Scaramouche (Milhaud)

Scaramouche, Op. 165,[lower-alpha 1] is a suite composed by Darius Milhaud in 1937. The suite is based on incidental music Milhaud wrote for two theatrical productions: Le Médecin volant and Bolivar. Scaramouche draws inspiration from various sources, with each of the suite's three movements being of a distinct character. Milhaud's characteristic use of polytonality can be heard throughout the piece.

For other uses, see Scaramouche (disambiguation).

Scaramouche
Suite by Darius Milhaud
A portrait of the composer, Darius Milhaud, in 1923
Milhaud in 1923
Opus165
PublisherRaymond Deiss
Movementsthree
Premiere
Date1 July 1937 (1937-07-01)
LocationExposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne
PerformersMarcelle Meyer and Ida Jankelevitch

Scaramouche was composed as a piano duo in 1937 at the request of Marguerite Long and was premiered at the Exposition internationale des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne the same year. The suite was later arranged for various ensembles due to the piece's popularity, including arrangements for solo alto saxophone with orchestra and – at the request of the clarinettist Benny Goodman – solo clarinet with orchestra.

Background

The music in Scaramouche is taken from incidental music that Milhaud composed for two plays. The first and third movements are inspired by themes composed for Henri Pascar's production of an adaptation of Molière's Le Médecin volant (The Flying Doctor);[1][2][3] it is from here that Scaramouche gets its name, as Pascar's group of players was named the Théatre Scaramouche.[4][5][6] Movement two takes its theme from music Milhaud composed in 1936 for Jules Supervielle's opera, Bolivar. Although he did not use any of the 1936 themes for the final score, Milhaud later decided to repurpose the original overture for Scaramouche.[6][7][8]

Composition and publishing
A photograph of Marguerite Long by Atelier Nadar, taken around 1900.
Marguerite Long (pictured c. 1900) asked Milhaud to compose Scaramouche

In 1937, the French pianist Marguerite Long asked Milhaud to compose a piano duo for two of her students (Marcelle Meyer and Ida Jankelevitch) to play at the Exposition internationale des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne.[9][10] In response, Milhaud composed Scaramouche.[11] Although it largely used music that Milhaud had composed previously, composing the suite did not come easy to him.[12]

Scaramouche was published by Milhaud's friend, the printer Raymond Deiss, who requested to do so. Milhaud attempted to deter Deiss from publishing the suite, assuming that the music would not sell and prove a wasted investment—at the time printed sheet music was proving unpopular. Deiss refused to be dissuaded by Milhaud and proceeded to print the first edition.[13]

Milhaud wrote about Scaramouche's publishing in his autobiography, Ma vie heureuse (My Happy Life):[12]

At once publisher Deiss offered to publish it. I advised him against it, saying that no one would want to buy it. But he was an original character who only published works that he liked. He happened to like Scaramouche and insisted on having his way. In the event he was right, for while sales of printed music were everywhere encountering difficulties, several printings were made.

Milhaud recorded that Diess took a special delight in telling him, "The Americans are asking for 500 copies and 1000 are being asked for elsewhere".[12] After his immigration to America during World War II, Milhaud had Scaramouche republished in the United States.[14]

Structure and music
External video
Jean-Yves Thibaudet performs Op.165b with Ray Ushikubo, Nathan Lee and Aidan Mikdad
video icon YouTube video of performance

Scaramouche consists of three movements:

  1. Vif (C major, 4
    4    )
  2. Modéré (B♭ major, 4
    4    )
  3. Brazileira (F major, 2
    4    )

A full playing of the suite lasts approximately eight to nine minutes.[9][15][16] Polytonality, a distinctive element of Milhaud's composing style, is used consistently throughout the suite.[4][15]

Vif

The first movement of Scaramouche has been likened to a cross between folk-song melodies and nursery rhymes:[17] one of the themes used is the melody from the children's song Ten Green Bottles.[18] Vif is written ternary (ABA) form.[19][20]

Polytonality can be heard as early as the opening measures, where chromatically clashing triads are layered under the movement's opening theme, which is in C major.[21] The technique features again in measure 24, where a melody in the key of G major is played over an accompaniment in the original key of C major.[22]

Syncopation is another technique used in Vif. In a section beginning at measure nine, the bass line places emphasis on the first, fourth and seventh quaver beats of a bar. This rhythm is known as tresillo. A few measures later, Milhaud uses a three-against-four polymeter. This kind of syncopation was often used by Brazilian composers, including Heitor Villa-Lobos.[23]

