How “French” is Darius Milhaud’s Second Symphony?
In this post I will examine Darius Milhaud’s Symphony №2 through the lens of his own words. Are his complaints about some of the public’s attitudes toward his music valid? Does one of his less-performed orchestral pieces hold true to his ideals, allowing us to label it as an unmistakably French work? I will look to the articles we read in class, a recording of the symphony, and a set of 1948 New York Philharmonic program notes to attempt to answer these questions.
First, I would like to note Milhaud’s apparent lack of concern with the public’s reception of his music, at least by the end of his career. He claimed to disregard public opinion outright, because he believed that those who despised Création du Monde, one of his most widely performed works, when it premiered were the same that revered it ten years later. If people are going to be so fickle, why bother with them? He did wish that conductors would program his various works equally often, noting his twelve symphonies that were scarcely performed in comparison to other pieces of his that he considered “unimportant” (Breitrose 1970). I therefore chose to investigate his Symphony №2, hoping to counteract the bias of the general public that has molded our perception of Milhaud in the half-century since his death.
Although Milhaud demonstrated a respect for and understanding of numerous musical practices around the world, he nevertheless asserted that there is (and should be) an innate, irreconcilable difference between the works and sensibilities of French composers and German/Austrian (Teutonic) composers. In his 1923 essay titled “The Evolution of Modern Music in Paris and Vienna,” he describes the general ideals of the former:
“The characteristics of French music are to be found in a certain fluency, something sober and clear, with some measure of romanticism, and a strong sense of proportion and design in the construction of a work, in a desire to express one’s self with clearness, simplicity and conciseness.” (Milhaud 1923)
With these ideals in mind, I can absolutely hear the “French-ness” of this opening movement of his second Symphony, with its subtle, higher-range orchestration and organically wandering melodic themes. I believe John N. Burk’s analysis, reprinted in the NYP program notes in 1948, alludes to many of Milhaud’s French ideals as well:
The flute, throughout this and many other canonical French works, is of the utmost textural importance. It carries the melody again and again. Contrasting with the opening movement, and most of the rest of this symphony, the third movement, Douloureux (“painful” or “grieving”) finally utilizes the full brass and percussion sections. Notably, this is the only movement with a negatively connotating title; the other’s are Paisible (“peaceful”), Mystérieux (“mysterious”), Avec Sérénité (“with serenity”), and Allelouia.
Concise. Even in the last movement, a fugue that presents the thickest orchestration in the symphony, nonexistent is the German, romantic finale with multiple psyche-outs before the undeniable, powerful close. The ending is indeed powerful, but only in relation to the other movements. This symphony, its individual movements and overall arc, sounds to me more like a bird traveling in a pastoral setting, overcoming some turbulence, and landing somewhere grand. High-register and transparent textures are preferred throughout. The journey is unique, interesting, and hardly harrowing, meeting Milhaud’s criteria for French music.
In my studies, I have grouped Western art music together with some regard to nationalistic differences, but I never thought of these differences as fundamental. However, I have also read (and made) arguments against the idea of “bi-musicality,” basically stating that one can only fully understand the music in their own musical tradition. So, if we can argue that vernacular music, or the music heard in the daily lives of certain groups of people, can only be truly understood and correctly performed by those people, can’t we make the same argument for the citizens of a country, like France?
I would ultimately argue for the existence of both viewpoints: the stark differences between French and German music and the unified nature of Western music overall. Maybe, rather than existing in a way mutually exclusive from German music, Milhaud and his French compatriots serve to balance out the Teutonic musical force that had long swept the Western world, as demonstrated by the American concert program above. It seems like it was about time.
Sources:
Concert program, 5 Feb 1948, Program ID 560, New York Philharmonic Leon Levy Digital Archives.
https://archives.nyphil.org/index.php/artifact/2aab733d-01b7-41fa-8191-b485db51be53-0.1
Milhaud, Darius. “The Evolution of Modern Music in Paris and Vienna,” in North American Review 1 January 1923. 544–554.
Breitrose, Henry and Darius Milhaud. 1970. “Conversation with Milhaud,” in Music Educators Journal 56/7: 54–56.
