DariusMilhauds LaCreationduMonde

University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online

Theses and Dissertations
Fall 2011
Darius Milhaud's La Cration du Monde: the

conductor's guide to performance
Robert Ward Miller
University of Iowa
Copyright 2011 Robert Ward Miller
This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2746
Recommended Citation
Miller, Robert Ward. "Darius Milhaud's La Cration du Monde: the conductor's guide to performance." DMA (Doctor of Musical
Arts) thesis, University of Iowa, 2011.
http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2746.
Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd
Part of the Music Commons

1
DARIUS MILHAUDS LA CRATION DU MONDE:

THE CONDUCTORS GUIDE TO PERFORMANCE

by

Robert Ward Miller, Jr.

An Abstract

Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the
Doctor of Musical Arts degree
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa

December 2011

Thesis Supervisor: Professor Emeritus Myron D. Welch

ABSTRACT

Darius Milhauds 1923 ballet La cration du monde (The Creation of the World)
was and is a fascinating work for chamber ensemble. The French composers inventive
blending of jazz harmony and compositional technique, Harlem musical
instrumentation, and the discipline of cutting-edge European art music remains a
milestone in the cross-Atlantic pollination that Americas original art form engendered
in the early 20th century. All of this was accomplished before Gershwins ultimately
better known Rhapsody in Blue. Milhauds progressive percussion writing in the work,
as well as his combination of jazz harmonies with his own particular polytonal voice,
makes the work even more stunning. However, all of these features also make the work
challenging to prepare and perform.
Prior to this thesis, the extant literature on La cration du monde examined the
work either theoretically (specifically in terms of polytonality), or historically (in terms of
its relationship to the cross-pollination of jazz and western art music). These
publications do not provide the necessary information for a conductor and ensemble to
effectively interpret and perform this work. The present study synthesizes the historical
and biographical events that led to the composition of the work with the musical
considerations of form and theme compounded by a foreign language score with period
terminology, notation, and indications with the wind conductor as the intended
audience. The purpose of this study was to collect, categorize, interpret, and synthesize
the necessary information to enable a conductor to undertake this work, while
simultaneously encouraging more modern conductors and performers
to do just that. Using historical documentation from primary sources and careful study,
translation, and interpretation of available editions, this study provides the wind
conductor with all of the tools and information required to prepare and conduct this
work. Through this thesis, it is hoped that a new generation of conductors will be
encouraged to approach, study, interpret, and program this wonderful piece of music.
Abstract Approved: _______________________________________________________

Thesis Supervisor

_______________________________________________________
Title and Department

_______________________________________________________
Date

DARIUS MILHAUDS LA CRATION DU MONDE:
THE CONDUCTORS GUIDE TO PERFORMANCE

by


A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the
Doctor of Musical Arts degree
in the Graduate College of

December 2011

Thesis Supervisor: Professor Emeritus Myron D. Welch

Copyright by
ROBERT WARD MILLER, JR.
2011
All Rights Reserved

Graduate College
Iowa City, Iowa

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
_________________________

D.M.A. THESIS
____________

This is to certify that the D.M.A. thesis of


has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the
Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the December 2011 graduation.

Thesis Committee: ________________________________________________________
Myron D. Welch, Thesis Supervisor

________________________________________________________
William L. Jones

________________________________________________________
L. Kevin Kastens

________________________________________________________
R. Mark Heidel

________________________________________________________
Robert C. Cook

To Cortney Mosley, Robert Miller, Kathy Miller, Drew Miller,
Joe Gibson, and Myron Welch

ii

new instrumental techniques, the piano with the dryness and the precision of a drum
and a banjo, the rebirth of the saxophone, the trombone glissandos that became a most
common means of expression entrusted with the sweetest melodies, and the trumpet,
... the mute, vibrato of the slide or piston, "flutter tongue"; the clarinet in the extreme
upper range, with violence in the attack, a force in the sound, a technique of slipping
and trilling of the note disconcerted our best instrumentalistsThe strength of jazz
comes from the novelty of his technique in all areas In terms of orchestration, the use
of the various instruments listed above and the development of their specialized
technique have a variety of extraordinary expression.

Darius Milhaud, speaking on his early impressions of jazz, in L'volution du jazz-
band et la musique des ngres d'Amrique du nord

