Milhaud's 'French Suite'

Synopsis

In 1944, French composer Darius Milhaud was in California, teaching at Mills College in California, and received a commission to write a piece suitable for school bands. With a world at war, the Jewish composer had found safe refuge in the U.S., and so eagerly accepted the commission for a number of reasons. Milhaud, confined to a wheelchair for most of his adult life, sent his wife Madaleine to the College library to obtain a collection of French folk tunes. His idea was arrange of some these into a suite.

As the composer himself explained after his Suite Française was finished:

“The five parts of [my] Suite are named after French Provinces, the very ones in which the American and Allied armies fought together with the French underground for the liberation of my country. I used some folk tunes of these Provinces, as I wanted the young American to hear the popular melodies of those parts of France where their fathers and brothers fought on behalf of the peaceful and democratic people of France."

Milhaud’s Suite Française was premiered by the Goldman Band in New York City on today’s date in 1945, and rapidly became one of the best-known and most often performed of Milhaud’s works, and one of the established classics of the wind band repertory.

Music Played in Today's Program

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974): Suite Francaise; Eastman Wind Ensemble; Frederick Fennell, conductor; Mercury 289 434 399-2

On This Day

Births

• 1761 - Czech composer and violinist Anton (Antonín) Wranitzky (Vranický, Wraniczky, Wranizky), in Nova Rise, Moravia; He studied with Haydn and Mozart in Vienna and was a friend of Beethoven

• 1766 - Austrian composer and pianist Anton Eberl. Some of his works were mistakenly (or perhaps deliberately) published as Mozart’s.

• 1899 - Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chávez, in Calzada de Tacuba, near Mexico City

Deaths

• 1962 - English composer and conductor Sir Eugene Goosens, 69, in Hillingdon

• 2002 - American composer and conductor Ralph Shapey, 81, in Chicago

• 2005 - American composer David Diamond, 89

Premieres

• 1784 - Mozart: Piano & Winds Quintet (K. 452), Sonata for Two Pianos (K. 448), and the Piano Concerto No. 17 (K. 453), at the home of Mozart's pupil, Barbara Ployer, outside Vienna. The Piano Concerto may have been premiered earlier that year on April 29, at a concert given by Mozart at Vienna’s Kärtnertor Theater in the presence of Emperor Joseph II.

• 1855 - Verdi: opera Les Vêspres Siciliennes (The Sicilian Vespers), in Paris at the Grand Opéra

• 1911 - Stravinsky: ballet Petrushka, in Paris at the Théatre du Châtelet, with Pierre Monteux conducting

• 1923 - Walton: Façade, in London, with Dame Edith Sitwell reciting her poems, the composer conducting

• 1923 - Stravinsky: Les Noces, at the Gaîté Lyrique in Paris

• 1942 - Honegger: opera Joan of Arc at the Stake (first staged production), in Zürich at the Stadttheater; This work was premiered in a concert performance in Basel on May 12, 1938

• 1967 - David Ward-Steinman: Cello Concerto, in Toyko, by the Japan Philharmonic conducted by Milton Katims, with Edgar Lustgarten the soloist

• 1986 - John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine at Great Woods, Mansfield, Massachusetts with Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas

• 1999 - first staging in Germany of the original German version of Kurt Weill’s opera Der Weg der Verheissung (The Eternal Road), in Chemnitz, Germany, with John Mauceri conducting. The English-language premiere staging had occurred at the Manhattan Opera House in New York City on January 7, 1937, in a production staged by Max Reinhardt that ran for 153 performances.