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Darius Milhaud

 

(born Sept. 4, 1892, Aix-en-Provence, France — died June 22, 1974, Geneva, Switz.) French composer. Milhaud studied at the Paris Conservatoire, then at the Schola Cantorum with Vincent d'Indy. He became known as one of Les Six, a group of young French composers. His music is characterized by polytonality (simultaneous use of different keys), as in Saudades do Brazil (1921); though dissonant, his compositions retain a lyrical quality. The influence of jazz is audible in his best-known work, the ballet The Creation of the World (1923). He wrote many ballets, operas, and film scores in the 1920s, culminating in the grand opera Christophe Colomb (1928). Milhaud had a longtime association with the Aspen Music Festival, which he helped found in 1949.

For more information on Darius Milhaud, visit Britannica.com.

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(b Aix-en-Provence, 4 Sept 1892; d Geneva, 22 June 1974). French composer. He studied with Widor, Gédalge and Dukas at the Paris Conservatoire and became associated with Claudel, who took him to Rio de Janeiro as his secretary (1916-18): he wrote incidental music for Claudel's translation of the Oresteia (1922), making innovatory use of chanting chorus and percussion; he also drew on Brazilian music in his ballet L′homme et son désir (1918). But Claudel's influence was briefly succeeded by Cocteau's, and he became a member of Les Six; works of this period include the ballet Le boeuf sur le toit (1919). In 1922 he sought out jazz in Harlem and used the experience in another ballet, Le création du monde (1923). Thereafter he travelled widely, taught on both sides of the Atlantic and produced a colossal output in all genres, normally in a style of fluent bitonality. His operas include Les malheurs d′Orphée (composed1925), Le pauvre matelot (1926), Christophe Colomb (1928), Maximilien (1930), Bolivar (1943), David (1952) and Saint Louis (1970). There are also 12 symphonies and much other orchestral music, sacred and secular choral music, 18 quartets and songs.

works:
Dramatic music

  • 15 operas, incl. Les malheurs d′Orphée (1926)
  • Le pauvre matelot (1927)
  • Christophe Colomb (1930)
  • Maximilien (1932)
  • Bolivar (1950)
  • David (1954)
  • Saint Louis (1972)
  • 17 ballets, incl. L′homme et son désir (1921)
  • Le boeuf sur le toit (1919)
  • La création du monde (1923)
  • Moïse (1940)
  • incidental music for 40 plays, incl., Protée (1919)
  • Les choëphores (1919)
  • Les euménides (1927)
  • 26 film scores, incl. Madame Bovary (1933)
  • 11 radio scores and miscellanea
Orchestral music
  • 2 sym. suites
  • 6 chamber syms.
  • 12 syms. (no.3 with chorus)
  • 5 pf concs.
  • 3 vn concs.
  • 2 va concs.
  • 2 vc concs.
  • Le carnaval d′Aix, pf, orch (1926)
  • Concertino de printemps, vn, chamber orch (1934)
  • Suite provençale (1936)
  • Kentuckiana (1948)
  • Suite cisalpine, vc, orch (1954)
  • other ovs., concs., concertinos, fanfares
  • 5 works for brass band, incl. Suite françcaise (1944)
Vocal music
  • 39 choral works, incl. Service sacré (1947)
  • 34 solo vocal works, incl. Alissa, cycle, S, pf (1913, rev. 1931), Catalogue de fleurs, 1v, pf/7 insts (1920)
  • c30 sets of songs, incl. Poèmes juifs (1916)
  • many single songs
Chamber and instrumental music
  • 18 str qts, 20 other chamber works, incl. trios, 4 qnts
  • c25 sonatas, sonatinas
  • 20 pf works, incl. Saudades do Brasil (1921)
  • 5 works for 2 pf, incl. Scaramouche (1937), Carnaval à la Nouvelle-Orléans (1947)
  • 5 org works
Other
  • 9 children's works
  • arrs. of Auric, Poulenc, Satie
  • 3 bks, incl. Notes sans musique (1949) [autobiography]


Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Darius Milhaud

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The French composer and teacher Darius Milhaud (born 1892) was the main champion of polytonality in the 20th century.

