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February 28, 2004
TT: Continued sunshine
I just finished writing an essay for Commentary about the American violinist Louis Kaufman, whose autobiography, A Fiddler's Tale, was one of my Top Fives last year. It comes with a bonus CD that includes a performance of Darius Milhaud's Concertino de Printemps conducted by the composer. As I listened to that adorable little piece, I suddenly realized that it'd been far too long since I'd heard any of Milhaud's music. Except for the jazz-influenced La Création du monde, it isn't very well known, for the very good reason that there's too much of it (Milhaud's last opus number was 443). Someday, adventurous performers will start sifting through Milhaud's catalogue, and when they do they'll make dozens of delightful discoveries. He may not have been the most profound of composers--though much of his output is both serious and deeply affecting--but I can't listen to his music without breaking out in a broad smile.Appropriately enough, Milhaud wrote an autobiography called My Happy Life. I pulled it off the shelf yesterday to see if Kaufman was mentioned (he isn't) and ended up reading the whole thing. While I was at it, I dogeared a few favorite passages, which I'll post today in lieu of anything more formal. Enjoy.
- "My cousin Eric Allatini, a fervent Wagnerian, took me to hear Tristan; I never dared tell him how deadly boring I found that ‘sonorous love-philtre.' When the Bayreuth copyright expired, and Parsifal was given at the Opéra, I went to hear it: this work, which everyone had been impatiently waiting to hear, sickened me by its pretentious vulgarity. I did not realize that what I felt was merely the reaction of a Latin mind, unable to swallow the philosophico-musical jargon and the shoddy mixture of harmony and mysticism in what was an essentially pompous art. I felt that even the leitmotif was a childish device, like so many thematic Baedekers, flattering the audience's self-esteem by the feeling that they always ‘knew where they were.' I also deplored the influence of this music on ours. Yet I was not so foolish as to underestimate its importance, and when Wagner's operas were published by Durand at five francs a copy, I bought them all; I do not remember ever having been tempted to play them. But Pelléas and Boris Godunov always stood by my bedside."
- "It is the indifference of the public which is depressing; enthusiasm, or vehement protests, are a proof that your work is alive."
- "The atmosphere of France, in which Stravinsky had been living for so many years, as well as his admiration for Tchaikovsky, had perhaps induced him to substitute for his vividly coloured, oriental, Russian art, which was almost Asiatic in feeling with its complicated harmonies and barbaric rhythms that had the violence of a hurricane, a type of music that was spare, stripped of inessentials, economical in the means it employed and imbued with a sense of proportion that by no means excluded grace or grandeur but conveyed a feeling that was pure, quintessential, devoid of artifice."
- "What strikes one immediately in Copland's work is the feeling for the soil of his own country: the wide plains with their soft colourings, where the cowboy sings his nostalgic songs in which, even when the violin throbs and leaps to keep up with the pounding dance rhythms, there is always a tremendous sadness, an underlying distress, which nevertheless does not prevent them from conveying the sense of sturdiness, strength and sun-drenched movement."
- "In 1962 I was asked to talk about myself at an American college. I recalled my parents, who were so understanding, my wife, my son and his children, who have brought me nothing but joy. In short, I said that I was a happy man. At that moment I sensed general consternation--almost panic--in the hall. Some students came to talk to me after the conference: how had I been able to create in those conditions? An artist needs to suffer! I replied that I had managed to arrange things differently."
Posted February 28, 2004 10:24 AM