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thanks go to Professor Gail Wilson of Arizona State University for
introducing him to La cration du monde, and to the faculty and staff of The University
of Iowa School of Music for their guidance and instruction in the craft of music research.
Heartfelt gratitude and appreciation go to Dr. Myron Welch for his patience, wisdom,
kindness, and mentorship, and for pointing out the right direction for this project. The
percussion writing in this paper would not have been the same without the aid of Dr.
Michael Sammons of the University of South Alabama. Thanks also to Universal Music
Group for permission to utilize the score and to create a modern edition of the
percussion score. Most of all, the deepest thanks go to my wife and my family for their
patience and support through many years of study.
iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO LA CRATION DU MONDE ...................................... 1
La Cration du Monde .................................................................................................... 3
Review of Selected Literature ........................................................................................ 8
Purpose of the Study and Methodology ...................................................................... 10
Organization of the Study ............................................................................................ 11
CHAPTER 2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND GENESIS OF THE WORK ............................... 13
Early Life and Musical Studies ...................................................................................... 13
Exposure to Jazz Abroad .............................................................................................. 15
Composition and Premiere of La cration du monde ................................................. 20
Flight from War and Its Consequences for the Manuscript ........................................ 23
CHAPTER 3 JAZZ ELEMENTS IN LA CRATION DU MONDE ........................................... 25
Manuscript ................................................................................................................... 25
Jazz Elements in La cration du monde ........................................................................ 27
Instrumentation ........................................................................................................... 27
Rhythm ......................................................................................................................... 30
Melody ......................................................................................................................... 32
Harmony ...................................................................................................................... 34
Performance Indications .............................................................................................. 34
Form ............................................................................................................................. 36
CHAPTER 4 INTERPRETING SCORE INDICATIONS .......................................................... 39
Instrumentation ........................................................................................................... 39
Performance Indications .............................................................................................. 45
Movements .................................................................................................................. 47
CHAPTER 5 - FORMAL AND THEORETICAL ANALYSIS ....................................................... 51
Blues Harmony ............................................................................................................. 51
Tonal Structure ............................................................................................................ 52
Form ............................................................................................................................. 53
Key Topography and Modulatory Technique ............................................................... 56
Thematic Persistence and Juxtaposition ...................................................................... 60
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 63
Recommendations for Further Study ........................................................................... 64
APPENDIX A THEMATIC CATALOGUE ............................................................................ 66
APPENDIX B TONAL STRUCTURE ANALYSIS ................................................................... 72
APPENDIX C TRANSLATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF SCORE INDICATIONS ............ 75
APPENDIX D CORRECTED AND MODERN PERCUSSION EDITION ................................... 77
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND DISCOGRAPHY ................................................................................. 99
v
1
CHAPTER 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO
LA CRATION DU MONDE
In 2004, I was studying at Arizona State University in pursuit of a Masters of
Music in trombone performance. It was a continually eye-opening experience for me, as
my previous knowledge of repertoire for the instrument had been quite limited. One of
the most interesting and intellectually stimulating classes in my course of study was the
trombone repertoire convocation, in which the studio members sat listening to, and
also playing, great works in the orchestral repertoire. However, it was one particular fall
day that changed my life. Professor Gail Wilson, our trombone teacher, handed us a
score to a work of which I had never heard: Darius Milhauds La cration du monde (The
Creation of the World). My interest was immediately piqued.
Not only was this a work, unknown to me, that included trombone, but it was a
French composition. Having studied French for years, I was suddenly engaged in
translating the different markings and indications on the score I had been handed. The
title itself was intriguing, evoking images of the primordial dark, as well as possible
exploration of the Judeo-Christian Eden. I became even more excited when Professor
Wilson informed us that Leonard Bernstein was the conductor of the recording. Now I
was really intrigued, in a way that makes me look back and laugh. Why was I ignorant
of an important work that included trombone, important enough for Leonard Bernstein
to conduct it? So went my thinking at the time, though it was certainly flawed. I was no
expert on the trombones oeuvre, and Bernsteins involvement, though notable, was not
a magic stamp of importance on La cration du monde. However, all of my intellectual
curiosity was as nothing compared to my emotional reaction upon hearing the
recording.
The immediateness, the plaintive silkiness of the opening theme in the alto
saxophone, coupled with a strangely compelling counter line of parallel thirds in the
strings it was so fresh, surprising, and exotic yet familiar, all at the same time. What
followed was a work that evoked memories of Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue, but had
been written and premiered before that well-known work. The jazz underpinnings to La
cration du monde were clear, and its adherence to a jazz ideal of raucous shout was
obvious to me on the first hearing. The ensemble itself even evoked jazz, with a
particularly sparse but varied instrumentation of playing soloistically, especially the
saxophone. The addition of the strings made the piece even more novel, as the rest of
the ensemble was clearly inspired by early jazz bands. A variety of trumpet mutes,
glissandi, improvisatory ostinati, and blue note harmonies placed this firmly in the
category of an early classical work in the jazz idiom. I was completely entranced,
immediately grabbing a copy of the recording for myself.
Since that time I have discovered the reasons why the work should have been so
intriguing to me. Not only is it a brilliant chamber music composition, but it is also well-
constructed, with inventive themes that use jazz in a refined and revolutionary way
rather than as mere novelty. It manages to be all of these things while remaining
relatively unknown to many modern conductors. Over the years, I have repeatedly
mentioned the work to students, colleagues, and friends, and by and large the uniform
answer has been the same Who? What? I play the recordings for them, and they
are stunned that they have never heard of, much less heard, the composition. The vast
majority of them agree that it is a masterful work, made more interesting by their
previous ignorance of it. The fact that that it was written as a chamber ballet for an
ensemble in which winds predominate makes it of special note, since this dance
collaboration pushes the works sphere of influence into the adjoining Parisian arts of
dance, painting, and theatre.
My journey to uncover the reasons behind this obscurity, and to eventually help
a new generation of conductors to discover the work, became a quest in earnest in
2007. When I presented the work in wind repertoire class at The University of Iowa, no
other student in the class knew of the work. My conducting teacher, Dr. Myron Welch,
looked at me and suggested then and there that I make this project my thesis. I was
amazed that I had never thought of the idea myself: to narrowly study a work for which I
had a genuine love, and that had very little scholarly discourse attached to it. Add the
fact that my French language skills would aid in the research process, and it was a
perfect match.
La Cration du Monde
Before undertaking a historical and analytical study of this work, one must know
the generalities and circumstances about La cration du monde. The facts outlined in
this introduction are expanded upon deeply and completely in the following chapters.
On October 25, 1923, the Ballets Sudois debuted their new production, La cration du
monde, at the Thtre des Champs Elyses. The theatre, situated on the Avenue
Montaigne near the Pont de lAlma over the Seine, had a history of famous premieres.
Just ten years earlier Stravinskys Le Sacre du Printemps had opened in the Champs
Elyses to an audience that, becoming divided and agitated by their reception of the
composition, broke out into fistfights and a riot that spilled into the streets. La cration
du monde would not have such a tumultuous premiere.
With the exciting and exotic new sounds of jazz sweeping Europe, the French
tastes of the season were for the usual exoticism, only now couched in the form of
African primitivism. The Swiss author Blaise Cendrars, a naturalized French citizen, had
published his LAnthologie Ngre (translated by Margery Bianco as The African Saga) in
1921. In his introduction to this work, Arthur Spingarn, states that it was not until the
publication of LAnthologie Ngre that the true value and significance of these cultural
artifacts became apparent.1 A compilation of African legends translated and edited by
Cendrars, it was this very text, specifically the first chapter Cosmic Legends, that
would be the inspiration for the ballet La cration du monde. These opening pages
conveyed several African creation myth tales: The Story of Creation, The Story of the
Beginning of Things, The Story of the Separation, and The Story of Bingo. The first
two stories were the only sources utilized in the creation of the new ballet, with the
ideas of three deities creating all life from darkness and chaos forming the germ of the
works inspiration.
Beyond this connection, Milhauds score remained quite independent of the text
premise. This was immediately apparent to early reviewers. Music critic Boris de
Schloezer wrote in the 1923 Revue Pleyel:
________________________________________________________________________
1
Spingarn, A. in The African Saga, Margery Bianco, 6
The composer obviously did not think for a moment that he should
show or comment upon this legend by having his music following a
detailed text step by step.2
What the audience heard instead was a worlds-first blend of American jazz
harmonies, rhythms, and conventions combined with the compositional forms and
restraint of classical Western music to an extent hitherto unseen. Glissandi, blue note
melodic and harmonic structures, and jazz rhythms were used not as mere novelties,
but as a unified basis for a work that used limited motivic materials and vivid textures.
La cration du monde is immediately jazzy, with a leading alto sax voice stating
the first motive in D-minor over a D-major ostinato, creating a blue note effect.
Rhythms, while never swung, are syncopated and often repeated in hemiola patterns as
riffs. A shout chorus forms the climax of the work, with fragments of several motives
forming layers of exuberant counterpoint found in the eras best jazz band
performances. At the same time, Milhaud showed classical restraint in the number of
motives used in the work. He even managed a jazz fugue in the center of the work, and
the form of the entire ballet forms a symmetrical arc opening and closing with the same
motivic materials. Truly this was disciplined construction of art, not a smattering of jazz
riffs pasted into a ballet.
The dcor and costumes for the ballet must have certainly been a draw to
Parisian fans seeking spectacles in African primitivism. Painter Ferdinand Lger had
created as wild and frightening a landscape as he could possibly muster. Even the
curtain was repeatedly changed leading up to the debut because Lger evidently could
________________________________________________________________________
2
Schlozer 1923, translation my own
not make it frightening enough. Jagged, boxy, and blocky lines dominated the
imagery, with a focus on the earth tones of brown, green, yellow, and orange. The
painters study of African ritual masks was interpreted through the prism of post-Picasso
Cubism, creating boxy alien bodies that used Africanesque symbols to imply character
rather than literal realism.
These costumes were bulky of course, and hindered the dancers in their
movements. The dance troupe was Paris Swedish response to the Ballets Russes of
Diaghilev - the Ballets Sudois (Swedish Ballet). The Ballets Sudois was in its third year
of operation, with artistic direction by founder Rolf de Mar and choreography by Jean
Brlin. Brlin himself would dance the leading role of the first Man. The remaining
dancers played the role of the animals and plants created in the beginning of the world.
Critical reaction was negative in the main, at least for a year. The choreography
was encumbered by the costumes. The musical germ was clearly from the dance hall,
not the concert hall, and Milhauds craft and restraint in implementing it was not
immediately apparent to critical listeners. However, just as the composer would predict
to his friends and colleagues, the critical reaction turned to acceptance within a year,
and to praise and recognition within a decade.
La cration du monde would become increasingly important as its place became
clearer within the history of jazz pollination of Western art music. The popular
archetype in this vein, Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue, did not premiere until three months
later in February of 1924. Milhauds ballet score was a collaboration that included
African imagery, dance, and mythos with its progeny jazz, and it did this all with
counterpoint and motivic development unmatched by Gershwins worthy work. While
Milhaud had certainly been experimenting with jazz in such works as his 1920 shimmy
for piano, Caramel Mou, the fact that he was not a studied jazz writer or commercial
composer in this area makes La cration du monde even more remarkable. Gershwin
had been working in the fertile jazz and popular New York music scene since the age of
fifteen. None of this diminishes the value or quality of Gershwins work, but it certainly
places it in some much-needed perspective.
Approaching performance of La cration du monde can be challenging at best,
intimidating at worst. The parts are heavy in errata, though not to a crippling degree.
The parts themselves are rental in todays market, but that is not a major impediment
for the serious concert programmer. While the work is in French, some simple research
can uncover what instruments Milhaud intends and what his marking indicate, a task
accomplished for the would-be performer and conductor in this study. The wind and
string instrumentation is thrifty, allowing the assembly of a small but necessarily facile
ensemble. It is the percussion that can inhibit ones decision to perform the work. Not
only does it call for a large range of instruments, some of which are specialized French
instruments or contemporary jazz devices no longer manufactured, but they are to be
played by a single percussionist, often simultaneously. Add to this problem that Milhaud
scored each drum, tambourine, wood block, and more into its own staff, to be read by
one performer, and this barrier to performance becomes even stronger.
Performance is rewarding in the extreme. A great chamber work, one pairing
strings with the ensemble as Dvok did in his Serenade, featuring an alto saxophone
soloist, jazz forms and harmonies, counterpoint and melodic construction of the highest
caliber, innovative percussion writing, and a historical backdrop of Parisian exoticism
and cultural hegemony at its height: all of this in one chamber masterpiece is well worth
the programming, preparation, and performance, if one can understand and execute
the work. That is the aim of this thesis: to allow modern conductors and performers to
do just that.
Review of Selected Literature
All musical examples and analysis are taken from the 1929 full score edition from
Editions Max Eschig. An earlier score, also published by Eschig in 1923, is included in the
bibliography as a useful reference. However, it is a score reduced to four-hand piano
and therefore not suitable for clearly studying the percussion notation issues and
instrumentation. A primary source in Milhauds or a copyists hand was not available for
this study, nor was it used for any other study in the current literature. Details on the
authors exhaustive search for this primary source will be provided in Chapter 3.
No complete formal analysis, thematic catalogue, or total examination of the
work is available anywhere, though there are snippets and excerpt studies throughout
the literature. There is a small handful of academic studies focused on La cration du
monde. Christine Amos wrote a 2007 PhD thesis at the University of Texas at Austin
entitled An Examination of 1920s Parisian Polytonality: Milhaud's Ballet La cration du
monde. Julio Moreno Gonzalez-Appling wrote a Masters Thesis at Bowling Green State
University in 2007 called The Ox in the Concert Hall: Jazz Identity and La cration du
monde. While both of these papers focused exclusively on La cration du monde,
neither of them examined the ballet in the conductors context, nor did they provide
support for the very necessary instruction in performance practice and score
interpretation. La cration du monde was discussed in some lesser depth in Alyssa
Gretchen Smiths 2005 PhD thesis at The Ohio State University, An Examination of
Notation in Selected Repertoire for Multiple Percussion, as well as in Norman Wikas
Jazz Attributes in Twentieth-Century Western Art Music: A Study of Four Selected
Compositions, written at the University of Connecticut in 2007. Milhauds work
garnered a two-page mention in Liesa Karen Normans 2002 University of British
Columbus PhD thesis The Respective Influence of Jazz and Classical Music on Each
Other, the Evolution of Third Stream and Fusion and the Effects Thereof into the 21st
Century. La cration du monde is mentioned in many more published books and
articles focusing on the influence of jazz on western classical music, though not in any
depth or detail. All of the aforementioned studies are admirable in their synthesis and
research. However, none of them provide the necessary depth of knowledge and
examination that a conductor would require to effectively study, interpret, prepare,
rehearse, and perform La cration du monde.
The composers autobiography and correspondence provide some useful
information in a study of La cration du monde, though it rarely bears directly on this
specific composition. There are several compendiums of Milhauds correspondence with
a variety of friends and colleagues. However, these letters and notes provide very little
insight into the composition, interpretation, or premiere of La cration du monde.
Instead, this correspondence provides clues to the timeline of the genesis of the work.

