In addition to the performances at Salle Huyghens,

Lea Six spent many evenings together at Milhaud' s

apartment. For two years (1919 and 1920), they met

regularly at this location every Saturday evening.

Milhaud's own recollection of these occasions evokes the

diversity, the sources of inspiration and the gaiety with

which these evenings were filled:

Paul Morand would mix cocktails, then we would go to a little restaurant on the rue Blanche. The dining room of the Petit Bessonneau was so small that our group completely filled it. The group indulged in unrestrained exuberance. There were not only composers among our faithful, but also performers (, Juliette Meerovitch, Andree Vaurabourg, the Russian singer Koubitsky), painters (Marie Laurencin, Ir~ne Lagut, Valentine Gross ••• Guy Pierre Fauconnet), and writers {Lucien Daudet and Radiguet, a young poet brought to us by Cocteau). After dinner, attracted by the steam-powered merry-go-rounds, the mysterious boutiques, the Daughter of Mars, the shooting galleries, the games of chance, the menageries, the racket of the mechanical organs with

39rbid., p. 19.

40Loc. cit. rI 59

perforated rolls that seemed relentlessly to grind out all the brassy tunes of the music-hall and the revues, we would go to the "Foire" of Montmartre, and occasionally to the Cirque Medrano to watch the Fratellini Brothers' sketches • • so worthy of the Commedia del'Arte. We would finish the evening back at my apartment. The poets would read their poems. We would play our latest composi tiona. We would coerce Poulenc into playing his Cocardes every Saturday, which he would do with utmost grace.~l

Milhaud has also chronicled that •out of these meetings ••• many a fruitful collaboration was to be born: they also determined the character of several works strongly marked by the influence of the music-hall ... 42 This influence, so prevalent a part of Cocteau' s aesthetic, initiated by Parade, proclaimed in Le ~ et l'arlequin, was thus nurtured by those Saturday evening gatherings.

In addition, Milhaud recalled in his memoirs that these evenings afforded the composers the opportunity to experiment and to strive for new forms of expression.43

In addition to the Salle Huyghens performances, and the more intimate evenings at Milhaud's, the group was accorded more public visibility in one of two "spectacles-concerts" of 1920, financed by Etienne de Beaumont, a wealthy comte, and presented by Cocteau and

41narius Milhaud, Notes without Music, tr. by Donald Evans (New York: Knopf, 1953), p. 99. 42Ibid., p. 161.

43Ibid., p. 121. r 60

Sa tie. 44 The first of these concerts (the second was

devoted solely to Satie) featured an overture by Poulenc, his aforementioned Cocardes, written to three poems of

cocteau and sung by Koubi tsky, and Auric 1 s fox-trot,

Adieu, ~ York, danced by two acrobats.45 The piece which closed the evening, and which would prove to be the

most startling of the program's offerings, was Milhaud 1 s

Le Boeuf ~ le toit. Though the "spetacle-concert" omitted works by Durey,

Tailleferre and Honegger, it comes closest in form and

content to what Cocteau and Satie were all about. Considering that the omitted three composers were further

removed aesthetically from Cocteau and Satie than were

Milhaud, Poulenc and Auric, the concert serves as an accurate represenation of the principles outlined in Le

Cog: et 1 1 arlequin. Writing in 1928, Henri Prunieres

recognized its significance:

This memorable presentation marked the triumph of Cocteau 1 S ideas. The circus, jazz, the cinema, and especially the music-hall furnished the principal elements of this new aesthetic, which was in vogue for but a short time.46

44Harding, ~cit., p. 75. 45Jean Cocteau, Cahiers #7 ([Paris]: Gallimard, [1978]), p. 27.

46Henri Prunieres, "Francis Poulenc," Cahiers d'art, vol. 3 (1928), p. 126, as quoted in Daniel, ~cit., p. 126. 61

~ Boeuf ~ le ~ deserves closer examination for its demonstration of Cocteau•s aesthetic. It serves as a companion piece to Parade and the later collaborative effort of Les Six, Lea Mari~s de la tour Eiffel, and is, as well, Cocteau•s and Milhaud's first joint stage venture.

Milhaud's inspiration for Le Boeuf ~ le toit is drawn from his experiences in Brazil. In this work, he

1(1· sought to "create a merry, unpretentious divertissement in II, memory of the Brazilian rhythms that I found so seductive . . . . •47 Thus inspired, he amused himself "by putting together a few popular melodies, tangoes, maxixes, sambas and even a Portuguese fado, and then transcribed them with a theme that recurred be tween each of them 1 ike a rondo.•48 Milhaud called the piece LeBoeuf sur le toit.

Allegedly, the title derived from a Brazilian popular song1 however, other theories include that it was taken from a tavern sign. 49 Cocteau • s biographer, Francis

Steegmuller, was unable to determine any substantial evidence to support its origins.SO Originally, Milhaud had hoped that the score would accompany a Chaplin film.

47Milhaud, ~cit., p. 104.

48As quoted in Harding, ~cit., p. 74.

49Harding, ~cit., p. 76. SOFrancis Steegmuller, Cocteau (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, [1970]), p. 243. rI, 62 cocteau dissuaded him from this idea and proposed instead that he provide Milhaud with a scenario, one still linked to the composer's original intent in that it would utilize certain elements of Chaplin's silent films--such as the formidable but ridiculous policemen, and slow motion movement.Sl Cocteau would, of course, incorporate his own special ties: elements of the music-hall and circus, including professional clowns. Unfortunately for Milhaud, he eventually found his genuine fondness for Brazil, as expressed in his music, iii undermined. He was unprepared to have his sentimental "'i!'ll ,!'1 efforts merged in conjunction with Cocteau's outrageous scenaria.52 Milhaud's memoirs include an outline of this scenario:

Cocteau produced a pantomime • • • • He imagined a scene in a bar in America during Prohibition. The various characters were highly typical: a Boxer, a Negro dwarf, a Lady of Fashion, a Red-headed Woman dressed as a man, a Bookmaker, a Gentleman in evening clothes. The Barman, • • offers everyone cocktails. After a few incidents and various dances, a Policeman enters, whereupon the scene is immediately transformed into a milk-bar. The clients play a rustic scene and dance a as they sip • • • milk. The Barman switches on a big fan, which decapitates the Policeman. The Red-headed Woman executes a dance with the Pol iceman's head, ending by standing on her hands like Salome in Rauen Cathedral. One by one the customers drift away, and the Barman presents an enormous bill to

Slcocteau, Cahiers #7, ~cit., p. 28.

52steegmuller, ~cit., p. 243. 63

the resuscitated Policeman [who has retrieved and replaced his head] .53

Cocteau engaged the famous Fratellini trio, clowns from the Cirque M~drano, to play the parts of the Barman and the two women. Other performers from the circus played the other roles.54

Cocteau•s staging of the pantomimed action called for the performers to move in slow motion against Milhaud's

1 i vel y Brazil ian tempos. Milhaud said this device conferred •an unreal, almost dreamlike atmosphere on the show.•SS It foreshadowed a technique Cocteau would later use in tandem with Auric in his film work, the purposeful avoidance of synchronization of music and movement. This technique will be examined further in relation to the collaborations of Cocteau and Auric.

Milhaud recalls that the premiere of Le Boeuf ~ le toit was "treated by the newspapers as a practical joke" and "was regarded by the public as symbolizing the music-hall and circus system of aesthetics • n56

However, the public was drawn to the work and it played to large houses.57

53Milhaud, ~ cit., pp. 102-03.

54steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 242.

55Milhaud, ~ cit., p. 103. 56Loc. cit. ,, I I II i'l ,,,, 64

On the occasion of the last Paris performance Jean

augo noted in his diary: "Full house, great success.•58

Not all of the Paris critics, in spite of what Mil~aud said, regarded it as a joke. Maurice Boissard, of the de France, referred to it as "a choppy voluptuous fantasy with real charm.•59 Six months after the Paris performance, Cocteau and

Milhaud accompanied Le Boeuf ~ le toit to London. It played at the Coliseum and was enthusiastically received by the audience and press.60 The first London performance received five encores and the pleased management decided

to take it on tour. In addition, Milhaud was asked to write them something for their next season.61

As with Parade (and later with Les Maries de la tour Eiffel), Cocteau insisted that LeBoeuf sur le toit be taken at face value. He wrote:

• • • I avoid subject and symbol. Nothing happens, or what does happen is so crude, so ridiculous, that it is as though nothing happens. Look for no double meaning, no anachronisms, in the Boeuf. • •• it is an American farce,

I ,,lj 57steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 243. !i

58As quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., p. 243. 59As quoted in Steegmuller, loc. cit.

60aarding, ~ cit., pp. 79-80. 61Ibid., p. 80. 65

written bl a Parisian who has never been in America.6

Soon after the "spectacle-concert" which had included

~ Boeuf ~ le toit, five members of Les Six, and cocteau, would unite for a unique collaboration, Les Maries de la tour Eiffel.

