Judith Lang Zaimont wrote:

>In Hindemith we have a skilled and complete composer whose reputation
>appears to fluctuate with prevailing artistic fashions, but who endures.
>== Would listmembers care to discuss in similar respects Hindemith's
>equally prolific, near-contemporary: Milhaud?

Long ago, Milhaud's name was right up there next to Stravinsky's.  Today
he is still regarded as a prominent figure in his own right, certainly
enough to merit the attention he receives from recording companies.  I have
listened to a lot of Milhaud, and what follows is just some observations.

Steve Schwartz wrote:

>I love Milhaud's music, but I find him far more uneven than Hindemith
>(read "I like some pieces a lot more than others").  Also, it's hard to
>find works by Milhaud written past 1945, and the stuff  that gets played
>all the time usually comes from the 1920s.

The work up to about 1929 really does represent his strongest profile, and
contains his two major warhorses, "Le Bouef sur le Toit" and "La Creation
du Monde".  I have the Bernstein recording of "Les Choephores", a work
dating from 1915, but haven't gotten around to it yet.  I would like to
put in a recommend for a work of 1917-18 "L'homme et son desir" which for
me is the Milhaud piece that strikes the strongest resonance and seems to
break the most ground.  Scored for wordless quartet and twelve instruments
including a wide battery of percussion, "L'homme" is quite unlike anything
else from the 'teens.  During these years Milhaud was an assistant to the
poet Paul Claudel, who was a diplomat serving in the French legation to
Brazil.  They took in a touring show of the Ballets Russes in Rio which
proved to be one of the last performances of Nijinsky before his breakdown.
The two collaborated on their own ballet shortly after, "L'Homme et son
desir", which was concieved on a multi-level stage and was intended to
communicate the vastness and mystery of the Brazilian jungle.  The work
is a dream-like succession of playful modality and long strteches of
thundering percussion, with the vocal quartet floating above the whole
providing a subtle, spiritual dimension.  It's radical scoring and total
departure from traditional form makes it quite unique; and I don't think
Milhaud was really able to top it henceforth.  With Armistice Milhaud
returned to France from Brazil with all that south of the border street
music in his head; shortly thereafter came the saucy "Saudades" and "Le
Boeuf sur le Toit".  A trip to New York in 1922 resulted in the collection
of some Black Swan jazz records and "La Creation du Monde".  These have all
become Milhaud's most popular pieces, but they are outstanding in some ways
and incidental in others when held up against the background of his basic
style, which strongly reflects the influence of Satie.  A superficial
resemblace to Stravinsky's neo-classical compositions can hardly be avoided
in Milhaud, and yet it is not his fault that this is so, as the common
denominator in both is Satie.  While Satie was not openly neo-Classicist,
profoundly neo-Classic elements in works such as "Socrate" and "En Habit de
Cheval" had a strong influence on most of the composers working in Paris
at the time.  The small groups of instruments and short durations Mihaud
favored were, in a way, concieved as a reaction to such large-scale works
as Stravinsky's "Le Sacre".  But even I have a hard time not thinking that
Milhaud's "Concerto for Percussion and Small Orchestra" of 1929 is a
nightmare about the "Devil's Triumphal March" from "L'Histoire du Soldat".

>While Hindemith's music seems capable of being divided into 3 periods -
>the Expressionist 1920s, the neo-classical late 1920s through about 1948,
>and the final densely chromatic period, Milhaud's seems far more mercurial
>in terms of  style, particularly after World War II.

There are no such possible divisions in Milhaud.  His basic style was
set by 1920 and he stuck by it through 1974.  There was a lot of room for
expansion in idioms outside the style, but these are not maintained in any
consistent fashion.  Taken chronologically, his development is like a horse
that's in first place once it gets out of the gate, but while maintaining
much the same level of effort, it gradually falls to last place.  While
little spurts of speed may be observed in the horse's progress, he doesn't
make it to the finish line until sometime the following week.  As Milhaud's
life progressed, he himself got physically larger and lazier, and gradually
spent less time on refining his musical ideas, although the outporing of
Opus numbers did not really show any signs of slackening until after 1948.
In 1929 he appeared in the film "Ghosts Before Breakfast" made by the Swiss
avant-gardist Hans Richter (not the conductor).  In the film he appears as
many of colleagues saw him- a large, lumbering circus bear.

Jim Tobin wrote:

>(Milhaud) wrote several symphonies, but I have no idea what they
>are like. What are the characteristics of his later music?