Modéré

The second movement hints at the French overture style, used by Johann Sebastian Bach and other Baroque composers.[24] The movement has elements of canon and ostinato.[19] Modéré is also in ternary form: the A section is written in 4
4 and is contrasted metrically by a B section in 6
8. In the final section of the movement, Milhaud layers both the A and B themes on top of each other.[25]

In Modéré, Milhaud uses dotted rhythms and arpeggios to create a melody that takes cues from folk song. The saxophonist Jason Stone suggests that this movement was also inspired by Brazilian music, noting Modéré's similarities to the modinha and lundu.[26]

Brazileira

Brazileira's tempo is marked as "Mouvement de samba".[19] The movement is a samba choro[27] inspired by Milhaud's prior time in Brazil: he had spent two years in Rio de Janeiro serving as secretary to the French ambassador Paul Claudel during the First World War.[1][5][28] During this time, he listened to the music of Ernesto Nazareth, which served as an inspiration to the third movement.[29]

There is a diversity of opinions regarding Brazileira's structure: musicologist Hyejeong Seong asserts that it is written in ABCA form,[30] while Jason Stone refers to this movement as a "theme and variations in fast samba".[31] Other papers analyse the movement as ternary form.[32]

Brazileira uses syncopation in a similar way to Vif. Tresillo rhythms are again present in the movement's A section. In addition, Milhaud uses rhythmic anticipation of downbeats (using semiquavers) to evoke a samba feeling. Following the more songlike B and C sections, the syncopated tresillo rhythms return in the last section of the suite.[33]

Arrangements
A photograph of Benny Goodman at a restaurant, pictured in July 1946.
Benny Goodman asked Milhaud to arrange Scaramouche for clarinet

The original version of Scaramouche was written as a piano duo (Op.165b) in 1937.[34] Due to the suite's popularity, Milhaud later arranged it for various different ensembles. A particularly successful arrangement was made for alto saxophone and orchestra/piano (Op.165c) in 1937[lower-alpha 2][7] and was published in 1939 by Éditions Salabert. This arrangement was one of only two pieces that Milhaud wrote for saxophone and piano, the other being his 1954 composition Danse.[35]

On the request of the clarinettist Benny Goodman and his teacher Eric Simon, Milhaud arranged the piece for B♭ clarinet and orchestra/piano (Op.165d, published 1941 by Éditions Salabert).[22][36][37] In letters written between Milhaud and Goodman, Milhaud writes that the clarinet part was created by transposing the existing saxophone arrangement. He had refused Simon's suggestion of transposing orchestral parts, stating that it would be impossible to do without a complete rewrite of the piece.[38] Goodman was said to prefer the arrangement of Scaramouche over Milhaud's more difficult Concerto for Clarinet, which was written specifically for him.[35][39][40]

Other composers have arranged Scaramouche as well. Arrangements exist for wind band (Joseph Willcox Jenkins),[41] violin and piano (Jascha Heifetz),[41][42] saxophone and wind quintet (Don Stewart),[43] guitar trio and a group of 12 saxophones.[9]

Performances

On 1 July 1937, Scaramouche was premiered at the Exposition internationale des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne by French pianists Marcelle Meyer and Ida Jankelevitch.[8][44][45]

A. Muhle[lower-alpha 3] premiered the arrangement for saxophone and orchestra in June 1940 with the Radio Paris Orchestra. The performance was later aired on Radio Paris.[9][13][28] Op.165c was premiered in the United States in November 1940 by the Northern California WPA Symphony Orchestra.[46]

The arrangement for clarinet and orchestra was premiered in New York by Benny Goodman in 1941.[1][10][11]

A modern photograph of the École Normale de Musique de Paris, taken on 26 July 2007.
The École Normale de Musique de Paris

During the Nazi censorship of works by Jewish individuals, Scaramouche (along with Milhaud's other works) was banned.[44] Undeterred by the censorship, Marcelle Meyer, alongside another pianist, organised a performance of Scaramouche on 1 June 1943 at the École Normale de Musique de Paris.[9] To evade the ban on Milhaud's works, the performers were forced to attempt to trick the censors. The pianists used anagrams to provide a pseudonym for both Milhaud and the suite; they changed Darius Milhaud to become Hamid-al-Usurid while Scaramouche was changed to be Mous Are-chac.[47] The performance managed to successfully take place, avoiding any censorship from the Nazi authorities.[44][48][49]

Saxophonist Jess Gillam played the piece on the last night of the 2018 BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.[50][51] Her performance was the first time the piece had been played at the Proms[52] and was received well by audiences and critics. BBC reporter Mark Savage said it was "the indisputable highlight of the Last Night of the Proms",[53] while The Telegraphs' Ivan Hewett called it "a sassy but also subtly moulded performance of Milhaud’s delightful Scaramouche".[54]

