The Six = Les Six. A group of composers who claimed inspiration from Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie. Britannica gives:
"Les Six were Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Georges Auric, Louis Durey, and Germaine Tailleferre. The French critic Henri Collet originated the label Les Six in his article “The Russian Five, the French Six, and M. Erik Satie” (Comoedia, January 1920). Collet wished to draw a parallel between the well-known, highly nationalistic, late 19th-century Russian composers called The Five."
Parade, as I recall, is one of the seminal "astonish the bourgeoisie" theater pieces. It even has a part scored for typewriter. No piano reduction would be possible.
Seems so quaint nowadays. What would "astonish the bourgeoisie" now? An honest politician maybe? Robots having sex with goats during a wrestling match? That aim, to disturb the conventional assumptions of the middle-class, has been realized on so many levels, so many times, and has so debased the middle class, debased the culture, perhaps permanently damaged it ... and to what end? Yeah, I see the Beat Generation connection.
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