10
Even the composers 1953 autobiography Notes sans Musique (Notes without Music)
sheds very little light on the work, though it provides useful anecdotes of the
composers association with jazz.
Purpose of the Study and Methodology
As stated, the present literature on La cration du monde examines the work
either theoretically (specifically in terms of polytonality), or historically (in terms of its
relationship to the cross-pollination of jazz and western art music). These publications
do not provide the necessary information for a conductor and ensemble to effectively
interpret and perform this work. The present study synthesizes the historical and
biographical events that led to the composition of the work with the musical
considerations of form and theme compounded by a foreign language score with period
terminology, notation, and indications with the conductor as the intended audience.
The purpose of this study is to collect, categorize, interpret, and synthesize the
necessary information to enable a conductor to undertake this work, while
simultaneously encouraging more modern conductors and performers to do just that.
Using historical documentation from primary sources and careful study, translation, and
interpretation of available editions, this study provides the conductor with all of the
tools and information required to prepare and conduct this work. Through this thesis, it
is hoped that a new generation of conductors will be encouraged to approach, study,
interpret, and program this wonderful piece of music.

11
Organization of the Study
Chapter 1 includes an introduction and overview of the topic, review of selected
literature related to the study, purpose of the study and methodology, and the
organization of the thesis. Chapter 2 is a biographical sketch of the composer, Darius
Milhaud, with an emphasis on the formative events that led to his composition of La
cration du monde. In particular, it details how Milhauds early exposure to jazz and his
visits to Harlem jazz performances are critical to not only the form and genesis of the
composition, but also its instrumentation and orchestration. This historical information
is important to absorb and comprehend before undertaking the ideas found in Chapters
III and IV.
Chapter III builds upon Chapter 2 in its discussion of the jazz elements of La
cration du monde. The composition utilized contemporary jazz band forces and
instrument pairing, orchestration and voicing evocative of that same genre, and
compositional and formal constructions that clearly demonstrate that Milhaud used
these models when constructing this work. A clear understanding of these ideas is
critical to interpretation and performance of the work. Chapter 4 delves into actual
foreign language concerns in the scores instrumentation and performance indications.
Many translations from French language sources, as well as research in percussion
journals were used to synthesize this information.
Chapter 5 provides a formal and theoretical analysis of the work. Such a study is
required when determining prevalence of line in this often multi-layered composition. It

12
is also necessary to understand the genesis and balance of harmonies and sonorities
generated by the oft-polytonal compositional techniques employed.
Chapter 6 presents conclusions drawn from the above research and suggestions
for future study. Appendix A contains a thematic catalogue of the work, with incipits of
each theme. Appendix B displays an analysis of tonal structure throughout the entire
composition. The appendix also notes the location (measure and voice) of the themes
first appearance, as well as all other appearances of said theme. Appendix C provides a
list of translations of score and instrumentation indications from the French language
published score. Appendix D is a modern and corrected edition of the percussion parts.

13
CHAPTER 2 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND
GENESIS OF THE WORK
In studying La cration du monde, it is unnecessary to recreate the complete
biography of Milhauds long, varied, and distinguished career. The French composers
September 4, 1892 birth to a Jewish family in Marseilles, his early career that
distinguished him as a member of Les Six, his flight to America to escape the Nazi
menace all are documented in a variety of sources. Milhaud actually wrote two
autobiographies. His Notes Sans Musique (Notes Without Music) was published in
1953, while Ma Vie Heureuse (My Happy Life) provided a revised and more expansive
version of that earlier book in 1972, just two years before his death. Milhauds wife
Madeleine provided additional reminiscences with interviewer Roger Nichols in his 1996
book Conversations with Madeleine Milhaud. Jean Roy wrote the 1968 reference Darius
Milhaud, and Georges Beck provided the composers thematic catalogue in two
volumes. Milhaud himself published several articles and studies, and he left a wealth of
correspondence with his fellow composers, artists, and friends. All of these items are
detailed in this studys bibliography. Therefore, a detailed retelling of his life, career, and
death are superfluous. However, it is important to focus on the events in the
composers life that relate directly to the genesis of La cration du monde, its
provenance, and its history.
Early Life and Musical Studies
Milhaud began learning the violin at age seven while growing up in Aix-en-
Provence, taking lessons from local teacher Lo Bruguier. Darius father Gabriel, though