Reception

Audiences of the time received Scaramouche very well, which surprised Milhaud.[44] The piece was a large success for Milhaud and continues to be one of his most popular works.[8][28] Scaramouche has become a standard piece in both piano duo and classical saxophone repertoire;[24][55][56] according to musicologist Paul Collaer, the suite "has earned itself an incomparably popular place in twentieth-century two-piano literature".[57] In a 1970 interview, Milhaud stated that he considered Scaramouche to be one of his most successful pieces but said it was "a work that is not important".[58] He believed that the suite did not deserve to be so popular as to the point of overshadowing some of his other compositions.[4] The New York Times included Scaramouche on a 1974 list of "Milhaud's Major Works".[59]

Recordings
Title Performer(s) Label Opus Year Ref(s)
Scaramouche[lower-alpha 4] Darius Milhaud and Marcelle Meyer EMI Classics 165b 1938 [61]
Untitled Jean-Marie Londeix Vendôme 165c 1960 [62]
Milhaud Jazz Works Claude and Ian Hobson Arabesque 165b 1986 [63]
Untitled Katia and Marielle Labèque Philips 165b 1989 [64]
Saxofolies Paul Wehage EPM Musique 165c 1990 [65]
Hot sax Jürgen Demmler and Peter Grabinger Bayer Records 165c 1992 [66]
Milhaud Stephen Coombs and Artur Pizarro Hyperion 165b 1998 [67]
French Romance Anthony & Joseph Paratore Four Winds 165b 2001 [68]
Under the Sign of the Sun Claude Delangle BIS 165c 2007 [62]
Untitled Sabine Meyer and Oleg Maisenberg EMI Classics 165d 2007 [69]
Works for Two Pianos Martha Argerich and Gabriele Baldocci Dynamic 165b 2013 [70]
Rise Jess Gillam Decca Classics 165c 2019 [71]


Notes, references and sources

Notes
  1. The original piano duo of Scaramouche is designated Op.165b, while the saxophone and clarinet arrangements are designated Op.165c and Op.165d respectively.
  2. There appears to be some controversy around this date, as indicated in Eugene Rousseau's interview with Marcel Mule in Marcel Mule, His Life and the Saxophone.
  3. A significant amount of sources state that the performer was the similarly named saxophonist Marcel Mule.
  4. This recording was later re-released for EMI Classics' "Composers in Person" series under the name Milhaud plays and conducts Milhaud.[60]