Les Maries de la tour Eiffel

On June 18, 1921, Les Maries de la tour Eiffel premiered at the The~tre des Champs-Elysees. It was a one-act farce for the Ballet Suedois, with choreography by Jean Cocteau and Jean Borlinr set design by Irene Lagut; costumes and masks by : scenario by Cocteau: and music by Arthur Honegger, Georges Auric, Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, and Germaine Tailleferre--five members of

Les Six. Durey' s conspicuous absence was due to his having distanced himself, both aesthetically and geographically, from the group. Ravel, impressed with his

Carillons, had taken him under his wing and the two became close friends, with Durey seemingly preferring the Ravel

62As quoted by Pierre Georgel in Jean Cocteau et son tem~s 1889-1963 (Catalogue of Cocteau exhibition atthe Mus e Jacquemart-Andre, Paris, 1965), as quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., pp. 241-42. r 66 connection to that of Les Six.63 Physically, he distanced himself from Paris by moving to Saint-Tropez.64 Cocteau was responsible for assembling the five

composers for ~ Maries. Originally, the impresario of the Ballet suedois, Rolf de Mare, had asked Auric for a score on a scenario by Cocteau. Due to other obligations, Auric did not feel he could give the project his full attention, so Cocteau had the idea of involving Les Six. Five of the six composers agreed to participate; Durey declined the invitation.65 In defining the nature of the work, Cocteau wrote: "Is it a play? No. A revue? No. A tragedy? No. It is rather, a secret marriage between ancient tragedy and an end-of-the-year revue, between chorus and music-hall number.n66

The action of Les Maries de la tour Eiffel takes

place on the fourteenth of July. The scene is the first platform of the Eiffel Tower. In the background is a bird's eye view of Paris. Situated on either side of the stage are two actors dressed as phonographs. The Phonographs recite the lines of the characters

63Harding, ~ cit., p. 100. 64Loc. cit.

65Milhaud, ~ cit., p. 111.

66As quoted in Harding, ~cit., p. 101. 67

simultaneously with the mimed action, and comment on the

proceedings.67 The musical portions of the production

correspond to the appropriate action. These portions consist of: Overture by Auric, Wedding March by Milhaud,

The General's Speech by Poulenc, The Trouville Bathing

Beauty by Poulenc, The Massacre by Milhaud, Waltz of the

Radiograms by Tailleferre, Funeral March by Honegger,

Quadrille by Tailleferre, and Wedding March by Milhaud.

In addition, during the course of the action there are

three Ritournelles by Auric.68

The characters consist of the two Phonographs, the

Ostrich, the Hunter, the Manager of the Eiffel Tower, the

Photographer, the Bride, the Bridegroom, the

Mother-in-law, the Father-in-law, the General, two

Bridesmaids, two Ushers, the Cyclist, the Child, the

Trouville Bathing Beauty, the Lion, the Collector of Paintings, the Art Dealer, and Five Radiograms.69

An abstract of the scenario of Les Maries, indicating where the musical numbers fall, follows:

67Jean Cocteau, The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party, tr. by Dudley Fitts in Jean Cocteau, The Infernal Machine and Other Plays ([Norfolk, Conn.]: New Directions, [1964]};)P. 161. 68Ibid., p. 160.

69rbid., p. 161. r 68 OVERTURE

The Ostrich crosses the stage, pursued by the Hunter who, distracted by something in the sky, fires. A radiogram falls from above. The Photographer appears and asks the Hunter if he

has seen the Ostrich that appeared while he was shooting a picture when the Photographer asked

his client to "watch for the little bird." The Photographer wants to put the Ostrich back in his camera. The Manager of the Eiffel Tower appears.

The radiogram is for him. It reads "Arrive wedding breakfast please reserve table. • The Manager appoints the Hunter Waiter of the Eiffel

Tower in preparation for the wedding.

WEDDING MARCH

The members of the wedding arrive in pairs. The Bride is described as sweet1 the Bridegroom as handsome; the Mother-in-law as snide; the

Father-in-law as rich1 the General as dumb. The General orders them all to sit down so that he can make a speech. His discourse is orchestral.

GENERAL'S SPEECH. After his speech, he describes

a mirage of wasps and tigers he experienced in Africa. Another mirage, the cyclist, rides r 69 onstage. The Cyclist asks for directions and rides off.

The wedding party assembles for a photograph. The Phonograph II says the Hunter has gone off to find the Ostrich. The Manager is trailing the Hunter. The two Phonographs discuss the Eiftel Tower. Once a Queen of Paris, like Notre-Dame, it now serves as a telegraph office.

The Photographer is ready to shoot. The wedding party is to watch the birdie--the Trouville Bathing Beauty comes out of the camera. DANCE OF THE BATHING BEAUTY. The Photographer forces her back into the camera7 he is still awaiting the Ostrich. The group reassembles. This time, the Child emerges from the camera. He carries a basket full of bullets which he hurls at the wedding party. They flee, screaming. THE MASSACRE. The Photographer chases the Child who professes that he must live his own life.

The wedding party reassembles. Radiograms flutter onto the stage. The guests run after them. WALTZ OF THE RADIOGRAMS.

The Child wants to have his picture taken with the General. This time, the Lion emerges from r 70 the camera and eats the General. The wedding party mourns. FUNERAL MARCH. The General is eulogized. QUADRILLE.

The Ostrich and the Hunter return. The Photographer maneuvers the bird back into the camera. Now he is ready to photograph the wedding party.

The Dealer and the Collector of Modern Paintings enter. The Dealer wants to show the Collector a unique piece: "The Wedding Breakfast.• The Collector thinks it looks like a primitive. The Dealer points out its advantages: texture, style, nobility, joie de vivre: it represents all weddings. The Collector says he will buy it. The Dealer wants a photograph for all the American magazines. They leave.

The Photographer tries again. The camera speaks. It wants to save the General. The General reappears, pale, one boot missing. He joins the pose. The picture will now contain a surprise for the Collector of Masterpieces, an unexpected detail.

The photographer takes the picture. A flies

out. Peace is declared. The Bride and r 71 Bridegroom exit into the camera, the others follow. WEDDING MARCH (reprise).

The Manager of the Ei f f el Tower appears to

declare closing time. The Hunter enters. He tells the photographer he wants to make the last train, but the gate has already closed. He will complain to the Minister of Railroads. The train passes with the wedding party on board waving handkerchiefs. End.70

Cocteau has fun with the banal pomp of a bourgeois wedding. Each time the Photographer attempts to capture

the image on film, something ludicrous happens to disrupt the picture. With the reasoning of an artist who creates ·' I. for the purpose of imposing order on chaos, the ,I Photographer says "Since these mysteries are beyond me, let's pretend that I arranged them all the time."71 The creative act renders the artist powerful in the face of

the unfathomable. In the preface to the libretto for Les Maries de la tour Eiffel, Cocteau clearly states his feelings on mystery:

I renounce mystery. I illuminate everything, I underline everything. Sunday vacuity, human

70ibid., pp. 164-178. 71Ibid., p. 167. 72

livestock, ready-made expressions, dissociation of ideas into miraculous poetry of daily lite: these are my play, so well understood by the young musicians who composed the score for it.72

Nothing in Les Mari~s de la tour Eiffel is masked, to the contrary, Cocteau intensifies his subjects through parody:

such subjects are the Modern Art Dealer and the Collector,

who feign appreciation of the banal, and are easily

fooled. The music of Les Maries de la tour Eiffel, and some

familiar Cocteau devices, provide further illumination of

his intentions. The music is in keeping with the spirit

of Parade and the ideals set forth in Le Cog et

l'arleguin. It is characterized by simplicity, clarity, lyricism and good humor. Each composer's contribution

echoes and reinforces the mocking tone of the scenario.

The work opens with Auric's Overture. Its march-like

rhythm and blaring trumpets evoke a traditional street

band. It announces the high-spirited fun that is about to

begin. Milhaud' s Wedding March parodies the classic wedding march strut. His use of "wrong note" harmonies

and a duet between a violin and a tuba give its festive

air a sour twist. Poulenc's General's Speech features peppy brass in a circus-like vein. The music effectively

augments the stuffy, pompous character of the General.

7 2 Ibid. I p. 15 4 • r 73

Poulenc's Trouville Bathing Beauty parodies stock corps de

ballet music. The universality of its character is

occasionally interrupted by the jolt of a clumsy tuba or

tambourine. Milhaud's music for the Massacre is, like his

Wedding March, characterized by dissonance. In this piece, it is used for an appropriately threatening effect.

Tailleferre's Waltz of the Radiograms echoes Ravel's La Valse in its lilting and lyrical mock-Viennese style.

Honegger's Funeral March is slow, dark and austere. It

recalls a classic funeral march in its use of the snare

drum, but it is underscored by thinly disguised humor.

This humor is expressed in a parody of the waltz from

Gounod's Faust, audible in the march's bass accompaniment. Tailleferre' s additional contribution, the Quadrille, is

bright and animated. It dispels the funereal gloom.

Auric extends the frivolity with his Ritournelles. They accompany the wedding party members as they disappear into

the Photographer's camera, in the same way that a troup of

clowns might vanish into the mouth of a cannon,

accompanied by a circus band vamp. Finally, a brief

reprise of Milhaud's Wedding March ends the proceedings on a festive note.73

73Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre, Les Maries de la tour Eiffel (Chandos Records: ABRD 1119, 1985). -- -- 74

The music of Lee Maries is unified by the mocking

tone of each contribution. The five composers have effectively reinforced the parody and good humor of cocteau's scenario and contributing devices. Cocteau' s device of having the Phonographs recite dialogue and give commentary on the proceedings further reinforces the element of parody. It serves to relegate the characters to the use of pantomine, which is inherently farcical. The use of the Phonographs derives from Cocteau's original conception for Parade of using an invisible voice to comment on the action. This idea, it will be recalled, was rejected by Satie and Picasso. The device, in Les Maries, functions like the Greek chorus or the comp~re and commere of the music-hall.74 It enabled

Cocteau to exert greater control over the work. He explained the reasoning behind the device:

A play ought to be written, designed, costumed, accompanied with music, acted and danced by one man alone. This all-round athlete does not exist. So it becomes necessary to replace the individual by what most resembles him: a friendly group. There are many cliques but few such groups. I have the luck, with several musicians, poets and artists, to belong to one.75

74cocteau, The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party, ~ cit., p. 154. 75Ibid., pp. 158-59. 75

Cocteau -had assembled a friendly group for -Lea Maries, but his phonograph device lent the production an element of omnipotence--the omnipotent force, in this case

himself--in contrast to the silent, invisible force which

characterized his participation in Parade. This point is

underscored by the fact that Cocteau played one of the two

Phonographs in some productions of Les Maries. 7 6 In

selecting the Eiffel Tower, for some the ultimate symbol

of Paris, as the location for the wedding party, Cocteau

satirizes the machine age. This left-over from the

industrial World's Fair of 1889, was once the "Queen of

the Machines, n but is now a dowdy giant and a lowly

telegraph office. 77 The costumes, in 1890's style, reinforce the tower's origins.78 The masks--an echo from

Cocteau's childhood--would become another Cocteau staple,

Stravinsky's Oedipus~ and Honegger's Anti2one providing additional examples.

