Milhaud’s Service sacré for baritone (cantor), narrator, mixed chorus and organ or orchestra is one of the few authentic masterpieces of twentieth century liturgical music. Composed in 1947 for San Francisco’s Temple Emanu-El, it gives evidence of Milhaud’s profound identification with his Jewish heritage, particularly in the wake of the Holocaust, in which many of […]
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Vocal Music – Quartets
The vocal quartet was a favorite vehicle for Milhaud, represented on The Classical Collector by three excerpts from Les amours de Ronsard (1934) for vocal quartet and orchestra. These settings of Ronsard poems are dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, but the cycle’s shape and mood are closer to Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer. Technical inadequacies […]
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Serious opera as well as serious fun, the Opéras-minute are exquisitely orchestrated, melodious and unexpectedly moving. The libretti by Henri Hoppenot make short work of classical grandeur. In “L’enlèvement d’Europe”, “L’abandon d’Ariane,” and “La délivrance de Thesée,” men, women and monsters are swept along with astonishing dispatch by the familiar disasters and miracles of Greek […]
Continue ReadingThe Classical Collector
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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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 […]
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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 […]
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