14
an export trader by profession, was an amateur musician at the family piano, and he
encouraged his sons early playing and tune making. His mother Sophie had been
classically trained as a vocalist in Paris. As Milhaud noted in Ma Vie Heureuse, music
was already a familiar friend in his home.3
Milhaud continued his musical development on the violin throughout his school
years, and before his Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13, he had already traveled to Paris
several times with his cousins to take lessons with Alfred Brun at the Conservatoire du
Paris. At age 13, Bruiguier directed him to study harmony, and Milhaud turned to
Lieutenant Hambourg, the conductor of the local 61st Regiment band. His lessons would
provide him with a solid foundation in harmony, though he found the compositional
exercises the lieutenant assigned to be completely at odds with his own creative
impulse and direction.4
After completing his baccalaureate in 1909, Milhaud went on to study at the
Paris Conservatory. He continued his violin lessons, now with Berthelier, but found his
attention increasingly drawn to concert attendance and composition. He sent many of
his compositions to Paul Dukas, then the orchestra director at the Conservatory, who
treated Milhaud to detailed letters of compositional criticism. Milhaud also attended
composition classes with Xavier Leroux, though he once again found his own
compositional inclinations and ideas were at odds with the systematic forms and
processes assigned. A breaking point occurred when Leroux finally allowed Milhaud to
play one of his own sonatas in class. According to Milhaud, the professors face lighted
________________________________________________________________________
3
Milhaud, Darius. Ma Vie Heureuse. 29-31.
4
Ibid., 32.

15
up as he declared, What are you doing here? You are trying to learn a conventional
musical language, when you already have one of your own. Leave the class! Resign!
Though Milhaud was understandably shaken by such bold advice, he overcame his
temerity and went to study with Andr Gdalge at Lerouxs direction. Gdalge, who had
studied composition at the Paris Conservatory with great success, was teaching privately
in Paris. Upon hearing Milhauds work, Gdalge took the aspiring young composer into
his studio, focusing his compositional creativity with a study of counterpoint, harmony,
melody-craft, orchestration, and composition. By 1912, Milhaud was completely
devoted to composition, and discontinued his violin studies.5 This left him with no
further classes or studies at the Paris Conservatory, and he settled into an apartment in
rue Gaillard. From there, he would compose and travel throughout Europe with his
friends and fellow artists through the years of World War I (Milhaud took refuge from
the conflict in Provence with his family). It was during his retreat to Provence that
Milhaud said he undertook a detailed study of polytonality, noting its presence in
certain works of J. S. Bach, as well as its use by his contemporaries, such as Stravinsky.
Exposure to Jazz Abroad
If Milhauds freedom to travel and collaborate with fellow European artists were
a source of joy and creativity to the young composer, then his next career move would
afford him even wider and more exotic destinations. In the fall of 1915, Milhaud enlisted
in the French Army Photographic Services. By December, his director had assigned him
________________________________________________________________________
5
Milhaud, Darius. Ma Vie Heureuse, 41-43.

16
as secretary to Paul Claudel, a poet and writer6 who was serving as the French
Ambassador to Brazil.7 The diplomatic entourage would spend 1917 through 1918 in
Brazil, where the composer witnessed the revelry and musical traditions of Carnaval.
From there, the ambassadorship traveled on a diplomatic mission to New York City and
Washington, D.C. Curiously, in his memoires Milhaud made no mention of listening to
any American jazz while in New York in 1918, though he did listen to several symphonic
and chamber performances during the visit. It was only after returning to Paris for three
years that his travels would bring him the sounds of American jazz.
In June of 1920, Milhaud accompanied Claudel (now the French Ambassador to
Denmark) on a visit to London. Claudel had official business in Britain, and Milhaud was
conducting a two-week showing of his Le Bouef sur le toit. It was in London, of all places,
that Milhaud would first turn his ear to jazz. In their free evenings both he and Claudel
would visit the Palais de Danse in Hammersmith, where the American jazz piano act
Billy Arnolds American Novelty Jazz Band was giving regular performances.8 Milhauds
memoires are strikingly colorful in his description of this new musical experience.
The new music was extremely subtle in its use of timbre: the saxophone
breaking in, squeezing out the juice of dreams, or the trumpet, dramatic
or languorous by turns, the clarinet, frequently played in its upper
register, the lyrical use of the trombone, glancing with its slide over
quarter-tones in crescendos of volume and pitch, thus intensifying the
feeling; and the whole, so various yet not disparate, held together by the
piano and subtly punctuated by the complex rhythms of the percussion, a
kind of inner beat, the vital pulse of the rhythmic life of the music. The
________________________________________________________________________
6
Milhaud composed incidental music to some of Claudels plays, while the writer
provided libretti for several of the composers operas.
7
Milhaud, Darius. Ma Vie Heureuse, 63-65.
8
Francois and Contijuch. http://www.redhotjazz.com/banb.html (Accessed February
27, 2011)

17
constant use of syncopation in the melody was of such contrapuntal

freedom that it gave the impression of unregulated improvisation,
whereas in actual fact it was elaborately rehearsed daily, down to the last
detail.9
Milhauds description is so striking not because it is an accurate description of
the early jazz he heard, but because it could literally describe his own ballet La cration
du monde. One might argue that this description could describe any hot jazz of that
period, but Milhaud utilized those same effects in exactly the ways he described in My
Happy Life. While it will be discussed in detail later in this study, in La cration du monde
the clarinet is utilized in the extreme upper range, the trombones very first entrance is
a series of glissandi, and the alto saxophone is not only the leading voice but it is always
breaking in from the whole, so various yet not disparate, held together by the piano
and subtly punctuated by the complex rhythms of the percussion. The cleverest
graduate student could hardly write a better program note for La cration du monde.
Granted, Milhaud had the benefit of framing both experiences, the early jazz hearing
and his own later composition, through the lenses of hindsight and the autobiographers
ability to paint oneself in a most forward-looking and positive light. Also, the astute
reader and critic (and many critics would make this claim, as will be discussed later),
might note that simply aping the tropes and riffs of jazz certainly would lead to such
similarities. However, as examined in Chapter 3, Milhaud would create more than a
caricature of jazz in La cration du monde.
Nearly all summarizations of Milhauds early jazz experiences speak of his
listening to Billy Arnold in London, and then of his travels to New York jazz clubs.
________________________________________________________________________
9
Milhaud, Darius, Ma Vie Heureuse, 98

18
However, he had a more personal connection to jazz while in London, one that was
certainly just as formative as those oft-mentioned hearings. While in London, he
reconnected with old Conservatoire classmate and composer Jean Winer, who was
working as a pianist in the Bar Gaya. Winer performed copious volumes of popular jazz
music alongside Vance Lowry, a black man who played saxophone and banjo.10 Milhaud
spent much of his time in the evenings listening to this music. Such a study in
syncopated jazz rhythm and styling, especially performed by his old friend and
classmate, must surely have been as important as being just another face in the crowd
at a night club or show.
Milhauds first venture in composing with these new sounds was his Caramel
Mou for piano, a shimmy he composed for a 1921 Parisian avant-garde concert.
Caramel Mou remains available as a published piano solo, but Jean Cocteau had also
written lyrics for this premiere, and its performance was accompanied by a dance by
the negro Graton.11 However, the work is primarily a study in jazz form and rhythm,
not the harmonies or melodic tropes of the genre. Milhaud himself had noted that his
contemporaries had made essays of the same type, constraining themselves to what
were more or less interpretations of dance music.12 Just as a Baroque dance suite
coopted folk dance conventions and forms without forsaking standard practice harmony
and counterpoint, Caramel Mou was a tentative and constrained exploration of an
________________________________________________________________________
10
Jean Winer, Allegro Appassionato, 43
11
Darius Milhaud, Ma Vie Heureuse, 98-99.
12
Ibid., 98.