Les Maries, as the scenario reveals, is fantastical, even more so than Parade. Again, Cocteau has attempted to revitalize the commonplace, as any artist might, but he does so by emphasizing the trivial, through the constructs of the music-hall and circus, to an absurd degree. The

76steegrnuller, ~cit., p. 267. 77rbid., p. 266.

78Loc. cit. r 76 ,,~

result is the surreal effect Apollinaire spoke of in '/1 conjunction with Parade. The real is visible underneath II: I'" the absurdist trappings. Rollo Myers, in his article on I'll ill musical life in Paris during the twenties, sheds further ,, light on Cocteau's method: 1::1 !."

The poet wishes us to feel • • • the strange 'I force and freshness of the commonplace: and this ·!Ir '"" he succeeds in doing by multiplying it a hundred­ 'Iii fold, and presenting it to us in such a way that l!i'li we feel we are looking at it for the first time jill • • • • But it requires an artist to work this 'II spell upon us, and the secret of this~articular 1!!1' spell is not possessed by many ••••79 ijii' ,.. ,

:I'' Cocteau had the ability Myers speaks of. He reached 1: ''II deeply into the everyday and turned it into art. He had i!", 'II' an innate ability to recognize the potential in the ii commonplace, as is evident in Ned Rorem's account of a 1( ,II .. ' 'i' meeting with Cocteau: ;,j,! II !: During our first meeting, in the red apartment on II ,1 rue Montpensier, he maneuvered the conversation ill around music. 'Music's not just in the concert .. J IIIIi hall. That workman out there--he's whistling the l::i start of Sacre.' The workman was in fact II·: il! whistling " en rose," but since that tune 1 111[ ' derives from Sacre, the point was proved.BO I, II ,[i ,1:

1111, "I ', :• 7 9Rollo Myers, "A Music Critic in Paris in the II Nineteen-Twenties," Musical Quarterly, LXIII (Oct., 1977), !I li 534. II\ BONed Rorem, "Cocteau and Music," Jean Cocteau and the French Scene, Alexandra Anderson and Carol Saltus, project editors (New York: Abbeville, [1984]), p. 161. 77

Unfortunately, Cocteau did not find his aesthetic, as transmitted through Les Maries, readily accepted by the public:

In Les Maries de la tour Eiffel I provided poetry wit~a powerful--transmitter, adapted to theatrical presentation. In this piece I claim to have shown for the first time--in spite of an absolute and universal failure, even on the part of my admirers, to grasp what I was aiming at--a true poetry in terms of the theatre1 for poetry merely transferred to the theatre is a mistake: it is like a piece of fine lace seen from a distance. My rope-lace was incomprehensible. People saw in it, and applauded, a farce, a satire, but nothing which I had intended. For I supress all imagery and subtleties of language. Nothing remains but poetry--that is to say, to modern ears, nothing at a11.81

The premiere of Les Mari~s de la ~ Eiffel was greeted with hisses, confusion and applause. Cocteau would have considered the piece a failure had he not recognized how uninformed and remote the audience was.82 He recalled that after the performance a woman complained to him that she could not hear. Cocteau was surprised considering that the two actors playing the Phonographs were speaking through loudspeakers. The woman went on to explain that she had purposely requested seats at the top of the theater, so that she might better admire Maurice Denis'

81Jean Cocteau, A Call to Order, tr. by Rollo H. Myers (New York: Haskell:-1974), pp. 205-06. 82cocteau, The Infernal Machine and Other Plays (including The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party), ~cit., p. 156. r 78

ceiling decoration. This of course reduced her ability to

concentrate on the action taking place on stage. 83

cocteau cites this woman as an example of the elite, whose

response to his production was relayed, by the critics,

authoritatively.84

In support of Cocteau' s desire to manifest a

"French," French music, is the following remark by the

American critic, Edmund Wilson, who noted after Les Maries

ran unsuccessfully in and New York that: "It

never seemed as amusing here as in Paris, partly due, I

think, to not having Cocteau's voice on the megaphone and

the unfamiliarity of the audience with the bourgeois

custom of having weddings on the Eiffel Tower.•85 Cocteau

had created a distinctly French product.

Cocteau and the five composers were amused by the

critical response to Honegger's contribution, summed up by

one music writer's "Ah! Some real music at last!"86 The

critics had failed to recognize Honegger's deliberate

parody of the waltz from Faust. As for the reactions of

the composers to Les Maries, we know that Milhaud was

impressed with the "deliberate drollery" of Poulenc' s

83Loc. cit.

84Loc. cit.

85Edmund Wilson, Vanity Fair {Feb., 1922), as quoted in Steegmuller, ~cit., p. 280.

86Harding, ~ cit., p. 104. r r' 79

contribution but, on the whole, found the work •rather

feeble."87 As for the others, it can only be said that

~ Maries was their one and only collaborative effort. It was not, however, to be the end of Cocteau • s

association with Poulenc, Auric, Milhaud and Honegger.

Les Maries remained under the jurisdiction of the Swedish ballet company. For many years after the first

performances, Cocteau and its composers were unaware of

its fate. Then, in the mid-fifties, Cocteau discovered

the work in the Stockholm dance museum. It was reassembled for a recording, under the supervision of

Milhaud.sa This is an interesting point, since he, as

noted, claimed to have found it a feeble work.

The Split

Even before Les Maries marked the formal demise of

Les Six, during the years of the Salle Huyghens concerts

and the evenings spent in Milhaud's apartment, the group

was beginning to experience a strain on its unity. This

is evidenced by a series of circumstances related to both

personal and artistic differences which alienated Satie,

and by the personal proclivities of each composer.

87Milhaud, ~ cit., p. 112.

88Harding, ~ cit., p. 104. 80

Cocteau' s exhortation to composers in Le Cog et l'arleguin to avoid foreign influences in the quest for a purely French sound had been taken to heart, but was eventually challenged. Durey, Milhaud and Poulenc were all to become intrigued by Schoenberg's music.89 Milhaud conducted the French premiere of Pierret lunaire in 1920. At another concert, Milhaud directed Schoenberg's vocal piece Herzgew!chse and Poulenc played the celesta part.

Furthermore, in May 1920, a Parisian arts publication

carried the message •, the Six composers j! greet you.•90 And in 1921, Milhaud and Poulenc travelled to Vienna to meet with Schoenberg and his disciples.91

Tailleferre, whose mentor was Ravel, was never as close to the Satie/Cocteau alliance as were Milhaud and

Poulenc. Milhaud's turn toward Schoenberg set him apart from Satie, but the two never quarreled.92 The of Poulenc and Auric from the Sa tie camp was also strengthened by personal differences. In 1924, Satie had praised Auric's ballet Les F2icheux and Poulenc' s Les

Biches. But these two works were also applauded by the

89rbid., p. 109.

90Loc. cit.

91Christophe Palme, "Francis Poulenc," The New Grove Dictiona£Y of Music and Musicians, 6th ed., :Qf ([London: Macmillan, 1980]), p. 163.

92aarding, ~ cit., p. 156. r 81

critic Louis Laloy, a great fan of Debussy, but not of

Satie.93 Auric and Poulenc became close friends of their new ally and arch enemy of Satie. Satie was incensed.94 Auric made other blunders. The eccentric Satie was

neurotically attached to his umbrella. One day, Auric accidentally thrust his own umbrella into Sa tie's, eliciting a string of invectives.95 Not so accidentally,

Auric had an article published which expressed a new reserve towards Satie' s music. Satie counterattacked

with: "Very good, my little friend. Let him carry on: let him •re-Laloy' himself from top to bottom.n96 Cocteau was not doing much better with Satie. He had also, during

the time of the and Lea Facheux productions become close to Lal oy. The critic introduced him, in 1924, to opium, a substance with which he would struggle for the rest of his life.97

Auric and Poulenc unwittingly continued to anger Satie. Auric spotted a child's rattle with a head bearing a resemblance to, he felt, Satie. Poulenc was with him. They agreed to purchase the rattle and send it to Satie.

93steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 322.

94Harding, ~cit., p. 157.

95~ cit.

96As quoted in Harding, ~cit., p. 157.

97steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 322. 82

Satie did not see the humor in their little joke.98

Poulenc persisted in tormenting Satie. At a performance of Mercure (1924), he aligned himself with a group of surrealists in defiance of the Satie composition.99 Moreover, he helped issue an article--"Hommage a Picasso"--which thanked the artist for his leadership and I I ignored Satie.100 Satie never forgave them.101

This proliferation of harmless jokes and accidents, coupled with intentionally proclaimed artistic differences, strongly indicates that Milhaud, Poulenc and Auric were striving to disassociate themselves from their onetime mentor. Each was ready to establish his own individuality. The rifts with Sa tie did not prevent Cocteau from continuing his association with Milhaud, Poulenc and Auric. The original alliance of Les Nouveaux Jeunes had ceased to be, but Cocteau' s ideals would continue to assert themselves in his ongoing relationships with these three composers and, to a lesser extent, with Honegger.

