Darius Milhaud
1892-1974
Milhaud was born in
Aix-en-Provence into one of oldest Southern-French Jewish families, which could
trace their ancestry back to the C10th. His father, an almond exporter, was the
accompanist for the Aix Music Society and his Italian mother was a professionally
trained contralto, who understood the discipline required to make a career in
music.
At the age of 7 Milhaud began
studying the violin. He had wanted to start sooner but doctors were prescribing
rest and tranquillity for his ill health, which would always be part of his
life. His mother instilled in him the strong self-disciplined needed to be a
musician, and supervised his homework and practising. Both his parents
supported his musical aspirations and sent him to classes at Paris
Conservatoire. He went to live in Paris in 1909 but returned to Aix regularly.
He loved to listen to the hum of
conversation and songs of the workers in the field. He found his first
inspirations at his grandmother’s country house. The smells and colours of the
kitchen garden, the Mediterranean flowers and trees, the beauty of the ornamental
pond and the views of countryside, all formed lasting impressions on his
personality and his music. Provence was etched on his subconscious and the
rugged Provençal hills of Aix are as evocative in his music as they are in the
paintings of Cézanne.
In a few bars of music Milhaud was able to unfold this
vivid landscape of intense heat and iridescent light, village gardens and
vineyards, the azure seas and the sounds of animals people working the land.
His music grew out of this landscape. He wrote what he heard, saw and felt,
however he did not compose musical picture postcards. Provence, for Milhaud was
the nexus of Byzantium and the New World.
“It
is both wild and orderly, like the landscape of Tuscany but more glowing; for
along with grapevines and almond trees, the red, charred soil is overlaid with
the wind-shifted grey or silver haze of olive orchards… Around a bend in the
road, all of a sudden, in a hollow, is ‘yellow’ Aix, or rather ‘russet’ Aix,
basking in the sunlight. It seems as though its rays penetrate the very heart
of the stones, baking them thoroughly... The abrasive sunlight, more than the
Mistral, has eaten away the trimming on balconies and cornices. What an ode to
summer the spectacle of this town is, glowing in the sun and dust, framed by
yellow vegetation and ruddy earth: what an affirmation! Many other delights
await the person who searches further into the byways of the city and discovers
the secrets of life that emanate from them. Above all, he will be aware of
contrasts: though Aix may be a symphony composed to the glory of the sun, there
is also, beneath its plane trees, the deepest possible shade…the splashing
water from mossy fountains, located at every street-corner, murmurs
unceasingly. As shadow complements the brilliance of sunlight, so water
satisfies this thirsty earth: where can this special equilibrium, this balance
of contrasting passions, be better observed?” Paul Collaer.
His open, friendly personality
made him welcome at the Paris salons, where he met Ravel and the singer Jane
Bathori and met the other members of the group that would become known as ‘Les
Six’. In 1913 the publisher Durand approached him about his Quartet and he got
his first contract the next day. It was Durand who sent him to his only meeting
with Debussy for advice on certain aspects. The Princess de Polignac heard his
music at a soirée and became a devoted supporter. He also met the poet-diplomat
Paul Claudel, who would be the catalyst for Milhaud’s lifelong passion for
travel. They visited Germany and Switzerland together and would soon embark on
an adventure that would earn Milhaud the epithet of ‘Le Globetrotter’.
At the outbreak of World War One his friends and relatives
came to Aix to take refuge. Milhaud was rejected for military service because
of his ill health and he returned to Paris. All his friends were serving at the
front, so he entered the Conservatoire’s Lepaulle prize and won the only prize
in his life with a sonata for two violins. Every day he visited his cousin
Madeleine and often went out with her to keep her company during air raids.
Determined to do his bit for the war effort, he joined the Foyer Franco-Belge,
which assisted refugees by giving them money and work. He organised series of
concerts to raise funds.
He returned to Aix in 1915, briefly calling on Claudel,
who was taking a vacation from his job as commercial attaché at the Embassy in
Rome. The death of some of his friends had grieved him deeply and he left the
Foyer to join the Maison de la Presse and propaganda services. Milhaud was then
attached to the Army photographic service.
