Orch.works: Bernstein / French National O Pretre / Monte-carlo Po Etc

DARIUS MILHAUD (1892-1974)
Orchestral Works (2CD)

An essential collection of Milhaud containing his best known works for orchestra and for piano.

Darius Milhaud was born in Provence in 1892, but soon gravitated to ‘the other France’ - Paris, where he became a member of ‘Les Six’. The artist, playwright, poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau was at the centre of this group of composers - Poulenc, Honegger, Auric, Durey, Tailleferre and Milhaud. Rejecting Impressionism, Milhaud concentrated on developing a sound world that was transparent, melodic, and generally joyous and humorous in character. Being Provencal, he had been raised free from the intellectual agonising of his Paris born colleagues. He was not one for weighty intellectual arguments. Above all he was a master craftsman, prolific, and almost never made sketches of his works.

Dazzling scoring, humour, and sophistication that would come to typify French culture during the Second World War and after, it is easy to underestimate this composer. He was a true one-off, and captured the spirit of his country and adoptive city brilliantly in music.

Milhaud moved to the US to escape anti-Semitism from both the French and the Nazis, and died in 1974.

EMI recordings from 1971 and 1983
Premier league line up of performers
‘What matters here is the light cast on his masterpiece, La Creation du monde’, and one of his most engaging jeux d’esprit, Le boeuf sur le toit (The Bull on the Roof) by the collaboration of an American conductor and a French orchestra. There is plenty of punch and energy to these performances, all the more vital for the crispness of Bernstein’s rhythmic articulation in two scores that can easily sound messy" Gramophone reviewing the original disc of orchestral music ( Brilliant Classics )

CD1:
1. La Creation du monde Op.81a [16:44]

Saudades do Brasil Op.67 selection
2. No. 7 Corcovado [02:17]
3. No. 9 Sumare [01:43]
4. No. 8 Tijuca [01:58]
5. No. 11 Larenjeiras [01:14]

6. Le Boeuf sur le toit Op.58 [19:31]

Orchestre National de France
Leonard Bernstein, conductor
Stereo Recording: 1976

CD2:
Scaramouche, Suite pour deux pianos, Op.165b
1. I. Vif [02:33]
2. II. Modere [03:32]
3. III. Brazileira (Mouvement de Samba) [02:00]

Le Bal Martiniquais, pour deux pianos
4. I. Chanson Creole [02:32]
5. II. Biguine [04:44]

Paris, suite pour quatre pianos, Op.284
6. I. Montmartre [01:01]
7. II. L’Isle Saint-Louis [01:49]
8. III. Montparnasse [02:23]
9. IV. Bateaux-Mouches [01:51]
10. V. Longchamp [00:57]
11. VI. La Tour Eiffel [02:15]

Noel Lee & Christian Ivaldi pianos (1-5)
Noel Lee, Michel Beroff, Jean-Philippe Collard, Christian Ivaldi pianos (6-11)
Stereo Recording: 1971

Le Carnaval d’Aix Op.83b
12. I. Le Corso [01:05]
13. II. Tartaglia [01:03]
14. III. Isabelle [01:12]
15. IV. Rosetta [01:55]
16. V. Le bon et le mauvais tuteur [01:53]
17. VI. Coviello [00:29]
18. VII. Le Capitaine Cartuccia [02:02]
19. VIII.Polichinelle [00:22]
20. IX Polka [01:12]
21. X. Cinzio [01:27]
22. XI. Souvenir de Rio [01:50]
23. XII. Finale [01:39]

Suite francaise Op.248
24. I. Normandie [01:39]
25. II. Bretagne [03:38]
26. III. Ile-de-France [01:45]
27. IV. Alsace-Lorraine [03:57]
28. V. Provence [02:43]

Suite provencale Op.152b
29. I. Anime [01:33]
30. II. Tres modere [01:30]
31. III. Modere [01:39]
32. IV. Vif [01:54]
33. V. Modere [01:39]
34. VI. Vif [00:55]
35. VII. Lent [02:15]
36. VIII. Vif [03:01]

Michel Beroff piano (12-23)
Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo
Georges Pretre, conductor
Digital Recording: 1983