98Harding, ~cit., p.157.

99oaniel, ~cit., p. 13. lOOLoc. cit.

101Harding, ~ cit., p. 158. 83

Milhaud

Apart from LeBoeuf sur le toit, Cocteau 1 s individual collaborations with Milhaud include (1924), and (1927). Le Train bleu was produced by Diaghilev 1 s company which, after the war, was formally referred to as the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. The ballet was costumed by Chanel, scored by Milhaud, written by Cocteau, and choreographed by Cocteau and Bronislava

Nijinska. The production also featured scenery by Henri Laurens102 and a front curtain by Picasso in the manner of the one he created for Parade.103

Cocteau described Le Train bleu as an "operette dansee"; Milhaud dismissed it as "cette viellerie.n104

The work was conceived as a vehicle for Diaghilev 1 s acrobatic young dancer, .105 The impresario, in a seeming repetition of his earlier motivation in appealing to Cocteau for a work which would highlight

Nijinsky 1 s talents, the failed Dieu bleu, asked Cocteau for a scenario that would showcase Dolin. The result was

102Richard Buckle, Diaghilev (New York: Atheneum, 1979), p. 445.

103steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 330.

104Harding, ~cit., p. 140. These quotes translate as "danced opera" and 11 that rubbish. 11 (Translation by this author.)

105Harding, ~ cit., p. 139. 84 a story set on the Riviera. Dolin was cast as a physical wonder who impresses bathing beauties, of both sexes, with his athletic prowess.106 The title derives its name from the "blue train" that ran from Paris to the Riviera.107

Milhaud always felt that he was an unlikely choice of composer for Le Train bleu. Though he knew Diaghilev had been impressed with Cocteau's Le Cog et l'arlequin and was thus drawn to the music of Les Six, his score for L'Homme et son desir was greeted by Diaghilev with "icy silence.•108 Diaghilev, however, needed a score in a hurry. He felt the time constraints and the frivolous nature of Cocteau's scenario would prevent Milhaud from writing a similar score.109

Milhaud wrote the score for Le Train bleu in three weeks and it was, as Diaghilev had hoped, appropriate to

Cocteau's frivolous scenario. The music is light and picturesque. As the ballet's athletic hero, Dolin's first appearance on stage is accompanied by a lively, brusquely syncopated piece in three-four time; a spat between two sportsmen is accompanied by an energetic fugue; and a

106steegmuller, .2E.!. cit., p. 326 • 107 Harding, .2E.!. cit., p • 140. 108Milhaud, .2E.!. cit., pp • 108-09.

109Harding, £E..!. cit., p. 140. 85 bathing beauty flutters lightly to music which resembles a children's round.110

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Le Train bleu is Cocteau's attempt to render pictorial images of classic scenes, frozen in the surroundings of the everyday, in the same manner that the Photographer in Les Maries de la tour Eiffel attempted to portray the wedding party. The dancers, cast in various athletic roles--the Tennis

Player, the Golfer--strike attitudes at the end of every scene, frozen, as in a photograph.111 The reaction to -Le Train --bleu was mixed. The balletomanes took to the choreography's ingenuous depiction of various sports. Cocteau, who in the end had quarreled much with Nijinska over the realization of the scenario, found their joint choreographic efforts "silly, slight and without novelty.•ll2 We know by now, Cocteau preferred to have complete control over his particular contribution to a work. Five months after the Paris premiere, Diaghilev took

Le Train bleu to London. The city was delighted with the ballet. The Morning Post proclaimed the performances

110rbid., p. 141.

111rbid., p. 140.

112As quoted in Jean-Jacques Kihm, Jean Cocteau: 1' homme et les mirroirs (Paris: Table Ronde, 196 8), p. 159, as quoted in Steegmuller, .2E..:. cit., p. 331. 86 brilliant, and the Daily Mirror warmly welcomed the wonderful dancing.113 However, following the Ballets Russes performances with Dolin, the work disappeared from the repertoire.114

Le Train bleu had fulfilled Diaghilev's request for a showcase piece for Dolin. But it is a largely undistinguished work. Though it met some of Cocteau's musical requirements of clarity, wit and simplicity, it I,· lacked the deeper significance of works like Parade and I. li Les Maries. These works had been further distinguished by 'i'' )j' I·,, meaningful social commentary. Le Train bleu marked I I,

Cocteau's final production with Diaghilev, but it was not ·'I, his final collaboration with Milhaud.

Several years after Le Train bleu, Cocteau and :I' Milhaud collaborated on a chamber opera, Le Pauvre

I ,,Y matelot. Cocteau based his libretto, conceived in 1922,115 but first performed in 1927, on a news item he had read in a paper. Initially, he approached Auric for a score. Auric declined due to a busy schedule, and Cocteau went to Milhaud, who was attracted to the story.116 An abstract of the scenario follows:

113steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 331.

114suckle, ~cit., p. 456.

115Rorem, ~cit., p. 181.

116Milhaud, ~ cit., p. 199. 87

The wife of a sailor has been without any news of

her husband for four years. She remains faithful to him. When he finally returns, his first encounter is with a neighbor who tells him of his li I wife • s devotion. The husband decides to pass

himself off to his wife as a rich friend of her husband. He tells her her husband is lying in II ,,Jl prison, sick and impoverished. He asks to stay .,.'I II the night. She agrees. She kills him in order

to rescue her husband. The curtain falls before the audience can see her realizing the tragic mistake.117

Le Pauvre matelot premiered at the The!tre National I de 1' Opera-Comique on December 16, 1927. The first i ' 'I performances were marred by an under-rehearsed orchestra. Union problems resulted in Milhaud, who was , being subjected to substitute players who were sight-reading.118 A subsequent run at the The!tre de la

Monnaie was, Milhaud recalled, "faultless. n119 This Brussels performance of Le Pauvre matelot was double-billed with the Honegger/Cocteau Antigone. Milhaud

117rbid., pp. 199-200. 11Brbid., p. 200. 119Loc.---- cit. ,

88

later wrote that "The fact that both librettos had been ',i II 'i written by Cocteau conferred a very special unity on the whole entertainment.•120

Le Pauvre matelot is a marked change from Cocteau's

previous musical collaborations. The straight-forward

presentation of Cocteau's scenario contrasts strikingly

with that of Les Maries de la tour Eiffel and its use of

such devices as pantomimed action, talking phonographs,

and dancing radiograms. An excerpt from the libretto of

Le Pauvre matelot illustrates its bare-boned realism:

Le matelot: Je viens, je viens, madame, vous apporter des nouvelles • • • Sa femme: de mon epoux • • • Le matelot: de votre ~poux, en verite, des nouvelles, Madame, de votre epoux. Sa femme: Il est mort • • • Le matelot: Non, Madame, il vit, je l'ai vu, voila trois semaines. Sa femme: Vite, vite, asselez-vous. Parlez •••• 12

120Loc. cit.

121Jean Cocteau and Darius Milhaud, Le Pauvre matelot, vocal score (Paris: Heugel, [1927])-,-pp. 39-40. Translation: Sailor: I come, I come, Madame, to bring you news of your husband • • • Wife: Of my husband ••• Sailor: Of your husband, truly, news, Madame, of your husband. Wife: He is dead ••• Sailor: No, Madame, he lives, I've seen him, three weeks ago. Wife: Quickly, quickly, sit down. Speak •••• (Translation by this author.) 89

Despite the contrasting somberness of Le Pauvre matelot to works like Parade and Les Maries de la tour

Eiffel, Cocteau does not cease to draw from the materials of everyday life. The libretto was modelled on an actual story, and Milhaud's score drew from popular ballads.l22

II The decor of the chamber opera is also characterized by i! realism. The setting is life-like, not surreal. It consists of two rooms--one the sailor's wife's bar, the other a shop. A blue band separating the two rooms represents the sky, the sea, and a road.123 The costumes, plain street dress, 124 are far removed from Picasso's designs for Parade, Chanel's for Le Train bleu, and Dufy's costumes and masks for Les Maries de la tour Eiffel. In Le Pauvre matelot Cocteau conveys the real in literal terms. Le Pauvre matelot is Milhaud's most widely performed opera.125 Its modest requirements (four singers, no scenery change, street dress and small orchestra) make it relatively inexpensive to produce.126 Before World War

II, it ran for three years in Berlin. In addition, more

122Harding, ~ cit., p. 183.

123cocteau and Milhaud, Le Pauvre matelot, ~cit., p. 1.

124Milhaud, Notes without Music, ~ cit., p. 201. 125Loc.---- cit. 126Loc.---- cit. r 90

than twenty German cities, as well as Vienna, Salzburg,

Prague, and Barcelona mounted productions.l27 In England,

Le Pauvre matelot was staged during the fifties.

Poulenc

Poulenc and Cocteau had similar artistic

orientations. They shared a childhood love for the circus and music-hall.128 In addition, Poulenc was perhaps the

most literary of Les Six. His large vocal output includes songs on texts by Ronsard, Apollinaire, Jacob, Eluard,

Colette, Radiguet and, of course, Cocteau. Poulenc's

musical aesthetic was also compatible with Cocteau's. In a letter to the critic Paul Landormy, he wrote:

Tired of Debussyism (I adore Debussy), tired of impressionism (Ravel, Schmitt), I long for a healthy, clear, robust music, a music that is frankly French as Stravinsky's is Slavic. Sa tie's music seems to me perfect in this respect. Parade is Paris •••• 129

Poulenc's principal collaborations with Cocteau include Cocardes {1919), (1921), La

Voix humaine {1930), and La Dame de Monte Carlo (1961).

