Word: milhaud
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Humanistic Studies, where one may attend two-hour discussions on Aristotle's Ethics or Herman Kahn's thermonuclear theories. The music is just as uncompromising. A typical program may consist of a Bach suite, a Mozart piano concerto, and a trio of demanding modern works by Darius Milhaud, conducted by the arthritically crippled composer from his wheelchair. All 40 of the visiting artists also teach, and among those present besides Milhaud this season are Met Opera Star Eleanor Steber and the renowned teacher of Van Cliburn, Rosina Lhevinne. By encouraging the festivaliant to start the day with...
Form's Conscience. Since nothing heftier than a lingering lyricism is common to his varied compositions, Milhaud has been particularly vulnerable to misunderstanding-or simple dislike-all his life. In his days with the Groupe des Six in Paris, he expanded music's language with his studies of polytonality, meter and counterpoint, but he also wrote music that was crippled by flat jokes, banalities and topical trivia. He has written music for text by the Catholic laureate Paul Claudel-and also a Bar Mitzvah cantata for Israel's 13th birthday. With 15 operas, 12 symphonies, 25 film...
...When Milhaud came to Mills in 1940, the laissez-faire intellectuality that made him a troublesome composer marked him immediately as a superb teacher. With an interest that spans every voice of music, from Hebraic folk songs to Bach to jazz, Milhaud never corrals a student's creativity, but merely stands by as music's advocate-and form's conscience...
...Argue. Almost immobilized by gout, rheumatism and arthritis, Milhaud teaches in his home, and his own composition is inhibited only by the pain that stops his hand from writing. "I have gotten worse in the past 30 years," he says furiously. "And in this past year, the arthritis has stopped me far too much for my tastes." Still, in his 23 years at Mills he has composed 91 works, and since 1947 he has divided his time between Oakland and Paris, where he teaches composition at the Paris Conservatory...
...Heavy, stoop-shouldered, protected even from springtime by his muffler, he is a grandly Churchillian figure on the campus. His music is still spiced with youth and so are his interests: Jazz Pianist Dave Brubeck built such a deep rapport with him that he named his son Darius, and Milhaud occasionally shocks prissy listeners by saying that good jazz can steal his attention from dull classics any time. His youthful spirit echoes especially in his lively Provencal wit. Hoping to end an argument with him, a student once pleaded, "Doesn't music all boil down to a matter...