19
exotic genre. Milhauds absorption of jazz in America would guide him to a more
complete synthesis in La cration du monde.
In 1922, Milhaud parlayed another former Conservatoire connection into a travel
and performance opportunity. Robert Schmitz, a Conservatoire-trained French pianist
living in New York City, connected Milhaud to a series of performance engagements in
the city. Amidst a whirlwind of solo performances, compositional premieres, and guest
conducting throughout Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City, Milhaud repeatedly
made time to hear live jazz music performances. He heard Paul Whitemans jazz
orchestra in New York City. His Boston guide, Harvard Glee Club Director Dr. Archibald T.
Davison13, took Milhaud to the Hotel Brunswick specifically because he knew the French
composer would want to hear the excellent jazz orchestra housed there. Milhaud met
and spoke with Henry Burleigh, the African-American classical composer who was
making negro spirituals available to the art music community through his
arrangements.14 However it was Yvonne George, the Belgian vocalist performing on
Broadway and connected to Milhaud by their mutual author friend Jean Cocteau, who
took Milhaud to Harlem to hear true jazz performed by black musicians.15
According to both Milhauds autobiography and Lunels biography, the white
snobs had not yet discovered Harlem, and Milhaud and his colleagues often found
themselves the only whites in sight on multiple outings to hear jazz performed in the
black neighborhood. As often as he could, Milhaud went to bars, dance halls, and
________________________________________________________________________
13
The Harvard Glee Club History, http://www.harvardgleeclub.org/info/history
(Accessed February 27, 2011)
14
Eileen Southern, The Music of Black Americans: A History, 284.
15
Darius Milhaud, Ma Vie Heureuse, 109.

20
theaters, noting that in some of their shows, the singers were accompanied by a flute,
a clarinet, two trumpets, a trombone, a complicated percussion section played by one
man, a piano, and a string quintet. An alto saxophone replaced the viola in the string
quartet, and a string bass was added.16 The show to which he referred was Maceo
Pinkards17 musical comedy Liza, and that instrumentation would be nearly duplicated in
La cration du monde. The inclusion of these jazz orchestrations in the ballet is
discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.
Composition and Premiere of
La cration du monde
His experiences with authentic jazz in New York left Milhaud more than
everresolved to use jazz for a chamber-music work.18 Upon returning to France in
April of 1923, Milhaud moved into an apartment at 10 Boulevard de Clichy, near the
Pigalle Plaza. There, he immediately began collaborating with the artist Fernand Lger
and the author Blaise Cendrars on a new ballet that Rolf de Mar had commissioned for
his Ballets Sudois.19 The Paris art world of the early 1920s was in the grip of
Primitivism, and African art and legend provided the perfect font of exoticism from
which to sip. Just one year earlier in 1921, Cendrars had published Anthologie Ngre, a
collection of African myths, some regarding the creation of the world. Thus, the three
artists decided to create a ballet based on these myths. Cendrars could utilize his African
________________________________________________________________________
16
Darius Milhaud, Levolution du jazz-band., Le Courrier Musical, May 1923, 101.
17
Three years later, in 1925, Pinkard would compose the hit that would live on as a
basketball meme - Sweet Georgia Brown
18
Darius Milhaud, Ma Vie Heurese, 110.
19
Ibid., 116-117.

21
myths, Lger could design African-inspired primitive scenery and costumes, and Milhaud
could utilize the instrumentation and styling of jazz, Africas musical voice in Western
music. With audiences seeking African spectacle, it was clearly a smart business move
as well as artistic decision. Milhauds new apartment was located less than two miles
from the Thtre des Champs-lyses where the ballet would premiere.
That premiere came on October 25, 1923, and the results were mixed. Milhaud
consistently stated in his memoires and other interviews that the very critics who
dismissed the score of La cration du monde as vulgar dance-hall music were praising
that same work a decade later for its skillful incorporation of jazz elements. However,
the value of Milhauds score was immediately apparent to some reviewers. The German
expatriate composer Boris de Schloezer was present for the opening run of La cration
du monde, and wrote his initial reactions in a 1923 edition of La Revue Pleyel:
The Creation of the World! At this title, I confess, I was somewhat

frightened. It seemed to me heavy and pretentious. And reading the
program only deepened my fears. I was expecting a music clearly tending
to be descriptive and saturated with this Negro exotic of which we are
already tired. It is not so, happily. We heard an orchestral work, a poem
very well built, a perfect symmetry and it delighted me...

One could say that between the poem by Milhaud and the legend of
Blaise Cendrars, there is no point of contact ... as if we care! We're not
going to the Champs-lyses to attend the realization of the sound of the
creation of the world, but to hear a musical. It has its own charm: it acts
directly.

It is composed of various elements - classic polyphony, melodies and
sentimental Negro rhythms - but it bears the mark of the personality of
its author. This style, which is based upon so many heterogeneous

22
elements, also seems to me EXTREMELY characteristic to our epochThe

decors of Leger were very pleasant.20
While Milhaud certainly had the possibly sympathetic ear of a fellow composer
and musician in this review, it is important to note that the review was certainly
positive. The opening run of La cration du monde was by no means a failure or
unsuccessful. There are hints, though, that it was the dance choreography and
performance that may have limited its popularity. Milhaud himself wrote that [d]espite
all the praiseworthy efforts by the Ballets Sudois, and all the esteem in which they
were held, the Ballets Russes achieved a greater technical perfection.21 De Schloezer,
though clearly a musician focused on the score, took time to mention the quality of
Lgers dcor and the influence of Cendrars text; he failed to mention a single word
regarding the actual dance, its choreography and execution, or the costumes that Lger
had designed. Milhaud similarly neglects any mention of the choreography or costumes
in Ma Vie Heureuse, while praising Lgers scenery. In his book Ballets Sudois, Pascale
De Groote states:
The weaknesses of the Ballets Sudois, that were the main reason for
their brief existence, are mentioned in numerous press articles. The
location that de Mar had chosen for their performance, the exclusive
Thtre des Champs-Elyses, automatically attracted followers of the
Ballets Russes. After all, it was in the same theatre that Diaghilev had
caused a commotion with Le Sacre du Printemps and other innovating
creationsOne of the most striking weaknesses was the low quality of
the dancers.22
________________________________________________________________________
20
Boris de Schloezer, Au Thtre des Champs-lyses : { La Cration du monde } de
Darius Milhaud [Analogie avec la lgende de Blaise Cendrars], Revue Pleyel. 1923, 21-
22. (Translation my own)
21
22
Pascale de Groote in Ballets Sudois, 87.

23
Gilson MacCormack, a reviewer for the London-based Dancing Times, wrote of
the Swedish troupe in 1924 that every star dancers performance was of a lower level
than that of any corps de ballet-dancers with the Ballet Russes.23 Beyond some revival
performances and novelty recreations of the ballet in the following decades, the musical
score of La cration du monde would prove to be the only lasting portion of the
production.
Flight from War and
Its Consequences for the Manuscript
Two years later, in 1925, Darius Milhaud would marry his cousin Madeleine
Milhaud. Madeleine was ten years his junior and a budding actress. The couple would
have a life-long and happy marriage, augmented by the birth of their only child Daniel in
1930. Daniel would go on to be a successful painter and sculptor. The 10 Boulevard de
Clichy apartments would be their family home until the threat of war and German
Fascism forced the Milhauds to flee.
Darius Milhauds Jewish heritage would prove central in both the history of the
manuscript source for La cration du monde, and in his and Madeleines choice to leave
France and finally settle in America. The encroaching threat of Nazi Germany forced the
couple to flee with their son in 1939, arriving in America in 1940. In the ensuing Nazi
occupation, the German agents made it very clear that they knew of the composers
Jewish heritage and of his public repudiation of the fascist agenda. Armand Lunel wrote
in his 1992 biography Mon Ami Darius Milhaud:
________________________________________________________________________
23
MacCormack, Gilson in Dancing Times, 12, 1924.