127Loc.---- cit. 128Daniel, ~ cit., p. 6.

129As quoted in Paul Landormy, La Musique fran~ais apres Debussy (Tours: Les Presses de l'Imprimerie Arrault, 1943), p. 162, as quoted in Daniel,~ cit., p. s. r 91

Cocardes, for light tenor voice on three poems by

Cocteau,130 is scored for violin, cornet, trombone, bass

drum and triangle.131 The orchestration reveals the

influence of Satie, as does the simple melodic line, and

generally diatonic harmony.132 Cocteau's poems are

aleatoric in nature. The words and images follow no

particular pattern. As Poulenc noted, the words "fly like

a bird from one branch to another. "133 Cocardes is organized by the atmosphere the songs evoke: the Medrano

Circus, and the world of pre-war Paris.134 These elements

emerge in reading Cocteau's poems:135

COCARDES

Honey of Narbonne

Use your heart. The clowns flourish on golden manure. To sleep! A kick with the toe: one flies. Will you play with me? Moabite, lady of the blue cross. Caravan Vanilla. Pepper. Tamarind jam.

130Pierre Bernac, Francis Poulenc: The Man and his Songs, tr. by Winifred Radford {New York: Norton, -rl977]), p. 184.

131Harding, ~ cit., p. 79.

132Martin Cooper, French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Faure (London: Oxford University Press, (19SiTf, p. 1957

133As quoted in Harding, ~ cit., p. 79.

134Harding, ~cit., p. 79.

135Bernac, ~ cit., p. 182. r

92

II'·' 1 ·11,,. Sailor, neck, pompon, moustaches,

mandoline. i! ., i' Deceptive linoleum. Thanks. I Cinema, new muse.

Children's Nurse

Tecla: our golden age. Pipe, Carnot, Joffre. I offer to everybody who has neuralgia • • • Giraffe. Wedding. A good day from Gustave. Ave Maria by Gounod, Queen of the village, Air by Mayol, Touring-Club, Phonograph. Poster, crime in colours. Mechanical piano, Nick Carter: that's a nice thing! Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

Child of the Troupe

Piece for solo cornet, polka. Soft caramels, acid drops, mint pastilles. ENTR'ACTE. The smell in sabots. Fine game bird of satin killed by the drum. Hamburg, beer glass, syrup of raspberries Bird-catcher by his own hands. Interlude: blue uniform. The trapeze incenses death.

Cocardes is an example of the collaboration of two like

sensibilities in its evocation of street entertainment and

the French spirit, and in its simplistic and anti-romantic

method. It is directly in line with the aesthetics of

Cocteau's Le Cog et l'arleguin. i In 1921, Poulenc and Cocteau, in collaboration with

Cocteau's writer friend , turned to a more 1. r 93

ambitious project. They worked together on a play, a

"comedie-bouffe• with incidental music by Poulenc.l36 The

absurd plot of Le Gendarme incompris concerns a country

policeman who arrests a "priest" for his strange behavior.

The case goes to court. The "priest" turns out to be a

wealthy noblewoman who, dressed in a black robe and hat,

had been contorting her body in order to pick flowers when

spotted by the policeman. The policeman is laughed out of court.137

The focus of the play centers on the policeman's

recitation of Mallarme's prose-poem L'Ecclesiastigue. The

poem relates the story of a priest who, suffering from

spring fever, frolics ridiculously around the

countryside.138 That everyone failed to recognize

Mallarme's text as read by the policeman, was a sly joke

on Cocteau' s part.139 He had successfully disguised a

"work of art." Poulenc was never happy with Le Gendarme incompris.

It was too frivolous for his taste. Milhaud, however,

found it "witty and pungent• and he regretted that Poulenc

supressed the score. It was music in the style associated

136naniel, ~cit., p. 18.

137Harding, ~cit., p. 97. 138Loc. cit.

139Loc. cit. r I 94 .i T1 with Les Six--light, lyrical and humorous.140 Critically,

the work was not well received. The reviewers failed to see the humor in the scenario. All of them failed to recognize Mallarme' s text, which was the work's big

j oke.141

1921 saw Cocteau and Poulenc in collaboration on both

Le Gendarme incompris and Les Maries de la tour Eiffel.

In spite of Poulenc's unhappiness with the former work, he i ·I~ continued to have a working relationship with Cocteau. In i! 1930 they collaborated on . The work represents a marked change from their earlier

collaborations. La Voix humaine concerns a woman who has been deserted by her lover. It is a dramatic monologue. The woman speaks with her lover on the telephone for the last

time. As the conversation progresses, her despair mounts. At the end of the conversation, she prepares to strangle herself with the telephone cord.142

Cocteau's biographer, Francis Steegmuller, finds the depth of feeling shown in the scenario for La Voix humaine

unusual for Cocteau. He suggests that it may be attributable to Cocteau's personal experience, perhaps in

140Milhaud, Notes without Music, ~cit., p. 120.

141Harding, ~cit., p. 96. 142Ibid., p. 239. 96 personal basis for --La Voix and ---La Dame, they do give some evidence of a shift in his perspective from the music-hall and circus genre to the more objective perspective of realism. This is not so much a rejection of his earlier principles, as an outgrowth of them, an evolutionary step.

This evolution derives partly from the sobering influence of personal tragedy and partly from the exploration of new means of expression. It is certainly not a concession: it continues to rely on simplicity and clarity. That Cocteau and Poulenc would continue to associate professionally is not as surprising as it may seem.

Cocteau was often reunited with co-workers after "failures,• and this fact speaks highly of the standing of II his talent and character. In the unsuccessful Gendarme :I I'

,q incompris, Cocteau and Poulenc were working in the i prevailing style of Les Six, the style of Les Maries. It was a work, good or bad, appropriate to its time. And prior to La Voix, Poulenc would have the opportunity to appreciate Cocteau•s adaptation of Antigone. Perhaps one :IIi! of the strongest factors in his long relationship with <'

Cocteau can be attributed to the deeply rooted theatrical orientation of the two men. Poulenc has said that he was decidedly a man of the theater;l48 there can be no question of Cocteau•s parallel orientation.

148poulenc, Correspondance, ~cit., p. 267. r 97

Auric

Auric was a lifelong friend of Cocteau, and the member of Les Six with whom he had the most extensive professional association. Early, the two were drawn together through the same social circuit. They were both good friends of Valentine Gross.149 Auric, like Cocteau,

was a good party guest. He brought wit to social gatherings. At a party for the literary figure Edmund Jaloux, Auric encountered the guest of honor who announced

to him "Je suis Jaloux," to which Auric replied, "Tien, de qui?"150

As noted previously, Auric, while at the Schola

Cantorum, was a strong advocate of Satie's music. And later, he published articles in opposition to German Romanticism and impressionism.151 These predelictions

made him a strong ally of Cocteau and led to Cocteau's dedication of Le Coq et l'arlequin to him. The musical collaborations between Auric and Cocteau began with a setting of poems titled L'Hymne au soleil (1918), and Huit poemes (1919). Other than Auric's

participation in Les Mari~s de la tour Eiffel, he was not

149steegmuller, ~cit., p. 203.

150As quoted in Harding, ~ cit., p. 203. Translation: "I am jealous." "Really, of whom?" (Translation by this author.)

151Harding, ~cit., p. 202. 98

to work with Cocteau again until 1930, when he composed

the score for Cocteau's silent film, Le Sang d'un poete. In 1929, Auric had expressed an interest to Cocteau in writing a score for an animated cartoon. Cocteau was to write a scenario which would then be realized by an ii animator. The cartoon idea was abandoned in favor of a II real film.152 This collaboration, and the other films that followed, form the core of their association. A long period elapsed before they worked together again. But the result was a succession of highly praised films: L'Etournel retour (1943), La Belle et la b@te (1945), and L'Aigle a deux t@tes. Though these collaborations occur much later than the time at hand, they deserve

consideration because of their ties to Cocteau' s past musical collaborations. Cocteau is probably best and most favorably recognized by his work in films, both as a screenwriter and a director. The field was perfectly suited to his far-ranging talents and his desire to be the controlling force behind a work. It constituted a logical step from the stage productions.

Together, Auric and Cocteau made significant contributions to the art of film scoring. In scoring Le Sang d'un poete, Auric had written music to correspond to,

152steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 405. 99 for example, the love scene, the card game, and the funeral scene. Cocteau, however, had the idea of replacing the love music with the funeral music, the game music with the love music, and the funeral music with the game music.153 The strategy worked. It worked due to the absence of 1 i terary association in instrumental music.

The composer Ned Rorem, in reflecting on this aspect, points out that this is one of music's most powerful tools and "since this power dominates all mediums it touches, any music may persuasively accompany any image or story n154 Furthermore, he finds the technique admirable for it is "more sensible than the fussy solderings of

'musical' filmmakers with a dangerous little learning who feel that music has a literal meaning.n155

Another important approach established by Cocteau was the deliberate non-synchronization of music and image on film. Of the day that the music for La Belle et la b~te was recorded, Cocteau wrote:

• • • and now the silence, then the three flashes which announce the image, then the image and the wonder of that synchronization which is not a synchronization, since Auric avoids it, at my request, and since it must not occur save by the grace of God •••• 156

153Rorem, ~cit., p. 169. 154Loc.---- cit. 155rbid., p. 177.

156As quoted in Rorem, ~cit., pp. 168-69. r

100

Cocteau's deliberate attempt to avoid synchronizing the

music with the images on film has its roots, as we have seen, in the choreography for Le Boeuf sur le toit, wherein he juxtaposed slow motion movement and Milhaud's energetic, Brazilian-colored score.

