Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud | |
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Paris Conservatory | |
Occupations |
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Works | List of compositions |
Spouse | Madeleine Milhaud Milhaud |
Children | 1 |
Darius Milhaud (French: [daʁjys mijo]; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and Brazilian music and make extensive use of polytonality. Milhaud is considered one of the key modernist composers.[1] A renowned teacher, he taught many future jazz and classical composers, including Burt Bacharach, Dave Brubeck, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis among others.
Life and career
Milhaud was born in
Milhaud began as a violinist, later turning to composition instead. Milhaud studied in Paris at the
On his return to France, Milhaud composed works influenced by the Brazilian popular music he had heard, including compositions of Brazilian pianist and composer Ernesto Nazareth. Le Bœuf sur le toit includes melodies by Nazareth and other popular Brazilian composers of the time, and evokes the sounds of Carnaval. 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 produced Saudades do Brasil, a suite of twelve dances evoking twelve neighborhoods in Rio 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) to Arnold Schoenberg,[7] and the following year conducted both the French and British premieres of Pierrot lunaire after multiple rehearsals.[8] And on a trip to the United States in 1922, Milhaud heard "authentic" jazz for the first time, on the streets of Harlem,[9] which left a great impact on his musical outlook. The following year, he completed his composition La 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
Jazz pianist
In 1947 Milhaud was among the founders of the Music Academy of the West summer conservatory,[16] where popular songwriter Burt Bacharach was 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 the
Works
Darius Milhaud was very prolific and composed for a wide range of genres. His opus list ended at 443.
Milhaud (like such contemporaries as
Notable students
Archival collections
- There is a Darius Milhaud Collection at Mills Collegein California.
- Papers for the Darius Milhaud Society, formed by Milhaud's student Katharine Mulky Warne, are archived at Cleveland State University.
- There is another Darius Milhaud Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in New York City.
- Seymour Fromer CollectionJudah L. Magnes Museum, in Berkeley, California, has librettos for Milhaud's opera, David, as well as a program for its American premiere, in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Bowl,[21] and photocopies of newspaper coverage in the B'nai B'rithMessenger of Los Angeles of this event (1956).
Selected filmography
- The Beloved Vagabond (1915)
- L'Inhumaine (1924)
- Land Without Bread (1933)
- Tartarin of Tarascon (1934)
- Madame Bovary (1934)
- The Beloved Vagabond (1936)
- The Citadel of Silence (1937)
- Rasputin (1938)
- Mollenard (1938)
- The Mayor's Dilemma (1939)
- Espoir: Sierra de Teruel (1945)
- The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947)
- Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947)
- Dieu a choisi Paris (1969)
Legacy
Writing in his Guide 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-Milhaud near Paris is named after him.
Bibliography
- 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
- ISBN 0-520-21413-7.
- ISBN 978-0-9719037-0-8– via Google Books.
- ^ a b Neil W. Levin
- ^ "Darius Milhaud". Milken Archive of Jewish Music.
- ^ "Darius Milhaud, Rebel Composer, Dies". The New York Times. 25 June 1974.
- ^ Milhaud 1967, p. [page needed].
- ^ "Milhaud Quartets Volume 2 TROUBADISC TRO-CD 01410 [JW] Classical Music Reviews: July 2020 - MusicWeb-International". www.musicweb-international.com.
- ^ British Music and Modernism, 1895–1960, Riley, Matthew (ed), pp. 225–226]
- ^ a b "Milhaud – La création du monde". Pomona College, Department of Music. 1999. Archived from the original on 1 September 2006. Retrieved 25 October 2006..
- ^ The Independent. Obituary, 31 March 2008. London.
- ^ "Darius Milhaud" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 3, ed. Stanley Sadie (Oxford University Press, 2001)
- ^ Madeleine and Darius Milhaud, Hélène and Henri Hoppenot, Conversation: Correspondance 1918–1974, complétée par des pages du Journal d'Hélène Hoppenot, ed. Marie France Mousli (Paris: Gallimard, 2006), pp. 182–184.
- ^ Mills College program of 10 August 1949, in Archives of Henri Temianka Estate.
- ^ Aspen Institute program of 26 July 1950, in Archives of Henri Temianka Estate.
- ^ Brubeck interview.
- ^ Greenberg, Robert (26 August 2019). "Music History Monday: Lotte Lehmann". robertgreenbergmusic.com. Archived from the original on 7 February 2020. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
- ^ Cucos 2005, p. 200.
- ^ Cucos 2005, p. 205.
- ^ Centre Darius Milhaud: Cimetière Saint Pierre.
- ^ "Seymour Fromer collection on Darius Milhaud's David, 1954–1975", Western Jewish History Center
- ^ "Making Things Happen: The American Premiere of Darius Milhaud's Opera David (1956) Archived 11 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Western Jewish History Center
- ^ "Mark Morris's Guide to Twentieth Century Composers – MusicWeb-International".
Sources
- Cucos, Mihai (Winter 2005). "A Few Points about Burt Bacharach ...". S2CID 258130151.
- Milhaud, Darius (1967). Notes Without Music: An Autobiography. Translated by Donald Evans. London: Calder and Boyars. (French version published in 1953)
External links
- Complete categorized list of Darius Milhaud's composed works, with opus numbers
- Darius Milhaud biography and works, Universal Edition
- Biography and audio from Service Sacrée, Milken Archive of American Jewish Music
- Darius Milhaud 1892–1974 by Ronald Crichton. The Musical Times, August 1974
- The Boeuf Chronicles – How the ox got on the roof: Darius Milhaud and the Brazilian sources of "Le Boeuf sur le Toit" by Daniella Thompson
- Darius Milhaud's maximum card from Israel Archived 16 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- "Darius Milhaud (biography, works, resources)" (in French and English). IRCAM.
- Free scores by Darius Milhaud at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)