Georges Auric

[Symphonic Addict]

I couldn't find any thread devoted to this French composer (1899-1983) who belonged to the renowned 'Les Six'. The reason as for I am posting about him is because of his ballet Phèdre from the CD below which I am listening to right now:



And holy smokes, this is TE-RRI-FIC ! ! !

It is one of the most thrilling, scintillating, coruscating pieces of music I have heard recently, I'm in sheer awe! In some respects it is like the French counterpart of Respighi's Belkis, Regina di Saba, there's an exotic and sumptuous feel to it that is simply irresistible and the orchestration couldn't be better, simply spectacular in every respect. Without a doubt it's one of my greatest discoveries of this year and of recent times. Most definitely my kind of music. It must be awesome to hear this work live, a guaranteed success.

[vandermolen]

A fine composer!
'Beauty and the Beast' is a magical score and he wrote some other great music including the chilling score for 'Dead of Night', 'Orphée' etc.

[pjme]

So now and then French orchestras do play French composers!

[pjme]

this is very short for a "suite" , so possibly a fragment?

[Symphonic Addict]

I've also enjoyed Les Facheux and La Pastorale from this disc quite a bit, very different from the overwhelming Phèdre, but quite enjoyable all the same:

[pjme]

4 fragments (?) of a suite (?) are on YT.


"La chambre" by Roland Petit, Music by Georges Auric, libretto by Georges Simenon, December 1955
"GEORGES SIMENON swapped his inspectors' nailed shoes for dancing slippers. His first ballet, La Chambre, for the Roland Petit Company, tells, with music by Georges Auric and a set by Bernard Buffet, a detective story. A man is killed in a squalid room. An inspector investigates: he reconstructs the "pas de deux" of the crime. The culprit is a woman. Thanks to two young dancers, Veronika Mlakar and the American Buzz Miller, a former ranchman (??) (photo on the right), Simenon won the game at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. It was Cocteau who discovered the new star, Veronika, in Munich. Roland Petit brought her to Paris: He had never seen her. But at the airfield, he didn't hesitate; he recognized her by her dancing gait. Simenon, won over by his first contact with dance, wanted to go further. With his old friend Georges Auric, he writes the argument for a ballet in which he will make his police officers and his bad boys dance."
Paris Match 1956

http://www.simenon-simenon.com/2017/03/simenon-simenon-simenon-et-le-balle.html