In 1916 Claudel invited him to go
with him to Rio de Janeiro as his secretary, and Milhaud eagerly seized the
opportunity. This experience opened new musical horizons and began his
fascination with Latin American rhythms and music. Milhaud’s subsequent multi-tonal
experiments in his music were inspired by the sounds and nature of this
tropical country at night: “I would feel rays and tremors converging on me from
all points in the sky and from below ground, simultaneous musics rushing
towards me from all different directions.”
Although Stravinski is considered
the father of modern bitonality and polychordality, Milhaud was also inspired
by Charles Koechlin, one of the great unknown C20th French composers. He would
try to avoid using key and time signatures to find a quasi-improvisational
freedom. Some pieces were notated rhythm only, of no pitch, with declamation
and percussion.
Yet his music always retained a Mediterranean spirit, in that
it has a particular lyric quality, which is identified as commonly shared by
all inhabitants of the Littoral. It is perhaps the legacy of Odysseus, Greek
tragedy, Hebrew scriptures, the Bible, Horace and Virgil. This quality is most
evident in his pre-1920 triptych operas: ‘Agamemnon’, ‘Les Choëphores’ and ‘Les
Euménides’ with text by Claudel.
In 1919, his stay in Brazil came to an end. An experienced
and matured Milhaud returned to Paris. He would never be able to compose in
Paris as the city bustle, concerts, plays, friends and obligations kept him too
busy. He did most of his work during the glorious southern summers in Aix at
l’Enclos on the Route des Alpes; a big square yellow house, almost hidden by
plane trees that dappled the sunlight. There fountains murmured and his
gardener, Léon was a master of ceremonies, at the perpetual spectacle of
changing light and shade. Milhaud’s study was an earthen-floored enclosure
surrounded by four large plane trees. There, near the soil, the flowers, the
murmuring waters, and the violent contrast of sun and shade, his music took
shape.
In Paris, he was part of Cocteau’s circle and became one
of ‘Les Six’. They met on Saturday evenings for cocktails and dinner in
Montmartre. Milhaud was greatly inspired and influenced by Satie’s simple
expressiveness and clarity, combined with a sharp yet refined wit. The joint
compositions of ‘Les Six’ ‘Le boeuf sur le toit’ 1919 and ‘Les Mariés de la
Tour Eiffel’ 1921 had given them the reputation of unprincipled exploiters of
fashionable oddities. Even Milhaud’s ‘La Brebis égarée’ a relatively conventional
piece, caused a riot when it was performed at the Opéra Comique in 1923, and
critics refused to take the song cycles ‘Machines Agricoles’ (settings of
descriptions of farm machinery in agricultural catalogues) and ‘Catalogue de
Fleurs’ (to poems by Lucien Daudet, inspired by a florist’s catalogue) in the
perfectly serious spirit in which they had been conceived. Milhaud’s genius in
taking everyday things and putting them in a special situation was
incomprehensible to them.
“I had written musical settings for descriptions of
machinery taken from a catalogue I had brought back from an exhibition of
agricultural machinery…I had been so impressed by the beauty of these great
multicoloured metal insects…that I thought of celebrating them in music. I had
put away in a drawer a number of catalogues which I came across in 1919. I then
composed a little suite for singer and seven solo instruments in the style of
my little symphonies…a few months later, I used the same group of instruments
for setting to some delightful poems by Lucien Daudet inspired by a florist’s
catalogue: ‘Catalogue de Fleurs’.”
Composed in Aix in 1920, they were originally for voice
and chamber ensemble: Flute, clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and bass.
Milhaud composed 265 songs and this miniature cycle is one of the most lyrical
of his compositions. They were premiered in Paris in 1932 by the singer Madame
Martine and conducted by Roger Desormière. He lived opposite Milhaud and would
take him out with his motorcycle and sidecar, visiting the country round about
Paris. Desormière’s great talents promoted and defended his comrades’ work and
his experience in film music lead to a collaboration with Milhaud and Honegger
on film scores in the 1940’s.
