Georges Auric

Georges Auric (1899-1983) was one of the less well-known members of the iconoclastic group of French composers known as Les Six, which also included Poulenc, Milhaud, and Honegger. His music could be genial, ironic, witty, or lyrical, with lean but colorful orchestration, and he incorporated popular idioms into a sophisticated harmonic language. He is most remembered for his dramatic music: ballets for Diaghilev, incidental music, and film scores, the most famous being for Cocteau's Le Sang d'un poète, La Belle et la Bête, and Orphée, and John Huston's Moulin Rouge, one of whose songs became a pop classic.