The most comprehensive collection of historic Milhaud performances to date is The Classical Collector (150 122) (Archives Sonores de la Phonotèque Nationale). This three-CD set includes most of the recordings made by Milhaud and his best friends and interpreters in Paris and Brussels between 1928 and 1948, transfered to digital sound and admirably restored. Though […]
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More Song Cycles
Soprano Carole Farley and pianist John Constable perform three Milhaud song cycles on a new ASV disc (CDA 810). Alissa, Poèmes juifs and l’amour chante date from 1913, 1916 and 1964, respectively, and give listeners a broad picture of Milhaud’s development in this genre. Alissa was adapted from André Gide’s La porte étroite, a dense […]
Continue ReadingSong Cycles
The vocal reissues on Chant du Monde (CDM LDC 278 1069), contrast the darkest of Milhaud’s cantatas with his sunniest of song cycles, played by members of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Paris, led by the composer. The opening piece, Le château de feu, based on a poem by Jean Cassou, was set for choir and […]
Continue ReadingChamber Music – Petites Symphonies
Between 1917 and 1923 Milhaud wrote six “petites symphonies” for between six and ten players (and in one case singers), each lasting between three and six minutes in the composer’s chosen tempi. Four of these are now available in a new disc with the Sinfonia Orchestra of Chicago under Barry Faldner, recorded in 1990-91 and […]
Continue ReadingChamber Music – Wind
Several releases concentrate on the chamber music for wind ensembles. On Chandos 6536 the Athena Ensemble plays the wonderful wind quintet La cheminée du roi René (1939), a sun-drenched Provençale reverie. The closing “Madrigal-Nocturne” is one of the most unashamedly pretty things written in the twentieth century (though the Athena plays it a shade too […]
Continue ReadingChamber Music – Strings
Milhaud wrote an enormous amount of chamber music. At its center lie the 18 string quartets written between 1912 and 1950, a consistently absorbing body of work that is far too little known. In these works, Milhaud’s stylistic evolution can be clearly discerned, from the romantic first quartet, in language reminiscent of Vaughan Williams, to […]
Continue ReadingOrgan Works
Milhaud also wrote a small body of work for organ. A beautiful Pastorale, dated 1941, is played by Graham Barber on a Priory disc (PRCD 391, 1991) on the Sandtner organ of Villingen Minster. The same work appears on one of the new Praga label Milhaud centenary discs (PR 250 008) in a good 1981 […]
Continue ReadingPiano Works – Scaramouche
The famous piano duo Scaramouche (1937) was arranged from incidental music Milhaud had composed for Molière’s Le médecin volant. In the version Milhaud created for his friends Marcelle Meyer and Ida Jankelevitch, it soon became one of the cornerstones of the piano duo repertoire. On the aforementioned Ian Hobson CD there is an unexciting performance […]
Continue ReadingMusic For Piano
Milhaud’s piano music displays the same broad stylistic range as the rest of his opus. Especially in the earlier works, the gentle, eccentric Paris of Satie, Fauré and Ravel is audible, although Milhaud’s own robust personality always shines through. This is especially apparent in the brief selections played by Milhaud and his friend Marguerite Long […]
Continue ReadingBallets – Collaborations
The two collaborative ballets from the 1920s, L’eventail de Jeanne and Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel, are available in performances by Geoffrey Simon and the Philharmonia Orchestra (Chandos 8356, recorded 1984). L’eventail de Jeanne was written in 1927 as a ballet for the young pupils of patron Jeanne Dubost. Each of L’eventail’s ten movements is by a different composer, including three […]
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