Catalogue Connection: 21141

For much of the twentieth century, Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was a dominating figure in French culture. He was a visual artist, designer, writer, playwright, librettist and universal man of the arts. For a good recent survey, see Kenneth E. Silver (ed.), Jean Cocteau: the Juggler’s Revenge, Marsilio Arte 2024.

Cocteau also had a particular relationship with music, although he was not a professional performer. He was the presiding spirit of the group Les Six, and was friends with Erik Satie and Igor Stravinsky, among others. This cleverly designed disc celebrates those relationships. There are contributions from all those I have mentioned, plus a tribute by Rhona Clarke in its first recording.

Les Six were Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre. Cocteau wrote their artistic manifesto, Le Coq et l’Arlequin. He rejected Wagner’s romanticism and Debussy’s impressionism, and said that artists should take their inspiration from café concerts, cabaret, music hall, circus, ragtime and jazz.

Eric Satie was briefly associated with Les Six, but was not a member. His Rag Time Parade is a jolly inconsequential number, arranged from Cocteau’s ballet Parade. Then we have three works by Tailleferre. She was a member of the group, but one rather sees the influence of Ravel in these pieces, even if one of them is Hommage à Debussy.

Igor Stravinsky, Cocteau’s friend and occasional collaborator, makes two appearances. He wrote Ragtime for an ensemble of eleven players, including a cimbalon, but this is his own arrangement for piano. It is not exactly an exercise in ragtime, but has been described as its Cubist portrait. Anyway, it is a splendid piece. Cinq doigts is a teaching pieces he wrote for his children as duets, here transcribed for solo piano. Though tiny, they are characteristic of the composer.

Between Stravinsky’s works, we have Satie’s three Gnossiennes. Charming and melancholy, they are in my view the best of the composer. His other contribution, Rêverie de l’enfamce de Pantagruel, is much less interesting; I wish we had Stravinsky’s Piano-Rag-Music instead.

Milhaud’s Le Tango des Fratellini is an excerpt from his ballet Le Boeuf sur le Toit, transcribed for piano by Henri Mouton. It has all the verve and high spirits of that work.

Then we have a rarity, the complete suite L’Album des Six, the only work in which all the original members collaborated. The short pieces are not particularly remarkable but it is nice to hear them. In particular, I was glad to hear at last something by Louis Durey, the mystery man of the group. Even at that stage, you can hear that Honegger, in his Sarabande, was pulling away from their aesthetic.

Finally, we have Rhona Clarke’s Cocteau, a portrait of the artist in six numbers, with some titles from works of his. This is an attractively varied suite in an idiom which also is not that of Les Six. Rather, like Tailleferre’s piece, it is closer to Ravel. In fact, I found myself thinking of John Ireland, who also developed a similar idiom. Isabelle O’Connell, the pianist here, commissioned Clarke’s work. That gave rise to this programme.

O’Connell, of Irish origin but now based mainly in New York, is particularly active in promoting new music. Here, she plays fluently. The recording is good. This concept album has no obvious competition; it should appeal to fans of Les Six.

Currently on the piano faculty as Artist-in-Residence at New York’s Bard College, Franco-Irish pianist Isabelle O’Connell has worked with a who’s-who of contemporary composers, from Missy Mazzoli and Julia Wolfe to John Adams and Donnacha Dennehy. Her unwavering commitment to new music is upheld on Cocteau in its premiere of Irish composer Rhona Clarke’s 2022 titular work; it also, however, documents a particularly fertile period in twentieth-century French culture in presenting material by contemporaries of Cocteau (1889-1963). Pieces by Satie, Stravinsky, and Les Six members Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre appear alongside Clarke’s twenty-six-minute work, making for a supremely rewarding presentation.