24
But Milhaud didnt know just how much he was at the forefront of those
artists who perpetuated the condemnation of Hitler. During the
occupation of Paris, his apartment was, to employ a euphemism, visited
by the Nazis, emptied of all his music and charming collections by burning
them in the fireplace, and between his photo and that of his wife, a score
of Parsifal was placed!24
It is important to note that this anecdote of Wagnerian admonishment only
appears in Lunels writing. Neither Milhaud nor Madeliene mentioned it in their
interviews or memoires. And Milhaud himself called his friend Armand Lunel a writer of
vague, excessively lyrical and slightly extravagant prose poems in Ma Vie Heureuse
(though this was a description of a very young and immature Lunel).25 One certainly
does not wish to cast aspersions on Lunels credibility, but simply note that the story is
given singularly and secondarily. If it was true, Milhauds Jewish lineage, as well as his
outspoken protest of German wartime policy, did not go unnoticed in the Nazi ranks;
the invading forces made sure to leave a very clear message in his former abode. The
great tragedy of this event however, was the burning of the composers manuscripts
and collections. It was in that chimney that the primary source of La cration du monde
most likely met its end. Most likely is the closest this author has come to a definitive
location for Milhauds manuscript for this ballet score. The issue of a primary source, or
lack thereof, is discussed in Chapter 3.
________________________________________________________________________
24
Lunel, Armand in Mon Ami Darius Milhaud, 96. (translation my own)
25
Milhaud, Darius, Ma Vie Heureuse, 36.

25
CHAPTER 3 JAZZ ELEMENTS IN
LA CRATION DU MONDE
Manuscript
Before beginning discussion and analysis of the score, it is important to note the
source. In no thesis, report, biography, catalogue, article, or book has this author found
mention of Milhauds original score for La cration du monde. While it is understandable
that no prior researcher has found this primary source, it is a definite blind spot in the
literature that no detailed account of its possible provenance has been sought and/or
published. Neither Milhaud nor his wife mentioned the location of the ballet manuscript
in any interview or published correspondence. The Ballets Sudois founder Rolf de
Mar used his folded troupes library and files to found les Archives Internationales de la
Danse, a collection within the Bibliothque nationale de France that still tours and
exhibits today; the score is not in its holdings. The score does not reside in the National
Library of Sweden, the British Library, the Bibliothque nationale de France, nor any
other collection indexed by the union catalogue WorldCat. The Rpertoire International
des Sources Musicales catalogue holds no references to any manuscript of La cration
du monde. Milhauds private collections at Mills College do not include the score.
Universal Music Group - the conglomerate who appropriated Ricordi, who annexed
Editions Durand, which bought Editions Max Eschig, the Parisian editor and publisher of
the printed score does not hold the manuscript in its archives. All of this is stated with
the authors fervent hope that no other researcher will follow these same dead ends in
seeking out a primary source in the composers hand. While it cannot be certain that the

26
original score was burned in that Parisian fireplace, it appears to be the most likely
resting place of the manuscript.
Though a primary source was not available for this or any other study, the firm of
Editions Max Eschig served as musical editor of the original production and parts, and
his Parisian publishing house provided the first printed and published editions of the
score. The scores first publication was a four-part Eschig reduction for four-hand piano.
While this score is not effective for study of the instrumentation, especially the
percussion, it is notable in that it was made available in 1923, the very year that La
cration du monde premiered. Eschigs full score, complete with the percussion parts,
was published in 1929. The fact that the editor of the original production also served as
the publisher of these first editions lends a strong level of credibility as to these scores
accuracy and fidelity to Milhauds manuscripts. Therefore, the 1929 score published by
Editions Max Eschig serves as the source in all analysis and discussion throughout this
study.
Indeed, the only published errata from the score are in the percussion parts26, an
understandable error given that Milhaud, like his contemporaries, wrote every
percussion instrument into its own staff, be it a wood block or a snare drum. Such a
bewildering wash of notes, sometimes connected by stems and beams across staves,
would easily lead to such a copyists error, and the obstacle of reading this kind of
notation is discussed and eliminated in Chapter 4 and the appended modern percussion
________________________________________________________________________
26
See Girsberger The Problem With the Parts. Percussive Notes 38 (2000): 55-59.

27
edition. With source firmly established, one is free to explore the jazz elements within
La cration du monde.
Jazz Elements in La cration du monde
As discussed in Chapter 2, Milhaud was inspired by the American black comedy
Liza and its jazz pit orchestra. While modeling the instrumentation on this jazz ensemble
was important for recreation of jazz timbres and voicings, it was also important that the
instruments used be readily available by accomplished French performers. The only
characteristic jazz instruments called for were the alto saxophone, the string bass, and
the bass drum with pedal and attached cymbal crasher. Also, the pit at Thtre des
Champs-lyses is only large enough for a small orchestra. Finally, there can be no
doubt that economic considerations were important as always, and a reduced
ensemble, including one percussionist performing a multitude of instruments, could
only have helped to improve the bottom line. Like the ballets thematic selection, the
performing forces were yet another sensible confluence of artistic endeavor and
practicality. Milhaud manipulated the compositional elements of instrumentation,
rhythms, melodies, harmonies, performance technique indications, and form to provide
the jazz in this ballet.
Instrumentation
When discussing the instrumentation of La cration du monde, it is important to
begin with the note d lauteur (note from the composer) published in the opening of
the score: This work should be performed, in regards to the instrumentation, as
indicated in the score, without doubling the strings. Milhaud, like any composer, would

28
have expected (at least hoped for) future performances of his work in a variety of
locations and settings, many of them unbound by the space requirements of the
Thtre des Champs-lyses. However, he had stated that he intended to incorporate
jazz into a chamber work.27 Multiples of strings, perhaps employed by a future
overzealous musical director, would certainly begin to press the ensemble beyond the
limits of a chamber group. This was important in that authentic jazz, as Milhaud had
determined, was itself a genre limited to the chamber ensemble. It was small combos of
two or more in a bar, or at most the azz bands he heard in Harlem theatres and dance
halls. Milhaud respected the musicianship and craft of the Paul Whiteman orchestras of
the jazz world, but that was not authentic in the Frenchmans eyes.
But listen seriously to a jazz band like that of Mr. Billy Arnold or Mr. Paul
Whiteman. Nothing is left to chance, everything is applied with perfect
tact, and the measure and balance are those of a musician who knows
the wonderful possibilities of each instrument.28
To Milhaud, true jazz featured the individual voices of the instrumentalists
performing a raucous, spontaneous outpouring of emotion within a sound musical
framework. La cration du monde would not feature any chord changes open to
improvised solos, but Milhauds desired effect was this bona fide restrained cacophony,
not the clock-work precision of white jazz. All of these elements were important in
Milhauds admonition about multiplying the strings employed, but there was another
concern. Milhaud clearly intended the winds to be the foremost voice in La cration du
monde.
________________________________________________________________________
27
Milhaud, Darius. Ma Vie Heureuse, 110.
28
Milhaud, Darius. "L'volution du jazz-band et la musique des ngres d'Amrique du
nord." Le Courrier Musical. (May 1929), 163.

29
Increasing the number of strings would unbalance the ensemble and shift the
ear to the strings, a section that does not play its usual ensemble-leading orchestral role
in La cration du monde. The viola has been replaced by the alto saxophone, which plays
the leading role in the work. The cello has been augmented by the string bass, a staple
of the jazz rhythm section. The piano never introduces any new thematic material, and
instead plays the role of rhythmic and percussive support more familiar to the comp
or rhythm pianist in a jazz band.29 The violins only introduce a new theme once, the
opening of Movement III; the rest of the work they are relegated to the same role as the
piano. The same can be said for the cello, which introduces Theme 4 in the opening of
the first movement. This is not to say that the strings and piano never carry important
melodic materials, only that they are mostly middle and background voices throughout
the scores textures. Increasing the numbers of strings would focus the audiences ear
on instruments that are not the leading voices in this ballet. This sort of scoring had
been firmly established by some of the greatest compositional names in Western music.
Mozarts Serenade No. 10 Gran Partita was a wind dectet with the addition of a string
bass. Dvoks Serenade in D Minor, Opus 44, was a wind nonet with a bass line
enhanced by the inclusion of a cello and string bass. Milhauds La cration du monde
provided yet another entry worthy in this genre.
The instrumentation of Milhauds ballet is further connected to jazz through the
percussion writing. He recreated the complicated percussion section played by one
________________________________________________________________________
29
Gonzalez-Appling, Julio Moreno. The Ox in the Concert Hall: Jazz Identity and La
Cration du Monde, 48.

