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Darius Milhaud and Les Six

French Composer of the Jazz Age with a Latin American Beat

Apr 12, 2008 Tel Asiado

Life and Works of French composer Darius Milhaud, a member of Les Six and best known for Le Boeuf sur le Toit.

French composer Darius Milhaud belongs to the 1920s Jazz Age. A member of the famous French group of composers Le Six, he is best known for his ballet Le Boeuf sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof'). He favoured bitonality, often used by Les Six.

Milhaud was a part of the post World War I scene, after the late Romantic or 'impressionistic' styles of Debussy and even Stravinsky. Milhaud was fond of jazz and the Latin American rhythms.

Members of Les Six Group of French Composers:

Early Life of Milhaud

Darius Milhaud was born in Aix-en-Provence, France, on September 4, 1892, into a wealthy Jewish family. At seven years old, he learned the violin and wrote his first musical composition. He entered the Paris Conservatory at 17 and became a student of Paul Dukas.

Brazil's Musical Influence on Milhaud

When he was 25, he was taken to Rio de Janeiro by poet and diplomat, Paul Claudel, so that they could work together on music theatre projects. They eventually collaborated for many years. He stayed in Brazil for almost two years, returning to Paris and joining the group of young French composers known as Les Six.

The music of Brazil made a lasting impression on Milhaud. He visited the US for his concert tour in 1922. His jazz-inspired, all black-black ballet, Le creation du Monde ('The Creation of the World') made a sensation.

Milhaud the Music Teacher and Composer

In later life, Milhaud's career as a teacher alternated between the Paris conservatoire and the US at Mills College, Oakland, California. His pupils covered the spectrum of 20th-century music, including Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, and Dave Brubeck.

His is best known for his ballet Le Boeuf sur le Toit right from the start, even though it includes bi-tonal passages (music in two keys at once) which is one of his favourite devices. The scenario of Le Boeuf was provided by the French Jean Cocteau, designer and director, closely related with Les Six.

Darius Milhaud was incredibly prolific, his work saturated with the colour and warmth of his native Provence and an optimistic spirit, which, in later life, survived critical decades in which severe arthritis crippled and confined him to a wheelchair. He died at 82, in Geneva, on June 22.

List of Milhaud's Major Works

  • Le Boeuf sur le toit ('The Ox on the Roof'), ballet, 1919
  • Symphonic suite 'Protee', 1921
  • Mes Maries de la Tour Eiffel ('The Newly-weds of the Eiffel Tower'), written with Les Six, 1921
  • Saudades do Brazil ('Memories of Brazil'), suite for Orchestra, 1921
  • La Creation du monde ('The Creation of the World'), ballet, 1923
  • Christopher Columbus, opera, 1928
  • Scaramouche, suite for two pianos
  • Moise, ballet, 1940
  • Symphony No.2, 1944
  • Suite francaise, 1945
  • Concerto for marimba and vibraphone, 1947
  • Symphony No.12 'Rurale', 1961

Sources

Classical Music, edited by John Burrows, Dorling Kindersley (2005)

The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, edited by Stanley Sadie, Macmillan (1994)

The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham, OUP (2002)

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