Cocteau's decision to shuffle the scenes and their original musical accompaniments, and the deliberate attempt to avoid synchronizing music and movement, have

like goals. They both serve to distance the images and movements of a film or ballet from the music. The result is more poetic, less literal. It does not mimic or attempt to be representational or pictorial. The resultant objectivity renders a more powerful experience

and gives rein to the persuasiveness of music. It relies for impact on associations and allusions, in place of the obvious, as in the substitution of Auric's •intentional" love music for a love scene for his "intentional" funeral

music for a funeral scene.

Honegger

Honegger, already characterized as one of the more "serious" members of Les Six because of his allegiance to

the German Romantics, and who professed no affinity for the circus and music-hall, was an unlikely candidate for a solo collaboration with Cocteau. In spite of their

.t 101 differences, Honegger and Cocteau worked together again, after Les Mari~s de la tour Eiffel, on Antigone of 1927. A far cry from the former work. Cocteau wanted to do something new after Les Maries de la tour Eiffel, something in a classical mood. He was drawn to the story of Antigone, with its theme of rebellion against the establishment.157 He was further inspired by a view of Greece from an airplane.158

Originally, Honegger's score constituted only incidental music for Cocteau's adaptation, using oboe and harp. In 1927, the score was expanded for a full-scale opera. Antigone premiered at the The!tre de on

December 28, 1927. The scenery, by Picasso, consisted of a velvet-blue jute backdrop that appeared to be cracked and wavy.159 There was a hole in the scenery through which the traditional Greek chorus, reduced by Cocteau to one voice, speaks "quickly, as if reading from a newspaper article.•160 ( Cocteau played the part of the chorus

157steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 292.

158Arthur Honegger and Jean Cocteau, Antigone, vocal score (Paris and New York: Editions Salabert, [1927]), from the preface by Jean Cocteau. 159Frederick Brown, An Impersonation of Angels: A Biography of Jean Cocteau (New York: Viking, [1968]), p. 258. 160Jean Cocteau, Antigone, tr. by Carl Wildman, in Jean Cocteau, Five Plays, various translators (New York: Hill and Wang, [1961]), p. 49. r 102

himself at first performances of Antigone.)161 The score, too, carries specific directions on delivery and

presentation: the swiftness of the action requires that the actors articulate clearly and not move too much.162

The actors, costumed by Chanel, wore transparent masks--by

this time a Cocteau staple.163

The libretto of Antigone was closely modelled on

Sophocles' original. Cocteau took major cuts only from

the chorus. 16 4 Due to the close approximation to the

original, Cocteau referred to his adaptation as "a pen

drawing after an old master.•l65 Cocteau's near-literal

adaptation was given a new twist through the manipulation

of the vocal line. Honegger fashioned "a melodic line

created by the word itself, by its own plasticity, and

intended to emphasize the word contours and to throw it

into greater relief. nl66 He achieved this effect by

accenting the weak syllables, for example: •rsm-ne, MA

161Brown, ~cit., p. 257.

162Honegger and Cocteau, Antigone, vocal score, ~ cit., no page number.

163cocteau, Antigone in Five Plays, ~cit., p. 49.

164steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 292. 165Jean Cocteau, Oeuvres completes (Lausanne: Marguerat, 1946-1951), vol. IX, p. 320, as quoted in Steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 292.

166As quoted in Harding, ~cit., p. 124. 103

I I ! so-eur, COn-nais-tu un seul FLE-au de L'HEr-i-tage

D~e-dipe qu JU-pi-ter nous E-pargne?•167 ') Again, using the examples of Le Boeuf ~ le 12!!, and the later Sang d' un poete,.. there is no direct

correlation between the libretto and the score.

Honegger's music follows behind the text and discreetly parallels it.168

The reaction to Antigone was mixed. Andre Gide accused Cocteau of flippancy .169 Unlike earlier works such as Les Maries and Le Gendarme, Cocteau had undertaken a serious dramatization of a classic and had approached it respectfully. He answered Gide's accusation with:

It is for me of great importance to know whether a man like you can believe that a man like me is trying to provoke laughter with Antigone. If the answer is yes, which I refuse to believe--then at last I have the key to our • • • misunder- . 170 s t and ~ngs • • • •

Stravinsky, however, greatly admired Cocteau's adaptation and, as a result, recruited him for his .171

167cocteau, Cahiers #7, ~cit., p. 35.

168Harding, ~ cit., p. 124.

169Brown, ~ cit., p. 261.

170As quoted in Brown, ~ cit., p. 261.

171rgor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues and a

Diary (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1963), p. 93. i 'i

'' r 104

Antigone was also highly regarded by Ezra Pound,172 and by

Poulenc, who admired it above all Honegger• s works.173 Poulenc has related, in addition, that he knows it was the composer's favorite.174

Antigone is generally considered to be a work of high quality, but it demands the full attention of its

audience.175 This factor, and the clipped, austere presentation, worked against its potential to please an audience.176

* * * * *

Historically, the members of Les Six have been subjected to scrupulous examination in attempts to both dispel and validate their group stature. Evaluation of this stature has been complicated by the fact that at the time the public existence of the group was proclaimed,

1920, the members had begun to establish independent directions. Dating Les Six from 1920 does not take into

account that most of the composers had been associated with one another since 1917. Even in light of this fact, I I; 172steegmuller, ~cit., p. 297.

173Poulenc, ~ Friends, ~ cit., p. 109. 174rbid., p. 110.

17 SMuggler, "Honegger, " ~ cit., p. 67 9.

176Harding, ~cit., p. 124. 105

Les Six must be judged as six talented and creative composers who were united and unified by circumstances both deliberate and arbitrary. Inadvertently, they served as a test group for the musical style of Satie and the musical aesthetics of Cocteau.

Attempts to impose order on twentieth-century musical trends have not been very successful in general. The numerous and varied currents of the early part of the century, often the result of attempts to break from established traditions such as German Romanticism and impressionism, elude categorization. Compositional efforts were marked by a tendency to evolve from one method to another resulting, often, in an amalgamation of styles. Such was the case with the members of Les Six.

In 1929, five members of Les Six (all but Auric), and

Cocteau, met to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Collet's christening.177 In 1953 all six members, and

Cocteau, convened for another reunion, at which Cocteau openly took credit for the formation of Les Six.178 In

1961, the five living members of the group (Honegger had died in 1955) , and Cocteau, assembled for the last time.179 The presence of the composers, especially that

177Ibid., p. 22s.

178Rorem, ~cit., p. 164.

179aarding, ~cit., p. 244. 106 of Durey and Tailleferre at these reunions, is curious. It seemingly validates their unity. The motivation may have been for publicity, or it may have been for nostalgia, or it may have been a heartfelt acknowledgement of their roots. We know from Honegger's and Poulenc's memoirs that they did not attribute much importance to the group as a whole. Poulenc wrote:

Jean Cocteau is always attracted by novelty of every sort. He was not our theorist, but our friend and our brilliant spokesman. To tell the truth, his little musical summary, Le Cog et l'arleguin, is a disguised defense of Satie's aesthetic against Stravinsky's. It is impossible to regard it as a manifesto of Les Six because Arthur Honegger • s violent and romantic art is alone enough to contradict it.180

Poulenc•s argument is weak, based as it is on Honegger's

inability to fit into the Satie mold. Of Cocteau, Honegger observed:

Without being genuinely a musician, Cocteau served as a guide to many young folk. He stood for the general sense of a reaction against the pre-war aesthetic. Each one of us translated that in a different way.181

In addition, Honegger said:

180poulenc, ~Friends, ~cit., p. 43.

181Arthur Honegger, l Am ~ Composer, tr. by Wilson o. Clough in collaboration with Alan Arthur Willman (New York: St. Martins, [1966]), p. 104. r

107

It is true that around 1920 Cocteau gave the signal for music in the trenchant style--its champion was Satie and some of my colleagues of the group called Lea Six.1B2

'I' And Satie, who started it all, acknowledged:

Let us thank Cocteau for helping us get rid of the habits of the latest impressionist music, tiresomely provincial and pedantic.183

Pierre Bertin gave credit to Cocteau, too, when he said

that the alliance of the six composers "remains as an

example of what youth can accomplish when it is aided by

favorable circumstances."184

The efficient and appropriate manner of weighing Les

Six in relation to Cocteau seems to be to consider them as

a group of composers, some of with wham he shared artistic

ideals, and with all of whom he collaborated and to some

extent influenced. In addition to Stravinsky, the list of

other composers with whom Cocteau collaborated includes

the German, Hans Werner Henze, the Italian, Gian-Carlo

Menotti and the American, Ned Rorem. That they were not

French is significant. Cocteau was never to equal the

working and professional relationships with the group of

182Loc. cit.

183As quoted in William Austin, "Satie Before and After Cocteau, • Musical Quarterly, XLIII (Apr., 1962), 229.

184As quoted in Hughes, ~ cit., 146. r II 108

French composers with wham he had shared the unparalleled

social and artistic climate of Post-World War I France, and the spirit of a generation coming of age in a

mechanistic world. CHAPTER VII

STRAVINSKY II

Nine years after Cocteau's unsuccessful attempt at a collaboration with Stravinsky, he came to work with the composer on the opera-, Oedipus rex. As we have seen, Stravinsky was impressed by Parade, though he limited his praise to Satie. It is doubtful, however, that Cocteau's contributions to the ballet went unnoticed by Stravinsky, who continued to follow his progress. He

"greatly admired" the direct and concise approach of

Cocteau • s Antigone of 1922.1 Consequently, Stravinsky asked him to collaborate on a Ballets Russes production,

Oedipus rex (1927). The composer was planning the piece as a surprise for Diaghilev on the twentieth anniversary of his theatrical activity. Once again, the relationship between Cocteau and Stravinsky was fraught with problems.

