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Darius Milhaud

"Milhaud" redirects here. For the commune in the Gard, seeMilhaud, Gard.For other uses, seeMilhaud (disambiguation).

Darius Milhaud(French:[daʁjysmijo];4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member ofLes Six—also known asThe Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced byjazzand Brazilian music and make extensive use ofpolytonality.Milhaud is considered one of the keymodernist composers.[1]A renowned teacher, he taught many future jazz and classical composers, includingBurt Bacharach,Dave Brubeck,Philip Glass,Steve Reich,Karlheinz StockhausenandIannis Xenakisamong others.

Darius Milhaud
Milhaud in 1923
Born(1892-09-04)4 September 1892
Marseille,France
Died22 June 1974(1974-06-22)(aged 81)
Geneva, Switzerland
EducationParis Conservatory
Occupations
  • Composer
  • Conductor
  • Academic teacher
WorksList of compositions
SpouseMadeleine Milhaud Milhaud
Children1

Life and career

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Milhaud was born inMarseille,the son of Sophie (Allatini) and Gad Gabriel Milhaud.[2]Nevertheless, he grew up inAix-en-Provence,which he regarded as his true ancestral city.[3]His was a long-established Jewish family of theComtat Venaissin—a secluded region of Provence—with roots traceable there at least to the 15th century. On his father's side, Milhaud's Jewish lineage was thus neitherAshkenazinorSephardi,but rather specifically Provençal—dating to Jewish settlement in that part of southern France as early as the first centuries of the Common Era.[3]Milhaud's mother, however, was partly Sephardi on her father's side; according to the obituary in theNYT,his mother was from aSephardi Jewishfamily from Italy.[4][5]

Milhaud began as a violinist, later turning to composition instead. Milhaud studied in Paris at theParis Conservatorywhere he met his fellow group membersArthur HoneggerandGermaine Tailleferre.He studiedcompositionunderCharles WidorandharmonyandcounterpointwithAndré Gedalge.He also studied privately withVincent d'Indy.From 1917 to 1919, he served as secretary toPaul Claudel,the eminent poet and dramatist who was then the French ambassador to Brazil, and with whom Milhaud collaborated for many years, setting music for many of Claudel's poems and plays. While in Brazil, they collaborated on a ballet,L'Homme et son désir.[6]

On his return to France, Milhaud composed works influenced by the Brazilian popular music he had heard, including compositions of Brazilian pianist and composerErnesto Nazareth.Le Bœuf sur le toitincludes melodies by Nazareth and other popular Brazilian composers of the time, and evokes the sounds ofCarnaval.Among the melodies is, in fact, a Carnaval tune by the name of "The Bull on the Roof" (in Portuguese, which he translated to French 'Le boeuf sur le toit', known in English as 'The Ox on the Roof'). He also producedSaudades do Brasil,a suite of twelve dances evoking twelve neighborhoods inRio de Janeiro.Shortly after the original piano version appeared, he orchestrated the suite.

Contemporary European influences were also important. Milhaud dedicated his Fifth String Quartet (1920) toArnold Schoenberg,[7]and the following year conducted both the French and British premieres ofPierrot lunaireafter multiple rehearsals.[8]And on a trip to the United States in 1922, Milhaud heard "authentic"jazzfor the first time, on the streets ofHarlem,[9]which left a great impact on his musical outlook. The following year, he completed his compositionLa création du monde(The Creation of the World), using ideas and idioms from jazz, cast as a ballet in six continuous dance scenes.[9]

In 1925, Milhaud married his cousin,Madeleine(1902–2008), an actress and reciter. In 1930 she gave birth to a son, the painter and sculptor Daniel Milhaud, who was the couple's only child.[10]

The invasion of France by Nazi Germany forced the Milhauds to leave France in 1940[11]and emigrate to the United States (his Jewish background made it impossible for Milhaud to return to his native country until after itsliberation).[12]He secured a teaching post atMills CollegeinOakland, California,where he composed the operaBolivar(1943) and collaborated withHenri Temiankaand thePaganini Quartet.In an extraordinary concert there in 1949, theBudapest Quartetperformed the composer's 14th String Quartet, followed by thePaganini Quartet's performance of his 15th; and then both ensembles played the two pieces together as an octet.[13]The following year, these same pieces were performed at theAspen Music Festivalin Colorado, by the Paganini andJuilliard String Quartets.[14]

Jazz pianistDave Brubeckbecame one of Milhaud's most famous students when Brubeck furthered his music studies at Mills College in the late 1940s. In a February 2010 interview withJazzWax,Brubeck said he attended Mills, a women's college (men were allowed in graduate programs), specifically to study with Milhaud, saying, "Milhaud was an enormously gifted classical composer and teacher who loved jazz and incorporated it into his work. My older brotherHowardwas his assistant and had taken all of his classes. "[15]Brubeck named his first sonDarius.