30
man30 he had seen in Harlem with a multitude of percussive sounds scored for one
performer: tambour de basque, metal block, wood block, crash cymbals, snare drum,
medium/tenor tom, tambourine, pedaled bass drum with a detachable cymbal, and five
timpani. Such vast sonic resources at the hand of a single percussionist are evocative of
the jazz set drummer, who conjures color from rim shots, brush strokes, cowbell clangs,
and a host of overtones on cymbals struck anywhere from the crown to the edge.
In total, Milhauds prescribed ensemble was, on multiple levels, a kindred spirit
to the jazz bands of Harlem. Its economy of size, focus on the wind voices, assignment
of the piano and strings to rhythmic roles, and plethora of percussion timbres all of
these orchestration choices would have been instantly familiar to any authentic
American jazz performer or listener. The actual performance practice concerns arising
from the prescribed instrumentation, as well as other questions regarding score
indications and translations, is discussed in detail in Chapter 4.
Rhythm
Characteristic rhythm being such a fundamental and unique facet of jazz music,
Milhaud utilized this element to recall the genres sounds. However, it should be noted
that actual swing, with a compound triplet feel serving as the subdivision in lieu of
straight eighth notes, does not occur in La cration du monde at any point. Instead,
syncopation and motive fragments in hemiola are used to punctuate the works jazz
underpinnings. Throughout this and other chapters in the study, refer to the Thematic
Catalogue in Appendix A for a listing of themes and their incipits.
________________________________________________________________________
30
Milhaud, Darius. Ma Vie Heureuse, 110.

31
The opening theme (Theme 1) presented in the overture by the alto saxophone,
demonstrates no jazz elements. It is the trumpets at Rehearsal 2 who present
syncopation for the first time with Theme 2, with the characteristic syncopated style
reinforced by tonic accent. Theme 2 appears multiple times in the overture, including a
pure rhythmic form repeated in multiple pitched and unpitched percussion instruments.
Also, Milhaud altered Theme 2 to create the rising line of Theme 8, introduced and
employed repeatedly in Movement III.
Theme 4, which is the subject of a fugue in Movement I, contains numerous
consecutive pitches off of the downbeat, especially in the themes closing section. The
fugues countersubject, Theme 5, features multiple repeated figures that open on the
second half of the downbeat. Like Theme 1, the syncopation is emphasized by tonic
accent; like the Theme 4 fugue subject, the themes closing figure includes consecutive
notes placed in off beats. Syncopation is used in every measure of Theme 10, introduced
by the violins in the opening of Movement III. Syncopation are employed in the lengthy
Theme 12 introduced by the clarinet to open Movement IV, the ballets closing
movement. The use of syncopated rhythm was a jazz facet being explored by multiple
Parisian composers. Erik Saties Rag-time du paquebot (1917) and Stravinksys Octet and
Concerto for Piano (both in 1923) were just a tiny but representative portion of the new
compositions utilizing the new jazz and dance rhythms that had arrived in Europe.
Milhauds use of hemiola also creates a jazz feel. For example, Theme 4a is
utilized as a closing section to fugue subject statements and as its own motive
throughout the work. It is labeled in this study as such, because it is derived from the

32
figure in measures three and four of Theme 4. It is also transformed by the use of
repetition in a hemiola pattern. The dual result is a syncopation caused by tonic accent,
and the effect of a jazz improvisational soloists riff. Theme 4a is found in multiple
forms throughout the work, often in augmentation. Percussion and percussive effects
sometimes highlight these hemiola, as in four bars before Rehearsal 31.
Melody
Milhaud, going beyond jazz rhythm, employed the blues mode in his scoring
for La cration du monde. Not all of the melodies in La cration du monde incorporate
jazz rhythms or modes. While a melodic constructions underlying harmony might imply
jazz, only the creation of a tuneful line incorporating syncopation and/or blue notes
could lead to a jazz melody.
The blues, beyond the harmonic form employed in the genre, is an artificial
scale employing a root ascending to a minor third, perfect fourth, augmented fourth,
perfect fifth, and minor seventh. Mixing the blue notes of the minor third, augmented
fourth, and minor seventh with the traditional major scale generates the characteristic
harmonic and melodic features of jazz. In his article L'volution du jazz-band et la
musique des ngres d'Amrique du nord, Milhaud cited the blues as an important
element in jazz melody.
Since jazz was first heard here, its evolution has been considerable. An
outpouring of sound was followed up by a remarkable enhancement of
melodic elements: the period of the blues. The bare melody, supported

33
by very crisp and simple rhythmic, percussion barely discernible, more

and more interior.31
The blues appears in multiple motives throughout La cration du monde. Theme
4 marks the first appearance of the blues mode in the ballets melodies. Anchored in a
D-major tonality, Theme 4 mixes both F# and F natural (once spelled as E#), borrowing
from the major and blues modes. The minor seventh, C, is also employed. The
countersubject, Theme 5, is similarly based in the blues mode. Centered on E major, G
naturals (sometimes spelled as Fx) and D naturals abound, freely mixing with the G#s
and D#s of the major mode. Theme 7, introduced by the oboe in the second movement,
is centered on the key of F major, but features tonically accented Ebs the flat seven.
Theme 11, centered in F# major and again introduced by the oboe, presents multiple flat
sevenths (E naturals) and minor thirds (A naturals). Theme 12, presented by the clarinet,
is also in F# major32, and it contains multiple minor third and seventh scale tones. The
fifth measure of Theme 13, the works final theme, features mixing of the sub-tonic and
supertonic in the key of F#, with both E natural and E# being used to lead into the tonic.
All of these blue notes imbue the melodic material in La cration du monde with a
thoroughly jazzy character. The use of these altered chord tones also generated
characteristic jazz harmonies. This harmony was further enriched through the related
technique of polytonality.
________________________________________________________________________
31
Milhaud, Darius. L'volution du jazz-band et la musique des ngres d'Amrique du
nord, Le Courrier Musicale, 164. (Translation my own)
32
The clarinet part presents this theme in Ab (Gb concert pitch), but the rest of the score
and parts present this section in F# major

34
Harmony
It is important to note that the use of blue notes is a form of polytonality.
Specifically, it is a mixture and juxtaposition of a major mode with its natural minor
mode. When a blue note is employed over the major mode, then the result is the
extended tertiary harmonies that constitute jazz sonorities. For example, a D major
chord in the harmony, paired with a blue F-natural and C-natural, creates a
(sometimes misspelled) D dominant 7 sharp 9 sonority. These techniques can create
multiple sonorities, including dominant seven chords utilized as a stable tonic cadential
resting point. Milhaud composed La cration du monde using this blues polytonality, as
well as his own particular polytonal voice and technique.
Milhauds skill with and employ of polytonality has been well documented. The
composer wrote articles in which he described his self-perceived position in the
spectrum of Latin (polytonality) and Teutonic (atonality) schools of thought that had
arisen from 19th century chromaticism; the most representative of these articles are
Polytonalit et Atonalit in Revue Musicale (Volume IV, number 4, 1923) and
Lvolution de la musique modern Paris et Vienne in North American Review (April,
1923). A detailed analysis of harmony and polytonality in La cration du monde is
provided in Chapter 5 and supplemented in Appendices A and B.
Performance Indications
Jazz sounds were novel to the traditional Western ear, and not only because of
the new melodic and harmonic extensions or the syncopated rhythms. Jazz featured
extended timbres and playing techniques that created new colors and sounds. Milhaud