References
  1. ""Scaramouche" von Darius Milhaud - Wenn Molière nach Brasilien fliegt". Deutschlandfunk Kultur (in German). Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  2. Van Regenmorter 2009, p. 57.
  3. Cousin, Roger (4 June 1937). "Le Spectacle du Théâtre Scaramouche". Excelsior. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  4. Cardew-Fanning, Neil. "Scaramouche, suite for saxophone & orchestra". AllMusic. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  5. Appold, Juliette (6 August 2020). "Darius Milhaud and the Americas | NLS Music Notes". The Library of Congress. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  6. James 1997, p. 4.
  7. Rousseau, Eugene (1982). Marcel Mule, His Life and the Saxophone. Étoile. p. 108.
  8. "Program notes: From the Studio of Lisa Leonard". Lynn University. 2019.
  9. Lewis, Dave. "Scaramouche, suite for 2 pianos". AllMusic. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  10. Buja, Maureen (16 February 2022). "Darius Milhaud's Flying Doctor Scaramouche". Interlude. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  11. "Darius Milhaud : Scaramouche". France Musique (in French). Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  12. Milhaud 1998, p. 190.
  13. "Scaramouche". pad.philharmoniedeparis.fr (in French). Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  14. Maher 2016, p. 105.
  15. Hinson 2001, p. 133.
  16. Dallin 1982, p. 180.
  17. Palmer 1972, p. 862.
  18. Van Regenmorter 2009, p. 58.
  19. Seong 2019, p. 79.
  20. Stone 1999, p. 23.
  21. McFarland 2009, pp. 155–156.
  22. James 1997, p. 5.
  23. Stone 1999, pp. 23–25.
  24. Robison 1967, p. 27.
  25. Stone 1999, p. 29.
  26. Stone 1999, pp. 26–28.
  27. Van Regenmorter 2009, pp. 58–59.
  28. "Milhaud - Scaramouche". Klassiekemuziek.tv (in Dutch). 29 August 2015. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  29. Van Regenmorter 2009, p. 59.
  30. Seong 2019, pp. 80–82.
  31. Stone 1999, p. 30.
  32. Seong 2019, p. 82.
  33. Stone 1999, p. 33.
  34. Clark 1999, p. 255.
  35. James 1997, p. 2.
  36. Elizabeth, Van Dessel, Joan (2006). Reexamining the standard clarinet repertoire : a selective annotated bibliography of transcriptions for the solo clarinet and clarinet and piano (PhD thesis). Florida State University. p. 50. OCLC 155851889.{{cite thesis}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  37. Catalogue Darius Milhaud. Éditions Durand-Salabert-Eschig. 2003. p. 38.
  38. Snavely, John Albert (2006). Benny Goodman's commissioning of new works and their significance for twentieth-century clarinetists. UMI Dissertation Services. pp. 41–45. OCLC 271702412.
  39. Smith, Mary Margaret (2010). The swing era clarinetists and their contributions to twentieth-century clarinet repertoire. Ohio State University. p. 21. OCLC 696628359.
  40. Walker, Robert Matthew (1992). "Milhaud and America. In the Month of Milhaud's Centenary of Birth, His Fruitful Years of Wartime Enile in America Are Recalled". The Musical Times. 133 (1795): 443–444. doi:10.2307/1002369. ISSN 0027-4666. JSTOR 1002369.
  41. Votta 2003, p. 150.
  42. "Scaramouche, op. 165b (Paris 1937) | Kammermusikführer - Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz". www.kammermusikfuehrer.de. Retrieved 1 March 2023.
  43. Henahan, Donal (24 May 1975). "Music: Boehm Quintette". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  44. "Milhaud's "Scaramouche" Suite". www.yourclassical.org. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  45. Kelly 2013, p. 188.
  46. "Scaramouche to Be Played Friday". Oakland Tribune. 6 October 1940.
  47. Maher 2016, p. 118.
  48. Slonimsky, Nicolas (1994). Music Since 1900 (5th ed.). Schirmer Books. p. 485. ISBN 978-0-02-872418-8.
  49. Simeone 2000, p. 551.
  50. "BBC Radio 3 - BBC Proms, 2018, Darius Milhaud: Scaramouche (Last Night of the Proms)". BBC. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  51. "Video exclusive: Jess Gillam plays 'Brazileira' from Milhaud's Scaramouche". Gramophone. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  52. Willson, Flora (9 September 2018). "Last Night of the Proms review – carnival silliness but music and messages lack real bite". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  53. "Last Night of the Proms: Saxophonist Jess Gillam steals the show". BBC News. 9 September 2018. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  54. Hewett, Ivan (9 September 2018). "Last Night of the Proms, review: warm nostalgia buries Brexit tensions". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 9 March 2023.
  55. Fandetti, Michael. French and American saxophone music : teachers, disciples, and the significance of Paris. p. 2. OCLC 952728005.
  56. James 1997, p. 1.
  57. Collaer, Paul; Galante, Jane Hohfeld (10 October 1988). Darius Milhaud. Springer. p. 187. ISBN 978-1-349-10651-6.
  58. Milhaud & Breitrose 1970, p. 56.
  59. "Milhaud's Major Works". The New York Times. 25 June 1974. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
  60. "Milhaud plays and conducts Milhaud". Gramophone. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  61. Dingle, Christopher (2014). "Players and Pianos: An Overview of Early Recorded Resources for the French Piano Repertoire". Perspectives on the Performance of French Piano Music. Ashgate Publishing. p. 130. ISBN 9781472423566.
  62. Etheridge 2008, p. 28.
  63. "Milhaud Jazz Works". Gramophone. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
  64. Breunig, Christopher (September 1991). "Classical reviews". Hi-Fi News & Record Review. p. 75.
  65. Etheridge 2008, p. 95.
  66. Hot sax - Jürgen Demmler - Muziekweb, retrieved 14 March 2023
  67. Newman, Bill (December 1998). "Record of the Month". Hi-Fi News & Record Review. p. 82.
  68. Anthony & Joseph Paratore - French Romance Album Reviews, Songs & More | AllMusic, retrieved 14 March 2023
  69. Amacher, Julie (22 May 2007). "Meyer conquers the clarinet's highs and lows". MPR News. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
  70. "Martha Argerich, Gabriele Baldocci - Works for Two Pianos Album Reviews, Songs & More", AllMusic, retrieved 14 March 2023
  71. Brown, Geoff (26 April 2019). "Jess Gillam: Rise / Amy Dickson: In Circles review". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 14 March 2023.

Sources
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