This article is about the French 1992 composer stamp set. The very first set of composer stamps were made in Austria in 1922. Afterwards, composer stamps and stamp sets have been popular all over the world. For example, you can read about other sets from Germany (1935), the United States (1940), and Czechoslovakia (1951), among others. This post will feature a French set of stamps depicting composers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century.
Les Six
I will admit that the set is a bit confusing. For example, four of the six stamps depict composers from the group known as Les Six. Those four composers who have stamps in this set are: Erik Satie, Arthur Honegger, Georges Auric, and Germaine Tailleferre. In 1920, Henri Collect, a music critic who wrote for the paper Comoedia, coined the term Les Six and named those four young composers as well as Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc. These composers were leaders of a new generation of French composers who rejected the grandiose romanticism of Richard Wagner as well as the emotional atmospheric impressionist music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
This is where I have to ask, why didn’t France just make a group of six stamps that featured the Les Six composers? Why make a set with four of those six, and then include with them two very different composers? It is a strange choice, but nonetheless, the other composers were Cesar Franck, who was born in Belgium and died in 1890. The last, and most obscure of the group, is Florent Schmitt.
The stamp set has a consistent design. For instance, each has a black and white (or sepia) photo of the composer. Additionally, each portrait sits against a colorful abstract design. Undoubtedly, this consistent treatment helps to unify the set. The designer of the stamps was René Dessirier.
Let’s take a closer look at the composers on these six stamps:
César Franck
The first stamp, at least in order of the Michel catalog, is the one featuring César Franck. Franck was famous for being a pianist, organist, music teacher, and composer active in Paris for his career. However, he was born in Liège (now Belgium) in 1822. By the time he was thirteen, though, he was studying music privately in Paris. Franck had a remarkable ability to improvise on the organ and for a time travelled widely to demonstrate instruments and show off his skill. In 1858, he became the organist at the Basilica of St. Clotilde, Paris, which gave him a permanent post from which he could also teach and compose. As a composer, Franck’s music is harmonically complex and stylistically related to other late Romantic music.
Erik Satie
The most important member of the group known as Les Six was Erik Satie. In 1917, he was the organizer of underground concerts in Paris during World War II, where he began to associate with a number of other French avant-garde composers. Satie was born in 1866 in Normandy, but at the age of four his family moved to Paris. After the death of his mother, however, he moved back to Normandy where he would receive his first music lessons at the age of twelve. In 1879, Satie began studying at the Paris Conservatory and while still a teenager was publishing piano pieces intended to be played in salons and parlors.
Satie rejected certain ideas from earlier composers and instead focused on compositions that contained one idea and mood. He did not believe in the idea of developing and intertwining new themes in classical forms such as the sonata and in writing largescale works.
Florent Schmitt
Schmitt was born in 1817 in Meurthe-et-Moselle, France. As a child, Schmitt took music lessons in Nancy and became proficient enough to enter the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 19. Then, in 1900, he was the winner of the Prix de Rome. For a decade, Schmitt was the music critic for Le Temps. All the while, Schmitt was an active composer. It is hard to believe now, but in the first half of the twentieth century, Schmitt was one of the most performed French composers. However, since World War II, his music has fallen from popularity. In part, this is due to his Nazi sympathies during the 1930s and 40s.
Arthur Honegger
Although he was born in Paris, Arthur Honegger’s parents were Swiss. After beginning his musical studies in Le Havre, he was able to attend the Zurich Conservatory. Then, in 1911, he entered the Paris Conservatory. Honegger wrote in a wide variety of styles from ballet, to opera, and even wrote early film scores.
Although he was a part of Les Six, his music was not a rejection of romanticism. His works had a more complex structure and he regular used both counterpoint and impressionistic orchestral textures. His most famous work is the opera Antigone.
Georges Auric
Another member of Les Six was Georges Auric. He was born in 1899 in Lodève, Hérault, France. Auric was a piano prodigy who began playing publicly at the age of fourteen and published his first music a year later. Auric went on to study music at the Paris Conservatoire. During the 1920s and 30s, he was an disciple of Satie’s music and style. He was a collaborate with the other composers of Les Six including contributing pieces to other projects. However, later, his compositional style changed to become more popular. He became a leading composer of French film scores beginning in the 1930s.
MI: FR 2896
Germaine Tailleferre
The final stamp in the set features another member of Les Six and the only female composer in both groups, Germaine Tailleferre. I would encourage you to check out my post specifically dedicated to Tailleferre and her work as a composer in twentieth-century France.
All of the composers in this French stamp set are lesser known, however the most famous is easily Erik Satie. Here is a beautiful performance of some of his work that I would encourage you to check out:
