Darius Milhaud, the French composer who rose to prominence in the late ’teens and 1920s, as part of that loose collective known as Les Six, died 50 years ago today.
Milhaud was such an insanely prolific composer – in common with Telemann and Heitor Villa-Lobos – that he’s often hard to pin down. An enlightened and fair-minded individual of leisure might make it a point to try to listen to everything Milhaud ever wrote before passing judgment. The rest of us content ourselves with parroting the assessments of the gatekeepers, in the assumption that anything beyond the five or six pieces that always get played must be somehow inferior.
Be that as it may, every once in a while, I’ll stumble across a perfectly delightful Milhaud creation. Some of these have languished in obscurity; others flitter around the periphery.
I’ve always had a special fondness for “La cheminée du roi René” (“King René’s Chimney”), the multi-movement work for woodwind quintet that grew out of a film score. The anthology “Cavalcade d’amour” (1939), directed by Raymond Bernard, portrays three love stories from three different eras – the 15th century, 1830, and 1930. Milhaud opted for the former, a segment set at the court of René I. (Arthur Honegger and Roger Désormière provided music for the other two.) Milhaud felt a certain affinity with the subject, as he himself grew up in Aix-en-Provence, the location of René’s castle and court.
The title alludes to a Provençal proverb that plays on words for “fireplace,” “chimney,” and “promenade,” as the king is said to have enjoyed his walks in the winter sun. The phrase “se chauffer à la cheminée du roi René,” then, means to warm oneself at “King René’s chimney” (i.e. by basking in the heat of the sun).
Okay, so it’s a winter piece, maybe. But I don’t hear it that way. In fact, it strikes me as the perfect music for a lazy summer afternoon. A good example of how imprecise musical impressions can be and why the concept of program music – music intended to suggest extra-musical concepts and even objects – has always stirred controversy.
The woodwind quintet was first performed in 1941 at Mills College in Oakland, CA, where Milhaud would go on to teach for nearly a quarter-century.
I first encountered the piece as signature music for the Friday-night-at-11:00 radio program “Music through the Centuries,” hosted by George Diehl, on the late, lamented WFLN, for nearly 50 years Philadelphia’s classical music station. Diehl was on the faculty of LaSalle University. He wrote program notes for the Philadelphia Orchestra and, if I’m not mistaken, was once the station’s program director. Every week, he would use the hour as a platform to explore unusual and neglected repertoire. In fact, I credit him as a source of inspiration for my own weekly show, “The Lost Chord.”
I suspect Diehl used the classic recording of “La cheminée du roi René” by the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet. I also like this one, by the Athena Ensemble.
Remembering Darius Milhaud on the 50th anniversary of his death. How many more riches are left to discover beyond the treasure room of King René?
PHOTO: Milhaud on a typical morning, completing his third piece before breakfast