Stravinsky's personal papers attest to the difficulties surrounding the production of Oedipus rex.

He labeled a folder containing fifty letters, telegrams and other documents as follows:

1Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues and a Diary (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1963), p. 93.

109 110

Oedipus ~: Annoying and useless correspondence with Jean Cocteau (and many others), concerning the first performance of Oedipus, in which many people wanted to have their say, and which considerably frayed my nerves.2

All but one or two of the papers relate to the writing of I, Oedipus. The vast majority concern the problems-­ financial, personal and logistical--of the first performance.3 But there were also conceptual problems 1: between Stravinsky and Cocteau.

The collaboration on Oedipus ~ began in 1925, when

Stravinsky asked Cocteau for a "still-life," with a conventional libretto, arias and recitatives even though

he knew the conventional was not Cocteau's "strong suit."4 ! I . i Stravinsky said that Cocteau responded enthusiastically to the request, except for the idea that his phrases were to be translated into Latin.5 Stravinsky's rationale for this approach was that "a text for music might be endowed with a certain monumental characteristic by translating backwards, so to speak, from a secular to a sacred

2rgor Stravinsky, Selected Correspondence, edited and with commentaries by Robert Craft ( [New York: Knopf, 1982]), vol. I, p. 355.

3Francis Steegmuller, Cocteau (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, [1970]), p. 355.

4stravinsky and Craft, Dialogues and a Diary, ~ cit., p. 4. 5rbid., p. 5. 111 language.n6 However, Cocteau's first draft was exactly what Stravinsky did not want, "a music drama in meretricious prose."? Cocteau was patient with Stravinsky's criticism. The composer complained about the libretto being full of ideas: he wanted words, and so

Cocteau rewrote the libretto twice. But even after the second rewrite Stravinsky made changes.B In the end, Stravinsky said he was no longer sure 1,,I what of Oedipus rex was purely Cocteau's: "I am no longer able to say, but I should think less the shape of it than the gesticulation of the phrasing ... g The devices of having a speaker in evening dress provide, in French, a prologue and brief narrations before each scene, were purely Cocteau's ideas. Stravinsky was not fond of the role of the speaker and he overrode its significance: n • music goes beyond words and the music was inspired by the tragedy of .nlO

Eventually, Stravinsky was more accepting of the role of the speaker.ll The text of the role is brief and

6Ibid., p. 4.

7 Ibid., p. 5.

BLoc. cit.

9Loc. cit. lOLoc.---- cit. llEric Walter White, Stravinsky (Berkeley: University of California Press, [1966]), p. 330.

II r

112

informative, and it serves to introduce the three musical

sections of the two acts. For example, at the end of Act

II, the speaker says:

And now you will hear that famous monologue 'The Divine Jocasta is Dead, ' a monologue in which the messenger describes Jocasta' s doom. He can scarcely open his mouth. The chorus takes his part and helps him to tell how the Queen has hanged herself, and how Oedipus has pierced his eyeballs with her golden pin.l2

Cocteau' s text for the speaker serves to bridge the

distance between the remoteness of the libretto's Latin

text and the audience.

Stravinsky's admiration for the direct and concise

effect of Cocteau's Antigone is reflected in the construct

of Oedipus. The description of the work as an

"opera-oratorio" suggests a fusion of forms. Oedipus is

an opera without staging (though Stravinsky eventually

incorporated, at Cocteau's urging, symbolic mime). The

work employs two tenors, two bass-baritones, bass,

mezzo-soprano, narrator, male chorus, and a small

orchestra (percussion, timpani, harp, piano, and string

quintet).

Diaghilev's reception of Oedipus was cool.

Stravinsky blamed this on the impresario's dislike of

12Jean Cocteau, The Speaker's Text of Oedipus Rex, tr. by e. e. cummings, in Jean Cocteau, The Infernal Machine and Other Plays, various translators ([Norfolk, Conn.] : New Directions, [1964]), p. 409. r

113

Cocteau. Diaghilev deliberately chose a handsome young

man for the part of the speaker to spite Cocteau, who must

have had the part in mind for himself .13 Cocteau's

biographer, Francis Steegmuller, states that he did indeed

offer his services as actor, and when Diaghilev turned him

down, he feared the impresario was attempting to undermine

the project--no longer a surprise--being prepared in his

honor.14

The first performances of Oedipus ~ were not well

received by audiences or critics. They were shocked by

the Latin text and the lack of dramatization.15 Today,

the first performances are considered to have been poor,

and further hindered by Diaghilev, who considered Oedipus

•un cadeau tres macabre."16 Later productions of the work

were better received. Stravinsky was also pleased with

them, especially a 1952 Paris performance which included

masks designed by Cocteau, and also featured him in the

role of the speaker. Stravinsky wrote of Cocteau' s I.![ ~ I contributions to this performance: "His huge masks were I

·Iill very striking, and so, though it contradicted my ideas, I

13stravinsky and Craft, Dialogues and a Diary, ~ cit., p. 8.

14steegmuller, ~cit., p. 385. 15Andre Coueroy, "Oedipus and Other Music Heard in Paris," Modern Music, V (Nov.-Dec., 1927), 39.

16steegmuller, ~ cit., p. 385. Translation: "a very macabre gift." (Translation by this author.) 114 was his use of symbolic mime.•17 The addition of symbolic mime served as another bridge between the audience and the original austerity of the work.

Though Stravinsky's collaboration with Cocteau had not gone smoothly, he continued to hold him in high esteem. He asked him to work with him on a new ballet with a card-game plot--the 1936 Jeu de cartes. Cocteau declined the invitation,18 but he and Stravinsky maintained a long friendship. As late as 1963, Stravinsky wrote:

• • o Cocteau was one of my first French friends o o •• I soon learned to appreciate Cocteau's many sterling qualities o • • o • • • we have remained dear and lifelong friends--indeed, he is the onlf! close friend I have of the Firebird period. 9

And:

••• his personality is generous and disarmingly simple. Artistically, he is a first-rate critic and a theatrical and cinematographic innovator of a high order.20

17stravinsky and Craft, Dialogues and ~ Diary, ~ cit., p. a. 18Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Themes and Episodes (New York: Knopf, 1966), p. 36.

19stravinsky and Craft, Dialogues and a Diary, ~ cit., p. 44. 20Ibid., p. 45.

'I 115

Oedipus rex and Antigone are both examples of

Cocteau's exploration of neoclassicism; another example is his play, Oedipe-roi, of 1928. Cocteau's interest-in neoclassicism is not surprising. Its emphasis on clarity, simplicity and purity is closely aligned with the aesthetic we have come to recognize in his other endeavors. CHAPTER VII I

CONCLUSION

In 1917, Parade inaugurated a new spirit in French music. Jean Cocteau has been revealed as one of the architects of this new spirit. In some ways, he was its primary architect. As Stravinsky and his Sacre du printemps had served as Cocteau's catalyst, Parade served as the catalyst of the young French composers who would come to prominence in the post-war years. And Cocteau was the person most responsible for Parade. Cocteau supplied Sa tie's music for Parade with a powerful construct. Cocteau was predisposed to the stage spectacle a 1a Diaghilev: Satie was not. Cocteau brought Picasso into Parade, worked closely with Massine on the choreography, and integrated Satie' s score with his revolutionary sound effects. Moreover, it was Cocteau's scenario which would supply an important element in the realization of the new musical spirit: the circus/music-hall aesthetic. It evolved from Cocteau' s childhood love of street entertainments, and served as his answer to nationalism. It was characterized by humor, flexibility, lack of pretense, a sense of wonder, and the incorporation of pantomime and acrobatics. In its very

116 117 definition, it provided an alternative to impressionism and German Romanticism.

However, Cocteau' s aesthetic was not a cleverly contrived formula. It was a genuine outgrowth of his youth. It evolved through the trials and errors of his early experiences with Diaghilev and Stravinsky, and culminated in Parade, Le ..Q2g et 1' arleguin and his collaborations with Lea Six. Much of Cocteau's method derived from an acute cultural awareness. The composer wrote:

Probably Cocteau knows more about the real situation in music than many of the French musicians, who mostly are content to play around outside the walls of his thought structure, which frequently looks mysterious and hard to penetrate.!

Cocteau used his perceptive powers as well as his wit and charm to draw upon the cultural riches of Post-World War I France. He transferred the camaraderie of the artists in the cafes to the stage. The result was an artistic synthesis Wagner would have envied. This synthesis, evinced first in Parade, continued in his collaborations with Les Six. The music of Les Six was the music of Post-World War I France, and Cocteau was the person behind Les Six. The

lErnst Krenek, "Stravinsky and ," Composers on Music, ed. by Sam Morgenstern {New York: Pantheon, TI9s6J), p. s3a. 118

group realized the ideals set forth by Cocteau in Le Cog

et 1 'arleguin: they propelled French music away from · German Romanticism and impressionism by drawing upon_ the wit and simplicity of Satie, and the world of the circus

and music-hall. The result was a more intrinsically

•French" music. They accomplished this with the structure provided by Cocteau: the example of Parade, the many shared evenings of music, art, poetry and socializing, and in their collaborations with him. They also shared a strong literary orientation. All of the members of Les Six set poetry: however, with the exception of

Tailleferre, Cocteau was the only poet whose verse they all set. It is significant, too, that five of Les Six eventually wrote for films (again Tailleferre was the exception). Their involvement in this medium is perhaps attributable to their early and ongoing involvement in mixed-media forms including ballet, opera, incidental music for plays, as well as those intimate social evenings which incorporated music, art and poetry. Cocteau, of course, became a celebrated film director and scenarist. The turn to films was a natural evolutionary move for all of them.