Darius Milhaud was born on Sept. 4, 1892, in Aixen-Provence. His family, descended from a line of Jews established in the region for generations, had the time and means to encourage their son's musical interests: violin lessons at age 7, participation in the quartet organized by his violin teacher at age 13, and studies at the Paris Conservatory (1909-1912) mark the well-planned stages of his student career. Typical of his generation, he voiced a strong distaste for the music of Richard Wagner and an equally strong admiration for Modest Mussorgsky and Claude Debussy. Sensing, nevertheless, the dangers of impressionism for his own development - "too much fog," "too many perfumed breezes" - Milhaud resolved to "break the spell" of Debussy, although "my heart always remained faithful."

Anti-impressionism was undoubtedly one of the two major factors uniting, just after World War I, the group of composers known as Les Six; the author Jean Cocteau was the other. Not a musician and therefore, by his own designation, not eligible for "membership" in the group, Cocteau was nevertheless its guiding spirit. His collaboration with Milhaud resulted in Le Boeuf sur le toit (1919), Le Train bleu (1924), and Le Pauvre matelot (1926). Cocteau also seems to have been responsible for stimulating Milhaud's interest in jazz, which resulted in one of his most enduring works, La Création du monde (1923).

Yet, for all their success, the Cocteau works do not reveal the essential Milhaud. Before Cocteau there had been the experience of yet deeper formative influence: that of the writer Paul Claudel. On first reading Claudel, in 1911, Milhaud was struck by a "force which shakes the human heart… like an element of nature." The two artists began a long collaboration, which Milhaud said was "the best thing of my life as a musician." They collaborated on Agamemnon (1913), Les Choéphores (1915), LesEuménides (1917-1922), Christophe Colomb (1928), Maximilien (1932), Bolívar (1952-1953), and David (1954).

Claudel was minister of France to Brazil (1917-1919) and took Milhaud along as his secretary. In Rio de Janeiro, Milhaud worked out the details of the technique which, rightly or wrongly, came to be particularly identified with his style: polytonality. What had been a "superimposition of chords proceeding by masses" in Les Choéphores was to become in L'Enfant prodigue (1918) a polytonality residing "no longer in chords but in the meetings of lines."

If polytonality was a unifying factor for Milhaud's style, his origins served to define his esthetic: "Latinity, Mediterranean are words which have a deep resonance in me." The locales of his stage works - Greece, Palestine, Mexico, and Brazil - are significant for their strong affinities with his native Provence, and the music of these places furnished him with many melodic and rhythmic ideas. The themes of southern landscape and popular life are so omnipresent in his vocal works that they have tended to obscure his image as a composer of absolute music, that is, music free from extramusical implications.

The number of symphonies (16), concertos (31), and chamber works (about 60) that Milhaud composed is considerable; indeed, in 20th-century terms his production of over 400 works is enormous, a fact which engendered some negative criticism about his work, such as unevenness in quality, inattention to detail, and signs of haste. Such accusations ignore Milhaud's basic motivation as a composer, namely, that the act of creation is more important than the thing created. His production was all the more remarkable in view of his teaching schedule. From 1948 on he spent alternate years in Paris and at Mills College, Calif.

Further Reading

Milhaud's own account is Notes without Music: An Autobiography (1949; trans. 1953). Biographical information on Milhaud is also in Edward Burlingame Hill, Modern French Music (1924; rev. ed. 1970), and David Ewen, The World of Twentieth Century Music (1968).