In Milhaud's very late works, he has adopted the Harvegal Brian-like
tendency to let ideas and sections kind of stumble on one another rather
than flow smootly together (for that matter, I understand that the late
work of Malipiero is like this.) As to the full scale symphonies
themselves, I haven't heard many of them, but what I have heard is well,
variable.  Much more interesting are the "little" symphonies written
between 1917-23.  The third of these is particularly striking, sort of
like a gritty Brandenburg sounded in several keys at once.

Steven Schwartz again:

>Furthermore, there seems to be less for amateurs in Milhaud's
>catalogue - although it's so huge, there's always something.
>For example, an amateur choir can get through Hindemith's 6
>Chansons.  You need a near-professional or better choir to get
>through Milhaud's 2 Cites.

Much of Milhaud's piano music is suitable for amatuers, as Milhaud himself
was not a skilled pianist and required some music which he could play with
ease for personal appearences.  "Le Carnival D'Aix" is one such work
written which is among Milhaud's finest, likewise his "Four Sketeches" of
1941.  More difficult is the great "Trios Rag-Caprices" of 1928; his Black
Swan records had served him well, and the Blues is as bluesy as you'd like
it to be.  I would put the latter set on a par with Barber's "Souvenirs" or
even Gershwin's "Three Preludes".

Foremost, I feel, among the piano works is "The Household Muse" of 1944
which harkens back to Satie and Milhaud's basic polymodal 'whiteness'.  The
work was written for Milhaud's wife, Madeline, a concert artist in her own
right, and has an irresistable grace and femininity about it which makes it
immediately appealing.

At least one work of Milhaud is indispensiable to wind players, that being
"La Cheminee' de Roi Rene'" of 1938.  This highly attractive suite is
couched in much the same terms as "The Household Muse".

Judith Lang Zaimont's suggestion for a comparison from Milhaud to Hindemith
is interesting.  They were friends, and Milhaud wrote a fine Viola Concerto
for Hindemith in 1929, presumably during the time the above film was made,
for which Hindemith himself scored the soundtrack.  On Hindemith's
suggestion the original full-orchestral compliment to the Viola Concerto
was cut down to just 15 instruments, as Hindemith often played in concert
with chamber ensembles.  The work was given many times in this form by
Hindemtih throughout his career as a concert artist.

But there isn't much else in the way of comparison.  Hindemith was an
Appolonian artist who devoted a 9-5 schedule to practicing, teaching and
composing.  Milhaud was a dionysiac, whose loose schedule of teaching and
conducting was the only one he maintained.  He was notoriously lazy both
as teacher and conductor- Steve Reich (a student at Mills) once complained
that studying under Milhaud meant listening him talk about the good old
days in Paris with the surrealist group.  Milhaud's recordings are a
puzzlingly uneven batch, as at times he seems to be throwing the ensembles
deliberately off-base.  There are notable exceptions, and I beg you to find
a recording of "Le Boeuf" which is more compelling than his 1958 reading
with the Concert Arts Orchestra for Capitol.  Ironically, one done in Paris
just five years later is a near-disaster.

Both Hindemith and Milhaud cultivated an interest in Early Music, but where
Hindemith founded an Early Music consort (in the late 40s), had original
instruments rebuilt from museum copies, and attempted to explore period
practice with his students, Milhaud just copied the music from old
manuscripts and re- composed them his own style.

With Hindemith's music you are amazed by it's logic, design and
seamlessness and so compelled by the strength and skill of the man himself
you can't help but admire it, even if you don't like it.  Mihaud's music is
like a big sloppy dog which jumps into your lap and loves you all over; you
can't help but love it back, but it may wear out it's welcome after awhile.

By virtue of putting an end to this already overlong post, I would like
to mention a work which I feel, for Milhaud, is valedictory- the Sacred
Service for Sabbath Morning, written in 1948 and only available in one of
Milhaud's recordings (his last, in fact- made in 1973.) Milhaud, working in
the aftermath of the Holocaust, managed to produce a solidly- concieved and
serious-minded work on liturgical models which is of such quality that it
deserves to be revived by means of a new recording.  It is in this work
where I feel that Milhaud was able to break out of his standard patterns
and speak in a voice which will be recognized as that of a skilled
craftsman, rather than of an exceptionally gifted near-amatuer who lucked
into a fresh and new trend in music at the right time and merely overstayed
his welcome.

Uncle Dave Lewis
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