Lyrad's Random 10

Georges Auric was one of the premier early composers for sound film, and I had first heard of him through his work on the films of Jean Renoir and, mainly, his outstandingly ironic comic score for Rene Clair's A Nous la Liberte. He was, as well, part of the dying art of "popularized" classical music, and recognized as part of "Les Six," a group of French composers who became popular together, though their music diverges significantly: Auric, Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Louis Durey, and (probably most significantly as one of the only popular female composers of the early 20th Century) Germaine Tailleferre, all of whom had rejected the recently popular Impressionistic stylings and tried to make their music less intellectual and academic to help it to function in a more popular, modern realm. They all had mixed success, and Auric was never as well known as some of his cohorts, Poulenc and Honegger, specifically, but he did have one big hit in "Where Is Your Heart?" from the soundtrack to the original Moulin Rouge. He may have not been the most popular of his time, but he may have proved the most lasting. Using modern American pop sensibilities with the advanced harmonies of his time, it seems that he preceded much of the progressive rock of a few decades later and, under the same light, his music has become more listenable.

1. Georges Auric--Notre Dame de Paris (Original Cast Recording); Farandole--Main Title
2. Memphis Minnie--Got To Leave You
3. The Skatalites--Coconut Rock
4. Luis Bacalov--Django (Suite) [from the soundtrack to Django]
5. Ruins--Vrresto
6. Iceburn--Blacksmith; 2. Hammeranvil
7. John Zorn--Tiki for Blue
8. Rosa Henderson--Penitentiary Blues
9. T. Rex--Love for Me
10. Django Reinhardt--Liebesfreud