‘Catalogue de Fleurs’ for solo voice with piano was
written in Aix, in April 1920 and received its first performance in 1922, at
Paris Conservatoire with the voice of Madame Martine. Both setting are
dedicated to the memory of Guy Pierre Fauconnet, a French painter, who designed
avant-garde scenery, costumes and masks and died in tragic circumstances while
lighting a fire at home. He was the first of the group to die in the post-war
period.
Before the outbreak of World War Two, Milhaud visited
London, USA, Russia, Syria, Sardinia, Italy, Portugal and Spain. He took up the
invitation of Manuel De Falla to visit Granada and see The Alhambra and
Generalife. Milhaud stayed at his home in Antequeruela Alta, overlooking
hillside inhabited by gypsies.
He was an enthusiastic traveller; nothing stopped him, not
even his disabilities or difficult circumstances. He now travelled with his
wife, Madeleine, an actress and writer, and actually his cousin from Aix. By
1930 his Rheumatoid Arthritis was getting worse. He would be bed ridden in
agony for weeks at a time. Madeleine nursed him but the best treatment was
acupuncture. Eventually he would be
confined to a wheelchair but he never allowed it to confine his passion for
travelling.
The German occupation put him in great danger; as a high
profile Jew and intellectual he would have been arrested. Despite his
disability and with only a minimum of money, he and his wife escaped to Spain
then Portugal. There they discovered that the air tickets they had were
invalid. In desperation they took a freighter to the USA, just as telegram
arrived offering him teaching post in California. In exile, he taught
composition at Mills College in California alongside Aaron Copland and Arnold
Schoenberg. He was good friends with Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya who introduced
him to New Orleans jazz.
On his return to France in 1947, he found his homes looted
and a Wagner score on his piano at his Paris apartment. Most of his possessions
had been stolen by the concierge but he was most horrified at the devastation
of his home in Aix. Roger Desormière had managed to save his piano and pictures
and had paid the rent on his apartment during occupation. Honegger had stored
some of his papers and music and Poulenc had rescued some of his published
music after the publisher was arrested.
Like many Jews who had survived the horrors of the war, he
made a special journey to Israel. In 1952 he wrote ‘King David’ an opera, for
the Festival of Israel, in honour of the 3,000th anniversary of King
David and the foundation of Jerusalem.
The ‘Globetrotter’ died in Geneva in 1974. He was one of
the major composers of the C20th and also one of its most prodigious; over 450
of his works have been catalogued. Travel was his great passion and even with a
heart condition and pacemaker in later life he continued his Odyssey. © H Kean
My Translation of A Catalogue of Flowers
Catalogue
de Fleurs
1. La Violette
The Cyclops violet
Grows wonderfully
Into a beautiful Solferino red.
It is very perfumed,
Early flowering and hardy.
2. Le Bégonia
Begonia
Aurora,
Very
double flower,
Apricot
mixed with coral,
Very
prettily coloured.
Rare and
curious.
3. Les Fritillaires
Fritillaries love sunny
places,
Sheltered from the wind and
spring frosts.
In winter they need
covering.
They are also known as
Plover’s Eggs And Imperial Crowns.
4. Les Jacinthes
Albertine pure white
Lapeyrousse pale purple
King of the Belgians pure
carmine red
King of the Blues dark blue
Miss Malakoff bright yellow
in a posy.
5. Les Crocus
The crocus grows quickly in
pots
Or on damp moss in saucers.
In open ground, alone or
mixed
With other spring flowering
plants,
They make a very pretty
effect.
6. Le Brachycome
Brachycome Iberidifolia Blue
Star,
New variety,
Charming dwarf plant
Covered in blue flowers
Of brightest blue.
7. L’Eremurus
Eremurus Isabelinus,
Guaranteed flowering.
The spike of this
magnificent species Sometimes reaches two metres.
Its flowers are beautifully
coloured
From yellow to pink
And long lasting.
You will receive the prices
in the mail!
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