I haven’t always warmed up to the music of Milhaud – I hear something contrived in his all-pervading humor that I find very artificial, and his typical polytonality can be grating on the ear. But, with more listening I must be changing, and more recently I’ve heard works of Milhaud that I’ve enjoyed, like Pacem in Terris and L’Homme Et Son Désir on Vanguard Classics (European edition 1992 Vanguard 08 9070 71, North-American edition 1993 Vanguard OVC 8067), performed by Maurice Abravanel leading the Utah Symphony Orchestra. Pacem in terris is a large-scale oratorio written on the improbable Latin words of Pope John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical, while L’Homme et son désir is a chamber-ballet written in 1917 for Nijinsky (who never danced it, because of his mental collapse), on an argument by famous French playright, and back then French ambassador to Brazil, Paul Claudel, for a cast of 20 instrumentalists including four vocalists singing wordless vocalises. I’ve also reviewed another version of L’Homme et son désir, the discmate of a flawed version of Honegger’s La Danse des Morts, with Orchestre de Picardie under Edmon Colomer on Calliope CAL 9526 (2004), but in a revision from 1920, substituting four winds to the vocalists, and less original. Colomer’s take on it is considerably slower, less playful than Abravanel’s (and the composer’s own, on VoxBox CDX 5109, barcode 047163510922, with Milhaud’s 6 Little Symphonies, Boeuf sur le toit and other pieces, not yet reviewed), more laid-back to languid, even dreamy in some passages, but I find that the approach works, too.
Another great piece of Milhaud is his “oratorio” Les Choéphores (The Libation Bearers), written between 1913 and 1915, the second part of a trilogy to plays by the same Paul Claudel (Milhaud acted back then not only as his composer, but also as his secretary), after the Agamemnon-Electra-Orestes story: Choéphores is framed by Agamemnon op. 14 (1913-1914) and Les Euménides op. 41 (whose composition was begun in 1917 and completed only in 1924). The first two were originally incidental music to the plays of Claudel, and Les Euménides a fully-fledged, three-act opera. Allow me to send to my reviews for full description and comments. Two outstanding versions, by Igor Markevitch in 1957, reissued to CD in 1997 on DG “The Originals” 449 748-2 paired with Honegger’s Symphony No. 5 “Di tre re” and Albert Roussel’s second Suite from Bacchus et Ariane, and Leonard Bernstein in 1961, CD-reissued in 1996 on Sony Masterworks Heritage MHK 62352 with Roussel’s Third Symphony and Honegger’s two symphonic poems Pacific 231 and Rugby. Markevitch must bow to Bernstein, mainly on account of his antiquated mono sonics.
And two other Milhaud reviews I’ve transferred here are:
Music for Prague and Symphony No. 10, by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra unde the composer, live 20 May 1966 (with Honegger: Symphony No. 2 under Charles Munch, a live performance from 1957) on Multisonic 31 0022-2 (1990)
Ouverture Méditerranéenne for Orchestra op. 330 (1953), Kentuckiana (Divertissement on Twenty Kentucky Airs, 1948), Cortège funèbre (1939), Quatre Chansons de Ronsard (1941), Symphony No. 6 (1955). Paula Seibel (in Quatre Chansons), The Louisville Orchestra, Robert Whitney (in Ouverture Méditerranéenne, Kentuckiana), Jorge Mester. First Edition Music FECD-0031 (2004). Rare but typical Milhaud from Louisville.