In 1947 Milhaud was among the founders of theMusic Academy of the Westsummer conservatory,[16]where popular songwriterBurt Bacharachwas among his students.[17]Milhaud told Bacharach, "Don't be afraid of writing something people can remember and whistle. Don't ever feel discomfited by a melody."[18]

From 1947 to 1971, he taught alternate years at Mills and theParis Conservatoire,until poor health, which caused him to use a wheelchair during his later years (beginning in the 1930s), compelled him to retire. He also taught on the faculty of theAspen Music Festival and School.As well as Brubeck, his students includedWilliam Bolcom,Steve Reich,Katharine Mulky Warne,andRegina Hansen Willman.He died inGenevaat the age of 81, and he was buried in theSaint-Pierre Cemeteryin Aix-en-Provence.[19]

Works

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See also:List of compositions by Darius Milhaud
Suite d'après corrette(0:29)
Suite for oboe, clarinet and bassoon, Op. 161b (1937); after the incidental music Jules César, Op. 158 (1936)

Darius Milhaud was very prolific and composed for a wide range of genres. His opus list ended at 443.

Milhaud (like such contemporaries asHindemith,Malipiero,Henry Cowell,Hovhaness,Martinů,andVilla-Lobos) was an extremely rapid creator, for whom the art of writing music seemed almost as natural as breathing. His most popular works includeLe bœuf sur le toit(a ballet that lent its name to the legendarycabaretfrequented by Milhaud and other members of Les Six),La création du monde(a ballet for small orchestra with solo saxophone, influenced by jazz),Scaramouche(a suite for two pianos, also for alto saxophone or clarinet and orchestra), andSaudades do Brasil(a dance suite). His autobiography is titledNotes sans musique(Notes Without Music), later revised asMa vie heureuse(My Happy Life).

Notable students

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For Milhaud's notable students, seeList of music students by teacher: K to M § Darius Milhaud.

Archival collections

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Selected filmography

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Legacy

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Writing in hisGuide to Twentieth Century Music,critic Mark Morris described Milhaud's work as "one of the unassessed quantities of 20th century music. For as one of its most prolific composers (around 450 works), the quality of his music is so patently uneven that the reputation for the banal and the shallow has masked what is or might be (given the paucity of performances) both inspired and fascinating."[22]For a composer of acknowledged influence and significance, a number of his pieces lack contemporary professional recordings, such as the second Viola Concerto – a consequence perhaps of his prolific and uneven output.

Lycée intercommunal Darius-Milhaudnear Paris is named after him.

Bibliography

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  • Deborah Mawer:Darius Milhaud. Modality and Structure in Music of the 1920s(Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997)
  • Barbara L. Kelly:Tradition and Style in the Works of Darius Milhaud (1912–1939)(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)

References

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  1. ^Reinhold Brinkmann & Christoph Wolff,Driven into Paradise: The Musical Migration from Nazi Germany to the United States(Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1999), 133.ISBN0-520-21413-7.
  2. ^Portrait(s) of Darius Milhaud.Darius Milhaud Society. 24 January 2002.ISBN978-0-9719037-0-8– via Google Books.
  3. ^abNeil W. Levin
  4. ^"Darius Milhaud".Milken Archive of Jewish Music.
  5. ^"Darius Milhaud, Rebel Composer, Dies".The New York Times.25 June 1974.
  6. ^Milhaud 1967,p.[page needed].
  7. ^"Milhaud Quartets Volume 2 TROUBADISC TRO-CD 01410 [JW] Classical Music Reviews: July 2020 - MusicWeb-International".www.musicweb-international.com.
  8. ^British Music and Modernism, 1895–1960,Riley, Matthew (ed), pp. 225–226]
  9. ^ab"Milhaud –La création du monde".Pomona College,Department of Music. 1999. Archived fromthe originalon 1 September 2006.Retrieved25 October2006..
  10. ^The Independent.Obituary, 31 March 2008. London.
  11. ^"Darius Milhaud" inThe New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,vol. 3, ed.Stanley Sadie(Oxford University Press, 2001)
  12. ^Madeleineand Darius Milhaud, Hélène andHenri Hoppenot,Conversation: Correspondance 1918–1974, complétée par des pages du Journal d'Hélène Hoppenot,ed. Marie France Mousli (Paris: Gallimard, 2006), pp. 182–184.
  13. ^Mills College program of 10 August 1949, in Archives of Henri Temianka Estate.
  14. ^Aspen Institute program of 26 July 1950, in Archives of Henri Temianka Estate.
  15. ^Brubeck interview.
  16. ^Greenberg, Robert (26 August 2019)."Music History Monday: Lotte Lehmann".robertgreenbergmusic.com.Archived fromthe originalon 7 February 2020.Retrieved7 February2020.
  17. ^Cucos 2005,p. 200.
  18. ^Cucos 2005,p. 205.
  19. ^Centre Darius Milhaud: Cimetière Saint Pierre.
  20. ^"Seymour Fromer collection on Darius Milhaud's David, 1954–1975",Western Jewish History Center
  21. ^"Making Things Happen: The American Premiere of Darius Milhaud's OperaDavid(1956)Archived11 August 2021 at theWayback Machine,Western Jewish History Center
  22. ^"Mark Morris's Guide to Twentieth Century Composers – MusicWeb-International".

Sources

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Wikimedia Commons has media related toDarius Milhaud.
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