Release Date: 01 May 2005
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313228720
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: MILHAUD
Description
Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)La Creation du monde Le Boeuf sur le toit Suite proven?ºaleFew twentieth century composers were anywherenearly as prolific as Darius Milhaud, whose listed worksstretch to 443 opus numbers produced over a period of63 years. Yet despite this lifelong activity, Milhaud'sposthumous reputation rests largely on those workswritten at the end of the First World War and during theearly 1920s, when his imaginative and undogmaticapproach to composition resulted in music exemplifiedby three of the pieces included here.It was while serving as secretary to Paul Claudel atthe French legation in Rio de Janeiro that Milhaud cameinto contact with the Brazilian popular music that was toinform many of his works over the next decade. Aprime example is Le Boeuf sur le toit, composed in 1919as background music for a silent film, but which foundsuccess as a ballet to a scenario by Jean Cocteau withdecor by Raoul Dufy. Not that 'a bull on the roof'features in the ballet: indeed, there is no narrative actionas such, rather a diverse sequence of episodes, given anover-all structure by the Brazilian tune that functions asa refrain during an ingenious traversal of all twelvemajor keys and several minor keys too. The livelyopening theme thus recurs at regular intervals, betweenwhich emerge various subsidiary ideas, including asyncopated melody for strings, an elegant one forwoodwind and a gaudy one for trumpets, such as go onto become lengthier episodes. Chief among these are arhapsodic passage for strings, and one with evidentLatin-American overtones. Near the close of the ballet,the salient ideas are drawn together in a boisterous coda.The music is permeated by polytonal inflections that area common feature of Milhaud's music in this period,giving it unexpected harmonic twists, while ensuringthat the work's melodic and rhythmic appeal are neverin doubt.A tour by Dyagilev's Ballets Russes to Brazil,during the course of which Nijinsky danced in publicfor the last time, was the catalyst towards Milhaudcomposing the music for the ballet L'Homme et sondesir during 1917 and 1918. The allegorical scenario,derived from a story by Paul Claudel, takes place in aprimeval Amazonian forest and draws on suchsymbolism as a Janus-faced Moon, the creatures of theforest and the liberation of Man by a phantom Womanrepresenting Love and Death. As choreographed byJean Borlin, the piece left a mixed impression at itsParis premi?¿re by the Ballets Suedois on 6th June 1921,but the music, with four wordless singers, solo wind andstrings, and a vast percussion section, won praise for itspolytonal and polyrhythmic subtlety, as well as itsspatial ingenuity, and for a time was seen as thecomposer's most radical and influential work. Overpulsating percussion, strings and woodwind build adense polyphony, the four solo voices adding a hauntinglayer of their own. Next comes a ritualistic section forharp and drums, then a ruminative passage for stringsand a fleet, Stravinskian sc
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
