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Mester, Whitney and
the Louisville Orchestra, in their own
way, ploughed a courageous path comparable
with that of Dan Godfrey in Bournemouth
(1890-1930) and Henry Wood at the Proms.
The difference is that Whitney and Mester’s
legacy has been preserved in a far-sighted
recording programme. The project was
most active during the LP era yet it
was dully packaged and distribution
beyond the USA was pretty much of a
nothing. The sales were predominantly
based on subscriptions which seems to
have left little room for export activity.
Although there was some because I recall
fishing a handful of their LPs out of
the racks of Harold Moores in London
circa 1979.
These First Edition
CDs at long last begin to make substantial
drifts of the almost encyclopedic Louisville
legacy accessible to all and sundry.
The masters for the entire series have
been acquired by Matthew Walters whose
First Edition Music outfit operates
out of Santa Fe and whose website marketplace
is easily accessible to all.
These analogue Milhaud
tapes are not entirely unknown outside
the Louisville LPs. The Symphony and
Ronsard songs were issued on LP by RCA
Gold Label in the UK in 1977. Otherwise
that’s about it.
Milhaud was one of
that starburst of emigrés who
ended up making a career in the USA.
One wonders how much native talents
was suffocated by this fascination with
the foreign (by no means an exclusively
North American phenomenon). A Provençal
Jew, he was born in Marseilles, brought
up in Provence and left for the USA
in 1940 borne along by the bow-wave
of the Nazi occupation. Before his departure
he spent time in Brazil with Paul Claudel
and found himself bracketed among Les
Six in Paris. The libretto of his opera
Christoph Colomb was by Claudel.
He ingested the influence of Jazz
in London and Harlem (1920, 1922) and
had Christoph Colomb premiered
in the Kroll Opera in Berlin (1930).
Unlike other emigrés he did return
to his native land. In 1947 he joined
the staff of the Paris Conservatoire
but commuted between France and Mills
College in the USA until 1971. His rate
of production was itself phenomenal.
There are 443 opus numbered works and
the style varies sometimes unnervingly;
he is not alone in that, of course.
The Symphony and the
Ouverture Méditerranéenne
are about half a century old now.
The Ouverture and Kentuckiana,
both Louisville commissions, are in
mono and both are conducted by Whitney
while the rest are directed by Jorge
Mester and were taken down in stereo.
The Ouverture is a tumultuously active
piece, fresh-faced and fully of aestival
life and brimming optimism. Like Kentuckiana
it was recorded in the lively acoustic
space of the Columbia Auditorium. The
sound is set back more than is usual
with these Louisville ‘documents’ but
this is all to the good in this clamorous
celebration of life. It reminded me
in general spirit of the Bostoniana
and Bacchanale of Ibert (who himself
wrote his Louisville Concerto for
Whitney). Kentuckiana is
a direct tribute to Milhaud’s commissioning
orchestra. It is a pell-mell, almost
Graingerian, mediation between the folk
voices of the Kentucky ‘mountain men’,
the pioneer tradition and the fiddles
of barn-dance. After the sheer uproarious
high spirits of Kentuckiana (paralleling
the poetry of Roy Harris’s Kentucky
Spring) we come to the sombre
Cortège funèbre.
The music’s origins are in an eleven
minute sequence written for the Malraux
film Espoir to accompany a funeral
procession in honour of the Spanish
Republican soldiers who had destroyed
the bridge at Teruel. The balmy tones
of the saxophone make for a distinctive
voice within this impressive and tragically
symphonic piece. It is dedicated to
Koussevitsky and with its funereal mien
would make an apt companion to Lennox
Berkeley’s Nocturne and Alwyn’s
Symphony Hydriotaphia. The Quatre
chansons de Ronsard are a song-cycle
with orchestra. They were written shortly
after Milhaud’s arrival in the States.
It was premiered at the Waldorf-Astoria
in December 1941. The soloist was Lily
Pons and her distinctive coloratura
voice can be heard in Paula Seibel’s
distinctively French voice effervescing
and dancing with joie de vivre. The
spirit of Bizet and the carefree insouciance
of the Canteloube Auvergnat songs lives!
Once again the saxophone puts in an
appearance, this time as a troubadour
in Tais-toi (tr. 7). The sung
texts are printed in the original French
with English translations. This recording
represents an extremely engaging and
spirited performance. I would still
like to hear the original recording
made by Pons with an orchestra conducted
by André Kostelanetz shortly
after the work’s premiere.
Milhaud’s symphonies
have done fairly well recently. All
twelve have been recorded on CPO conducted
by Alun Francis. These are supplemented
by two CDs on Deutsche Grammophon both
deleted but one of which has been reissued
very recently. The reissued disc contains
the first two symphonies and the Suite
provençale with the Orchestre
du Capitole de Toulouse conducted by
Michel Plasson on 476 2197 (originally
released on DG 435 437-2GH). Then there
was a comparison recording by the same
forces also on DG which included the
Ouverture méditerranéenne
on 439 939-2GH. This can be read
with the classic Erato recordings of
symphonies 4 and 8 made by the Orchestre
Philharmonique de l'ORTF and the composer
in 1968 coupled with more recent recordings
of the Piano Concerto No. 4 and Ballade
for piano and orchestra now on Warner Classics
Apex 0927 49982 2.
The Sixth Symphony,
like the Ronsard Chansons was
recorded shortly after Milhaud’s death
in Geneva, Switzerland on 22 June 1974.
The Symphony is thoughtful, often sunny
in disposition, exultant and even nostalgic.
It has more in common with the Suite
Provençale and the First
Symphony than with the tougher dissonance-soused
reaches of Symphonies 2, 4 and 8. It
was commissioned by the Boston Symphony
and the Koussevitsky Foundation. It
was premiered in Boston on 7 October
1955. Howard Taubman put it extremely
well in his review shortly after the
New York premiere by Munch and the Bostonians:
"... an accessible and agreeable
work ... fine, long-breathed ideas ...
worked out with simplicity and concision."
This is an extremely
attractive and varied introduction to
Milhaud. I cannot imagine a more suitable
prelude to an exploration of this composer’s
work.
Rob Barnett
Paula Seibel, soprano 