Oxford Dictionary of Dance:

Darius Milhaud

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Milhaud, Darius (b Aix-en-Provence, 4 Sept. 1892, d Geneva, 22 June 1974). French composer. He wrote many ballet scores, starting with Cocteau's Le Bœuf sur le toit (1920), which was originally staged as a pantomime for acrobats and clowns. For Les Ballets Suédois he wrote the music for three works by Börlin: L'Homme et son désir (1921), Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (with Honegger, Auric, Poulenc, and Tailleferre, 1921), and La Création du monde (1923). He also wrote the music for Massine's Salade (1924), Nijinska's Le Train bleu (1924), Balanchine's Les Songes (1933), Graham's Imagined Wing (1944), Page's The Bells (1946), Charrat's 'Adame miroir (1948) and Petit's La Rose des vents (1958). Other ballets using Milhaud's music include Béjart's Concerto pour percussion et orchestre (1957), MacMillan's The Sphinx (1968), and Bintley's Meadow of Proverbs (1979).

Milhaud, Darius (1892-1974). Prolific composer of largely dramatic music for opera, theatre, ballet, and film, and an important member of the group known as ‘Les Six’. His music makes use of popular-music idioms—for instance, his ballet La Création du monde (1923) is strongly influenced by jazz. He was a close friend of Claudel and based many works on Claudel texts, including innovative music for an entire ‘Oresteia’ trilogy (1913-22) and an allegorical opera, Christophe Colomb (1928). He also worked with Cocteau, their most successful collaboration being the chamber opera Le Pauvre Matelot (1927). Milhaud wrote three books, one his autobiography.

[Kerry Murphy]

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Darius Milhaud

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Milhaud, Darius (däryüs' mēyō'), 1892-1974, French composer. Milhaud studied at the Paris Conservatory. In Brazil (1917-19) as an aide to Paul Claudel, poet and French minister to Brazil, he became acquainted with Brazilian folk music. Upon his return to France, he became one of the group known as Les Six. Milhaud became professor of composition at Mills College, Oakland, Calif., in 1940. He is especially celebrated as a composer for the stage; his operas include Le Pauvre Matelot (1927; libretto by Jean Cocteau) and Christophe Colombe (1930; libretto by Claudel). Milhaud's outstanding ballets are La Création du Monde (1923) and Le Boeuf sur le toit; or, The Nothing Doing Bar (1920). A prolific composer, Milhaud also wrote symphonies, concertos, orchestral music, chamber music, and songs. He was among the first to exploit polytonality and developed new rhythmic structures influenced by Brazilian and jazz elements.

Bibliography

See his autobiography, Notes without Music (tr. 1953, repr. 1970).

AMG AllMovie Guide:

Darius Milhaud

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Biography

Versatile French composer Darius Milhaud created scores of musical works and scored numerous feature films of the '30s, '40s, and '50s. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Darius Milhaud
  • Genres: Ballet, Band Music, Chamber Music, Choral Music, Concerto, Keyboard Music, Opera, Orchestral Music, Symphony, Music Theater, Vocal Music

Biography

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) was one of the most prolific and varied musical stylists among the modernists, and he established his reputation through being a member of the cosmopolitan group of French composers, Les Six. Having served during WWI as an attaché in Rio de Janeiro and visited the United States in the 1920s, Milhaud adopted an open attitude to using folk music and jazz in his compositions. Notable for their piquant jazz sonorities and biting polytonality, La création du monde and Le boeuf sur la toit were two of Milhaud's most scandalous ballets, but later became his most popular works. ~ Blair Sanderson, Rovi

Discography

Darius Milhaud: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 8

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Milhaud: Double Piano Concerto; Symphonic Suite No. 2; Suite Provençale

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Satie: Jack in the Box; Milhaud: Symphony No. 10

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Darius Milhaud: The 6 Little Symphonies; L boeuf sur le toit; L'homme et son désir; Others

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Darius Milhaud Plays and Conducts

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Milhaud: Composer, Pianist & Conductor

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Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Darius Milhaud

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Darius Milhaud (~ 1926), Paris

Darius Milhaud (French pronunciation: [daʁjys mijo]; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer 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 make use of polytonality (music in more than one key at once). Darius Milhaud is to be counted among the modernist composers.[1]

Contents

Life and career

Born in Marseilles to a Jewish family from Aix-en-Provence, Milhaud studied in Paris at the Paris Conservatory where he met his fellow group members Arthur Honegger and Germaine Tailleferre. He studied composition under Charles Widor and harmony and counterpoint with André Gedalge. He also studied privately with Vincent d'Indy. As a young man he worked for a while in the diplomatic entourage of Paul Claudel, the eminent poet and dramatist, who was serving as French ambassador to Brazil.

