Moss, Deborah A. (2021) Jean Cocteau and Georges Auric: the 'poésie' and music that shaped their collaboration in the 'Mélodies, huit poèmes de Jean Cocteau' (1918). (PhD thesis), Kingston University, .
Abstract
Georges Auric (1899–1983) was the preferred musician of the author, impresario, cinematograph and artistic innovator Jean Cocteau (1889–1963). This was borne out by their fifty-year friendship and working relationship. Auric composed the soundtracks for all of Cocteau’s films. Their long-term alliance was based on mutual admiration and a shared transdisciplinary artistic aesthetic, motivated at the start by a desire to initiate a post-First World War new French musical identity. The collaboration did not fulfil the generally accepted understanding of the term, that of working simultaneously and in close proximity. Their creative processes were most successful when they worked individually and exchanged ideas from a distance through published correspondence and articles. Jean Cocteau’s creative practice spanned all of his artistic disciplines except music. Indeed, he chose not to be restricted by the limitations of any particular art form. Yet, he had a strong musical affinity and music was integral to the shaping of his diverse productions. He longed to be a musician and relied on Georges Auric to fill the musical void in his artistic practice. This thesis explores two mélodies, Hommage à Erik Satie and Portrait d’Henri Rousseau, the first and last, in Auric’s song series Huit poèmes de Jean Cocteau (1918)—one of his early collaborations with Cocteau. I analyse the word/music relationships from a transdisciplinary perspective, based on the interart work of Daniel Albright (1945–2015), Peter Dayan and Nicholas Cook, together with my interpretation of Cocteau’s concept of poésie, as an alternative applied methodology.
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