Editing Les Six (section)

==Les Six==
According to Milhaud:

{{blockquote|[Collet] chose six names absolutely arbitrarily, those of Auric, Durey, Honegger, Poulenc, Tailleferre and me simply because we knew each other and we were pals and appeared on the same musical programmes, no matter if our temperaments and personalities weren't at all the same! Auric and Poulenc followed ideas of Cocteau, Honegger followed German Romanticism, and myself, Mediterranean lyricism!{{quote without source|date=July 2021}}|Ivry 1996}}

And according to Poulenc:
{{blockquote|The diversity of our music, of our tastes and distastes, precluded any common aesthetic. What could be more different than the music of Honegger and Auric? Milhaud admired [[Albéric Magnard|Magnard]], I did not; neither of us liked [[Florent Schmitt]], whom Honegger respected; Arthur [Honegger] on the other hand had a deep-seated scorn for [[Erik Satie|Satie]], whom Auric, Milhaud and I adored.|Quoted in Mark Amory, ''Lord Berners: The Last Eccentric'', 1998, ch. VI}}

But, that is only one reading of how the Groupe des Six originated. Other authors, like [[Ornella Volta]], stressed the manoeuvrings of [[Jean Cocteau]] to become the leader of an [[avant-garde]] group devoted to music, like the [[cubism|cubist]] and [[surrealism|surrealist]] groups which had sprung up in [[visual arts]] and [[literature]] shortly before, with [[Pablo Picasso]], [[Guillaume Apollinaire]], and [[André Breton]] as their key representatives. The fact that Satie had abandoned the ''Nouveaux jeunes'' less than a year after starting the group, was the "gift from heaven" that made it all come true for Cocteau: his 1918 publication, ''Le Coq et l'Arlequin'',<ref name="coq">{{cite web |last1=Hurard-Viltard |first1=Eveline |year=1989 |title=Jean Cocteau et la musique à travers "Le Coq et l'Arlequin" |work=Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles |url=https://digistore.bib.ulb.ac.be/2011/DL2503255_1989_1_2_000.pdf |publisher=[[Université Libre de Bruxelles]] |pages=85''ff'' |accessdate=18 July 2021}}</ref> is said to have kicked it off.

After [[World War I]], Jean Cocteau and Les Six began to frequent a bar known as "La Gaya" which became ''[[Le Bœuf sur le toit (cabaret)|Le Bœuf sur le toit]]'' (The Ox on the Roof) when the establishment moved to larger quarters. As the famous ballet by Milhaud had been conceived at the old premises, the new bar took on the name of [[Le bœuf sur le toit|Milhaud's ballet]].<ref>[[Roger Stéphane]], "Portrait souvenir de Jean Cocteau" (transcript of a French television interview in 1963 by the author and the subject) (Tallandier, 1964), pp. 63–67, {{ISBN|2-235-01889-0}}.</ref> On the renamed bar's opening night, pianist [[Jean Wiéner]] played tunes by [[George Gershwin]] and [[Vincent Youmans]] while Cocteau and Milhaud played percussion. Among those in attendance were impresario [[Sergei Diaghilev|Serge Diaghilev]], artist [[Pablo Picasso]], filmmaker [[René Clair]], singer [[Jane Bathori]], and actor and singer [[Maurice Chevalier]]. Another frequent guest was the young American composer [[Virgil Thomson]] whose compositions in subsequent years were influenced by members of Les Six.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=4yIwCwAAQBAJ&dq=Virgil+Thomson+LA+bOEUF+SUR+LE+TOIT&pg=PA136 Virgil Thomson: ''Virgil Thomson'' (New York: Library of America & Penguin Random House, 2016)], {{ISBN|978-1-59853-476-4}}, p. 135–136; Virgil Thomson and Le Boeuf sur le Toit on https://books.google.com</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=OHObaUvYuAUC&dq=Virgil+Thomson+Le+Gaya&pg=PA110 Alex Ross: ''The Rest is Noise. Listening to the Twentieth Century'' (New York: Picador, 2007)], {{ISBN|978-0-312-42771-9}}, p. 110; Virgil Thomas describes Le Boeuf sur le Toit on https://books.google.com</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=m8W2AgAAQBAJ&dq=Virgil+Thomson+Encyclopedia&pg=PA631 Lee Stacey & Lol Henderson (eds): ''Encyclopedia of Music in the 20th Century'' (New York: Routledge, 2013), p. 631; Virgil Thomson on Google Books]</ref><ref>[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virgil-Thomson ''Encyclopedia Britannica'' Virgil Thomson on www.britannica.com].</ref>