Germaine Tailleferre

The name of Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) commonly brings to mind the intriguing group of French composers referred to in the 1920s as iconoclasts, and known as Les Six (with Poulenc, Auric, Durey, Milhaud, and Honegger). To envision her solely in this most brief of lights, however, does not bring a sense of justice to her legacy, for Tailleferre leaves behind a large and diverse body of musical work that spans 70 years, writing for more than a half-century after the precarious summit of Les Six. Although she was well acquainted with many influential 20th-century artists, from Picasso to Stravinsky to Charlie Chaplin, she remains a curiously mysterious, if not absent, figure in biographical studies and in studies of the times of which she was an integral part.