Georges Auric
Georges Auric (
February 15,
1899 –
July 23,
1983) was a French composer, born in
Lodève,
Hérault,
Languedoc-Roussillon,
France. He was a child prodigy and at age 15 he had his first compositions published. Before he turned 20 he had orchestrated and written incidental music for several
ballets and stage productions.
As a young student of at the Paris Conservatory in
1920, and, considered
avant-garde, Auric became part of
Satie and
Cocteau's famous group,
Les Six. His participation led to writing settings of poetry and other texts as songs and musicals.
When Jean Cocteau started making motion pictures, at the beginning of the
1930s Auric began writing film scores. He wrote soundtracks for a number of French and British films, and his success led to writing the music for
Hollywood movies too. Several times, Auric's work made it onto the
hit parade, notably "
The Song from Moulin Rouge".
Films he scored included
Jean Cocteau's
Beauty and the Beast (
1946),
The Lavender Hill Mob (
1951),
Moulin Rouge (
1952),
Roman Holiday (
1953),
Le Salaire de la Peur (
1955),
Rififi (
1956),
Bonjour Tristesse (
1958), and
Therese and Isabelle (
1968).
In
1962 he gave up writing for motion pictures when he became director of the
Opéra National de Paris and then chairman of SACEM, the French Performing Rights Society. Auric continued to write classical chamber music, especially for winds, right up to his death.
Auric was interred in the
Cimetière du Montparnasse,
Paris.
