Les Six

Les Six (French, “The Six”), group of six French composers who were termed Les Six after a critical article compared their work with that of the Russian group of composers known as The Five. The French group consisted of Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Germaine Tailleferre, Francis Poulenc, and Georges Auric. These composers, who did not represent any particular school of music, were drawn together by the influence of two other Frenchmen, the composer Erik Satie and the writer Jean Cocteau. Favouring jazz and the style of the music hall, Les Six strongly opposed the Romanticism of the French composers who immediately preceded them.