More than six decades after his death, Cocteau’s influence is still felt, as indicated, for instance, by the trilogy of Cocteau-inspired works Philip Glass created between 1993 and ’96 (Orphée, La Belle et la Bête, Les Enfants terribles) as well as Clarke’s own piece, written expressly for O’Connell. As a poet, film-maker, and writer, Cocteau played a major part in the directions the century’s artistic movements took. He admired the simplicity, clarity, and refinement of Satie’s writing and also believed young artists should draw for inspiration from cabarets, music halls, and jazz venues that were injecting so much excitement into French culture. A simple scan of the set-list shows O’Connell fashioned it with such details in mind. She also very smartly decided to place the titular work last, such that the music of Cocteau’s contemporaries sets a grand stage for the new piece.

No account of the century’s French classical music would be complete without Satie, and to that end O’Connell’s included Rag-Time Parade, Rêverie de l’enfance de Pantagruel, and Trois Gnossiennes (Trois Gymnopédies too, though as a digital-only bonus). Stravinsky’s well-represented by Ragtime and Les Cinq Doigts, while pieces by Tailleferre and Milhaud are featured separately and as part of L’Album des Six, which presents works by all of the group’s members. Recorded at St. Peter’s Church in Drogheda, Ireland during October 2024, the eighty-minute album’s a thorough account of the era.

After Satie’s cheery Rag-Time Parade sets an infectious tone, Tailleferre explores a different side via the graceful Fauré-influenced stylings of Pas trop vite. Her heartfelt appreciation Hommage à Debussy, written, naturally, after the composer’s death, and exuberant Très vite likewise offer examples of the composer’s range. As familiar as they are, there’s no denying the enduring charm of Satie’s haunting Gnossiennes, superb models for the artistic values Cocteau endorsed. O’Connell delivers them at a slightly slower and contemplative pace than some pianists but not so much that they feel lifeless and anemic.

Like Satie, Stravinsky was seduced by the sound and style of ragtime, hence his own like-titled riff on the genre. Like every piece created by him, Ragtime instantly identifies as a Stravinsky creation whilst also adhering to the jazzy syncopation of the genre. The miniatures constituting 1921’s Les Cinqs Doigts (subtitled “8 mélodies très faciles sur 5 notes,” or “eight very easy melodies on five notes”) tickle the ear with Russian folk melodies and neoclassical elegance. O’Connell states that “the influence of Satie is obvious,” yet while that might be so the material, be it the touching “Lento” or tango-like “Pesante,” retains Stravinsky’s indelible signature.

After listening to Milhaud’s Le Tango des Fratellini, no one’ll bat an eye at discovering that it started out as background music for a Charlie Chaplin film before its use in a Cocteau ballet. Milhaud’s second appearance, a shadowy “Mazurka,” comes by way of L’Album des Six, the only work on which all six members collaborated. Auric starts things off well with a sparkling “Prélude,” after which Durey follows it with the pretty “Romance sans paroles” and Honegger a ruminative “Sarabande.” Let’s not overlook Poulenc’s jovial “Valse” and Tailleferre’s chiming “Pastorale” either.

The culmination is, of course, Clarke’s Cocteau, whose six parts were inspired by the artist’s drawings but also his charismatic personality and artistic command. Whereas a sketch of costume studies, for example, led to “Antigone” and its flickering flow of pirouette-related dance gestures, the two “Portrait” movements were loosely based on his 1962 self-portrait. The dark chord that opens the first might be construed as an allusion to the startling impact of viewing the pencil-drawn image, which shows the artist at an advancing age; inhabiting a lower register, the ponderous, stripped-down second’s even darker. The ultra-dramatic “Blood of a poet,” “Orpheus,” and “Oedipus” make demands on O’Connell’s virtuosity in their rapid-fire flurries of swirling arpeggios and oceanic clusters.It doesn’t surprise that the album’s a delight.

O’Connell’s playing is never less than terrific, and the programme she assembled engages. The pianist’s decision to augment Clarke’s new composition with others indirectly associated with it was a smart and artistically rewarding decision. The dynamic and stylistic range of the material also allowed her to show how effectively she operates within different contexts.