None of Cocteau's collaborations with members of Les Six were wildly successful. Some day, revivals may alter this situation. It has taken time for Parade to be 119 recognized for the masterpiece that it is. Late recognition is a prevalent feature in the art world.

Cocteau knew his audience was still "preoccupied with the false-sublime ••• still in love with Wagner.•2

Part of Cocteau•s charm and talent lay in his ability to see with the eyes of a child. This ability was expressed in the direct, unclouded and unpretentious quality of his work. In the preface to Les Maries de la tour Eiffel, Cocteau wrote: •The unsophisticated mind is more likely than the others to see ••• fairies.•3 Most of Cocteau•s audience possessed sophisticated minds. They did not "see• through the apparent spectacle. They were unwilling, or unable, as was the potential audience in the story of Parade, to venture past the spectacle on the outside to the true poetry within. "The true symbol,"

Cocteau wrote, "is never planned: it emerges by itself . . . . n4

2Jean Cocteau, The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party, tr. by Dudley Fitts, in Jean Cocteau, The Infernal Machine and Other Plays, various translators-1[Norfolk, Conn.]: New Directions, [1964]), p. 157.

3Ibid., p. 153. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Alexandra, and Carol Saltus, project editors. Jean Cocteau and the French Scene. New York: Abbeville Pres~[l984]. 239 pp. Austin, William. "Satie Before and After Cocteau," Musical Quarterly, XLIII (Apr., 1962), 216-32.

Bernac, Pierre. Francis Poulenc: The Man and His Songs. Translated by Winifred Radford. New York: Norton, [1977]. 233 pp.

Brown, Frederick. An Impersonation of Angels: A Biography of Jean Cocteau. New York: Viking, [1968]. 438 pp.

Buckle, Richard. Diaghilev. New York: Atheneum, 1979. 616 pp.

Cocteau, Jean. Cahiers #7. [Paris]: Gallimard, 1978. II 172 pp.

A call to Order. Translated by Rollo H. Myers. New York: Haskell House, 1974. 248 pp.

Five Plays. Various translators. New York: Hill and Wang, [1961]. 310 pp.

The Imposter. Translated by Dorothy Williams. New York: Noonday Press, 1957. 132 pp.

The Infernal Machine and Other Plays. Various translators. Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, [1964]. 409 pp.

Professional Secrets. Drawn from his lifetime writings by Robert Phelps. Translated by Richard Howard. [New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1970]. 331 pp.

Cocteau, Jean, and Darius Milhaud. Le Pauvre matelot. vocal score. Paris: Heugel, [19271. 7 0 pp.

Cooper, Martin. French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Faure. London: Oxford University Pres~ [1951]. 239pp.

120 121

Coueroy, Andre. "Oedipus and Other Music Heard in Paris," Modern Music, V (Nov.-Dec., 1927), 39-41. Crosland, Margaret. Jean Cocteau. New York: Knopf, 1956. 238 pp. Daniel, Keith w. Francis Poulenc: His Artistic Development and Musical Style. Ann Arbor: Umi Research Press, [1980]. 390 pp.

Gold, Arthur, and Robert Fizdale. Misia: The Life of Misia Sert. New York: [Knopf, 1980]. 337 pp:- ----

Harding, James. The Ox on the Roof: Scenes from Musical Life in Paris in-the Twenties. New--york: ~Martin's, [1972] .-u1 pp.

Hoeree, Arthur. "Louis Durey," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th ed., 5 ([London: Macmillan, 19 8 0] ) :-'f4 8-4 9. "Germaine Tailleferre," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th ed. ,--rB ([London: Macmillan, 1980])-;--527-28.

Honegger, Arthur. l Am ~ Composer. Translated by Wilson 0. Clough in collaboration with Alan Arthur Willman. New York: St. Martin's, [1966] • 141 pp.

Honegger, Arthur, and Jean Cocteau. Antigone. Vocal score. Paris and New York: Editions Salabert, [1927]. 155 pp.

Hughes, Allen. "Les Six," Musical America, LXXIV (Feb. 15, 1954), 128 and 146.

Milhaud, Darius. Notes without Music. Translated by Donald Evans. New York: Knopf, 1953. 355 pp.

Morgenstern, Sam, ed. Composers on Music. New York: Pantheon, [1956]. 584 pp.

Muggier, Fritz. "Arthur Honegger," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicia'ii'8," 6th ed., 8 ([London: Macmillan, 1980]), 679-81.

Myers, Rollo. Modern French Music from Faure to Berlioz. New York: Praeger, [1971]. 210 pp.

"A Music Critic in Paris in the Nineteen-Twenties," Musical Quarterly, LXIII (Oct., 1977), 524-44. 122

Palme, Christophe. "Francis Poulenc," The New Grove Dictiona:r:y of Music and Musicians, 6th ed., 15 ([London: Macmillan, 1980]), 163-69.

Poulenc, Francis. Correspondance: 1915-1963. Paris: Editions du Seuil, [1967]. 269 pp.

---- ~ Friends and lnself. Translated by James Harding. London: Dobsin, 1978]. 152 pp.

Shattuck, Roger. The Banquet Years: The Arts in France: 1885-1918. New York: Harcourt, Brace, [1955]. 306 pp.

Steegmuller, Francis. Cocteau: ! Biography. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, [1970]. 583 pp.

Stravinsky, Igor. An Autobiography. New York: Norton, [1962]. 1st ed. published by Simon and Schuster, 1936. 176 pp.

Selected Correspondence: Volume ~ Edited and with commentaries by Robert Craft. [New York: Knopf, 19 8 2] • 4 71 pp.

Themes and Conclusions. London: Faber, [1972]. 328 pp.

Stravinsky, Igor, and Robert Craft. Dialogues and ~ Diary. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1963. 279 pp.

---- Themes and Episodes. New York: Knopf, 1966. 352 pp.

Stravinsky, Vera, and Robert Craft. Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents. New York: Simon and Schuster, [197 8] • 688pp.

White, Eric Walter. Stravinsky. Berkeley: University of California Press, [1966]. 656 pp.

Recordings

Auric, Georges, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre, Les Maries de la tour Eiffel. Chandos Records: ABRD 1119, 1985.------APPENDIX

MUSICAL CHRONOLOGY

The following limited chronology was drawn from a list compiled by Ned Rorem.1 It is limited by the fact that,

Rorem suggests, other musical collaborations involving

Cocteau may have yet to be accounted for.

Stage Productions

1912: Le Dieu bleu (Ballets Russes)

Scenario by Jean Cocteau.

Music by Reynaldo Hahn.

Choreography by Michel Fokine.

Decor ·and costumes by Leon Bakst.

1917: Parade (Ballets Russes)

Scenario by Jean Cocteau.

Music by Erik Satie.

Choreography by Leonid Massine.

Curtain, decor and costumes by .

1Ned Rorem, "Cocteau and Music," Jean Cocteau and the French Scene, Alexandra Anderson and Carol Saltus, project editors (New York: Abbeville, [1984]), pp. 178-82.

123 124

1920: LeBoeuf sur le toit (Spectacles-Concerts: Etienne

de Beaumont)

Scenario by Jean Cocteau.

Music by Darius Milhaud.

Decor and costumes by Guy-Pierre Fauconnet, compiled by

Raoul Dufy.

1921: Le Gendarme incompris

Libretto by Jean Cocteau and Raymond Radiguet.

Music by Francis Poulenc.

1921: Les Maries de la tour Eiffel

Libretto and production conceived by Jean Cocteau.

Music by Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud,

Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre.

1923: Antigone

Libretto by Jean Cocteau.

Incidental music by Arthur Honegger.

(This work was expanded into an opera in 1927.)

1924: Le Train bleu (Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo)

Scenario by Jean Cocteau.

Music by Darius Milhaud.

Choreography by and Jean Cocteau.

Decor by .

Curtain by Pablo Picasso. 125

1927: Le Pauvre matelot

Libretto by Jean Cocteau.

Music by Darius Milhaud.

1930: La Voix humaine

Libretto by Jean Cocteau.

Music by Francis Poulenc.

(This work was expanded into an opera in 1958.}

1950: Phedre (}

D~cor, costumes, and scenario by Jean Cocteau.

Music by Georges Auric.

Choreography by Serge Lifar.

1959: Le Poete et sa muse

Decor, costumes, and scenario by Jean Cocteau.

Music by Gian-Carlo Menotti.

Mise-en-scene by Franco Zeffirelli.

1962: Le Fils de l'air

Ballet scenario by Cocteau, mounted posthumously in 1972.

Music by Hans Werner Henze.

Choreography by Maurice Bejart.

Songs and Concert Music with Texts ~ Jean Cocteau

1918: Toreador, voice and piano, music by Francis

Poulenc. 126

1919: Huit poemes de Jean Cocteau, voice and piano, music

by Georges Auric.

1919: Cocardes, three poems for voice and piano, music by

Francis Poulenc.

1920: Le Crabe, from a set of three songs, music by

Erik Satie.

1920: Le Printemps ~ fond de lamer, for soprano

with wind instruments, music by Louis Durey.

1920: Trois poemes' de Jean Cocteau, voice and piano, music by Arthur Honegger.

1927: Six poemes' de Jean Cocteau, voice and piano, music by Arthur Honegger.

1927: Piece de circonstance, song for Jane Barthori,

music by Darius Milhaud.

1930: Cantate, for soprano, male chorus, and orchestra,

music by .

1954: Monologue from Les Chevaliers de la table ronde,

included in The Poets Requiem, for soprano, chorus,

and orchestra, music by Ned Rorem.

1961: La Dame de Monte Carlo, monologue for voice and

orchestra, music by Francis Poulenc.