Notes for: July 19, 2016
Darius Milhaud was one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century, producing 16 operas, 18 string quartets, 12 symphonies, 21 concertos, 17 ballets, and dozens of songs and children’s pieces. He was a venturesome composer, experimenting with jazz, polytonality (simultaneously using more than one key), as well as leaving some elements to chance. Further, after living in Brazil as an attaché at the French embassy during World War I, he often incorporated Brazilian folk idioms in his scores. In the 1930s, Milhaud was living in Paris, composing incidental music for plays and motion pictures. From 1932 to 1940, he wrote music for 24 plays and background scores for 16 movies. In many cases, he was able to adapt this music for concert performance.
The Suite for Violin, Clarinet and Piano was taken from the incidental music that Milhaud wrote in 1936 for Jean Anouilh’s play Traveler without Baggage — more significantly, for the play’s final scene, in which Gaston, a World War I veteran is suffering from amnesia. His lost memory is the missing baggage of the title.
In this four-movement suite, the “Overture” suggests the sassy, ironic style of the play. The “Divertissement” is a gracious reverie, a break in mood. “Jeu” (the French word for “play”) returns to the mood of the first movement, a crisp hoedown for the violin and clarinet alone in the form of a scherzo and a lyrical trio.
The last movement, nearly as long as the other three movements combined, opens with more somber material. It then concludes with a tongue-in-cheek “Finale,” based on the tune “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” as well as a contrasting theme reflecting Milhaud’s experience in Brazil.