Darius Milhaud (1892–1974)

Darius Milhaud was born to a Jewish family in Marseille, France, and grew up in Aix-en-Provence. His parents were Sophie (Allatini) and Gad Gabriel Milhaud, whose Provençal ancestry stretched back centuries. Milhaud began as a violinist, and later turned to composition. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where he met fellow "Les Six" composers Arthur Honegger and Germaine Tailleferre. From 1917 to 1919, he served as secretary to poet and playwright Paul Claudel, then the French Ambassador to Brazil. Milhaud collaborated with Claudel for many years, setting music for many of his poems and plays. While in Brazil, they worked together on a ballet, L'Homme et son désir (Man and His Desire), which exemplified Milhaud's bold style. On his return to France, Milhaud composed works influenced by the Brazilian popular music he had heard. He dedicated his Fifth String Quartet (1920) to Arnold Schoenberg, and the following year conducted both the French and British premieres of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire. On a trip to the USA in 1922, Milhaud heard authentic jazz for the first time on the streets of Harlem, New York City, which left a great impact on his musical outlook. The following year, he completed his great composition La création du monde (The Creation of the World), using ideas and idioms from jazz, a ballet in six continuous dance scenes. In 1925, Milhaud married his cousin, Madeleine, with whom he had a son, Daniel Milhaud, who became a painter and sculptor. When Nazi Germany invaded France in World War II, the Milhauds fled to the USA. He taught at Mills College in Oakland, California, where he worked with Henri Temianka and the Paganini Quartet. Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck became one of Milhaud's most famous students in the late 1940s. From 1947 to 1971, Milhaud taught alternate years at Mills and the Paris Conservatoire, until poor health forced him to retire. He also taught on the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and School. Milhaud was an extremely rapid and prolific composer, for whom the art of writing music seemed almost as natural as breathing. He produced operas, ballets, orchestral works, chamber and instrumental works, choral and vocal works, and works for children, His autobiography was titled Notes sans musique (Notes Without Music), later revised as Ma vie heureuse, and published in English as My Happy Life (1995).