On a trip to the United States in 1922, Darius Milhaud heard "authentic" jazz for the first time, on the streets of Harlem, [2] 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.[2]

In 1925, Milhaud married his cousin, Madeleine (1902–2008), an actress and reciter. In 1930 she bore him a son, the painter and sculptor Daniel Milhaud, to be the couple's only child.[3]

The rise of Nazism forced the Milhauds to leave France in 1939,[1][not in citation given] and then emigrate to America in 1940 (his Jewish background made it impossible for Milhaud to return to his native country until after its Liberation). He secured a teaching post at Mills College in Oakland, California, where he collaborated with Henri Temianka and the Paganini Quartet. In an extraordinary concert there in 1949, the Budapest Quartet performed the composer's 14th String Quartet, followed by the Paganini's performance of his 15th; and then both ensembles played the two pieces together as an octet.[4] The following year, these same pieces were performed at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, by the Paganini and Juilliard Quartet.[5]

The jazz pianist Dave Brubeck became one of Milhaud's most famous students when Brubeck furthered his music studies at Mills College in the late 1940s (he named his eldest son Darius). In a February 2010 interview with Jazzwax, 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 brother Howard was his assistant and had taken all of his classes."[cite this quote]

Milhaud's former students also include popular songwriter Burt Bacharach.[6] Milhaud told Bacharach, "Don't be afraid of writing something people can remember and whistle. Don't ever feel discomfited by a melody".[7]

Milhaud (like his contemporaries Paul Hindemith, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Alan Hovhaness, Bohuslav Martinů and Heitor Villa-Lobos) was an extremely rapid creator, for whom the art of writing music seemed almost as natural as breathing. His most popular works include Le bœuf sur le toit (a ballet which lent its name to the legendary cabaret frequented by Milhaud and other members of Les Six), La création du monde (a ballet for small orchestra with solo saxophone, influenced by jazz), Scaramouche (for Saxophone and Piano, also for two pianos), and Saudades do Brasil (dance suite). His autobiography is titled Notes sans musique (Notes Without Music), later revised as Ma vie heureuse (My Happy Life).

From 1947 to 1971 he taught alternate years at Mills and the Paris Conservatoire, until poor health, which caused him to use a wheelchair during his later years (beginning sometime before 1947), compelled him to retire. He died in Geneva, aged 81.

Works

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

See List of compositions by Darius Milhaud.

Notable students

Archival collections

References

  1. ^ a b 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. ISBN 0520214137
  2. ^ a b "Milhaud - La création du monde" (of Darius Milhaud, English language), Pomona College, Department of Music, 1999, webpage: PomonaEdu-Milhaud-Creation.
  3. ^ The Independent. Obituary, 31 March 2008. London.
  4. ^ Mills College program of August 10, 1949, in Archives of Henri Temianka Estate
  5. ^ Aspen Institute program of July 26, 1950, in Archives of Henri Temianka Estate
  6. ^ Mihai Cucos, "A Few Points about Burt Bacharach …", Perspectives of New Music 43, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 198–211. Citation on 200.
  7. ^ Mihai Cucos, "A Few Points about Burt Bacharach …", Perspectives of New Music 43, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 198–211. Citation on 205.

External links


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.  Read more
$copyright.smallImage.alttext Gale Encyclopedia of Biography. Gale Encyclopedia of Biography. © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Oxford Dictionary of Dance. The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. Copyright © 2000, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Oxford Companion to French Literature. The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more
AMG AllMovie Guide. Copyright © 2012 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
AMG AllMusic Guide to Classical Music . Copyright © 2012 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Darius Milhaud Read more

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