35
himself noted this important feature in the jazz music being heard in Europe when he
composed La cration du monde. In L'volution du jazz-band et la musique des ngres
d'Amrique du nord, Milhaud stated:
new instrumental techniques, the piano with the dryness and the
precision of a drum and a banjo, the rebirth of the saxophone, the
trombone glissandos that became a most common means of expression
entrusted with the sweetest melodies, and the trumpet, ... the mute,
vibrato of the slide or piston, "flutter tongue"; the clarinet in the extreme
upper range, with violence in the attack, a force in the sound, a technique
of slipping and trilling of the note disconcerted our best
instrumentalistsThe strength of jazz comes from the novelty of his
technique in all areas In terms of orchestration, the use of the various
instruments listed above and the development of their specialized
technique have a variety of extraordinary expression.33
None of these techniques were entirely new. Flutter tonguing had certainly been
used before. The clarinet had been scored in its extreme upper range well before jazz.
Mutes and glissandos were not a jazz invention. However, the continuous and frequent
use of these elements for expressive purposes, not just for the use of effect or novelty,
was a touchstone of jazz writing and performance. Milhaud clearly understood this and
incorporated these techniques into his score for La cration du monde.
The glissandi appear in the trombone during its very first entrance early in the
overture, and they continue to appear in that voice throughout the work. This technique
is complimented by that slipping and trilling of the note of which Milhaud wrote
ascending grace notes lilting into short pitches in the piano and saxophone, and
ornamented upper neighbor tone grace notes in the flute, oboe, and trumpet. Milhaud
indicated flutter tonguing in the flute, clarinet, and trumpet parts. It should be noted,
________________________________________________________________________
33
Milhaud, Darius. L'volution du jazz-band et la musique des ngres d'Amrique du
nord, Le Courrier Musicale, 163.

36
however, that these effects always occur at soft dynamics and legato passages. This
effect is never a raucous, forte growl.
The jazz penchant for multiple timbres through the use of mutes was carried
throughout La cration du monde, though not to the degree that was possible. Only the
violins and trumpets have indications of either Sourd. (sourdine, mute for the
strings and trumpet), and the horn part calls for bouch (corked, that is, stopped).
The trombone part does not contain mute instructions. Milhaud did not call for cup
mutes, hat mutes, harmon mutes, or any other timbre-altering devices common in jazz
performance.
Milhaud certainly applied the upper range and forceful attack to the clarinet
parts, as well as the flute parts. Both instruments are used percussively in the upper
register in the fourth movement (in the shout section discussed below). Using
repeated pitches in the upper register, all four voices continuously strike the same
dissonant sonority in accented time with the percussive rhythm.
Form
The form of La cration du monde places it firmly in the court of contemporary
jazz music. Milhaud created this connection through the use of cyclic composition and
the jazz convention known as a shout chorus. The composer created intricate
relationships between many of his themes, often through the use of fragmentation and
derivation. Themes appear in multiple movements, and often in juxtaposition to one
another. As stated above, this lends itself to the jazz riff model. According to the New
Grove Dictionary of Music, a riff is defined as:

37
In jazz, blues and popular music, a short melodic ostinato which may be
repeated either intact or varied to accommodate an underlying harmonic
pattern. The riff is thought to derive from the repetitive call-and-
response patterns of West African music, and appeared prominently in
black American music from the earliest times. It was an important
element in New Orleans marching band music (where the word riff
apparently originated), and from there entered jazz, where by the mid-
1920s it was firmly established in background ensemble playing and as
the basis for solo improvisation. Riffs also appeared in the
accompaniments of many early blues, being particularly suited to their
repeating structure. The conflict between an unvaried riff pattern and the
changing harmonies of the blues progression became one of the most
distinctive features of the blues and its derivatives.34
Milhauds cyclic composition technique, with themes continually returning in
whole and/or fragment to be layered with other themes and changing harmonies,
creates the effect of riff-based jazz composition and improvisation.
For example, the climax of the work, beginning at Rehearsal 46, layers Themes 4,
4a, 5, and 12 simultaneously and throughout multiple trading voices. All of the themes
were introduced earlier in the ballet, with Themes 4, 4a, and 5 introduced in the jazz
fugue of Movement I. As stated earlier, many of the works themes are simply riff-like
fragments derived or transformed from the other themes. It is also this same section at
46 that utilizes another jazz convention the shout chorus.
A shout chorus is a loud, spirited, climactic chorus in a performance by

a big band, in which the brass section leads the whole ensemble.35
________________________________________________________________________
34
J. Bradford Robinson. "Riff." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music
/23453 (accessed February 13, 2011).
35
"Shout." In The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed., edited by Barry Kernfeld. Grove
Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
/J408400 (accessed February 13, 2011).

38
One could not write a better description of the climax at 46 in La cration du
monde. Through the raucous layering of multiple riffs (themes) across changing
harmonies, and through simplified phrasing structure reduced to ostinato, Milhaud
created the perfect analog to a jazz climax. All of these voices, playing with soloistic
abandon, are masterfully combined to create the effect of an improvisational New
Orleans jazz shout chorus. Taken as a whole, the jazz effects Milhaud employed in La
cration du monde took the work far beyond a mere dalliance in jazz rhythm or form.
The work became a clear fusion of traditional Western art music and authentic African-
American jazz.
Milhaud noted in his memoires that upon his first hearing of jazz, he noticed that
the music was of such contrapuntal freedom that it gave the impression of unregulated
improvisation, whereas in actual fact it was elaborately rehearsed daily, down to the last
detail.36 The likes of Paul Whiteman and company sought to apply jazz harmony,
rhythm, melody, and novel technique to a large orchestral model while retaining the
traditional restraint and control found in those ensembles. Milhaud, on the other hand,
created the illusion of freedom, of riff and improvisation, of spontaneity to the
audiences ear while still adhering to rigid form and internally established harmonic
principles. In attaining this goal, Milhaud placed himself in the very realm of jazz he
sought to inhabit.
________________________________________________________________________
36

39
CHAPTER 4 INTERPRETING SCORE INDICATIONS
As with any foreign language source, the verbatim translation is often clouded by
idiomatic phrases and outdated or changing meanings. This challenge presents itself in
La cration du monde through the indicated instrumentation and the performance
indications the composer included. All of the 1929 Eschig scores markings are
translated in Appendix C. Many of these performance directions and instrumentation
translations can be easily translated verbatim using electronic dictionaries, simple
French-to-English dictionaries, or French music dictionaries. However, those markings
which prove unwieldy through idiomatic, geographic, or temporal concern are discussed
in detail below. In addition, the ballets narrative structure and its links to the score are
outlined in detail.
Instrumentation
The wind and string instruments called for in La cration du monde are ordinary
and easily readable even by non-French speakers, though it should be noted that the
score calls for C trumpets. The difficulties in assigning equipment come in the
percussion section. Milhaud specified Tambour de Basque, Bloc de Metal, Bloc de Bois,
Cymbales, Caisse Claire, Caisse Roulante, Tambourin, Grosse Caisse a Pied avec cymbal,
2 Petite Timbales, and 3 Timbales. These parts should be assigned to two performers
a percussionist and a timpanist. Bloc de Bois, Tambour de Basque, Caisse Claire, and
Timbales provide no difficulties, translating clearly into the modern instruments of
Wood Block, Tambourine, Snare Drum, and Timpani respectively. The other percussion
instruments require a deeper discussion.

40
The performer and conductor should interpret the Bloc de Metal carefully.
While this literally translates into block of metal, this would usually mean an
unpitched, solid piece of metal such as an anvil. The Nonesuch Records recording of
Milhaud conducting the orchestra of the Thtre des Champs-lyses features a
percussionist playing an anvil. However, Milhaud would later state that, in the jazz
context of La cration du monde, the performer should utilize a cowbell to achieve the
desired color.37 Most recordings one hears of the work feature percussionists and
conductors who have made this same interpretative decision, confirmed by Russ
Girsberger in his 2000 article Darius Milhauds La cration du monde: The Problems
with the Parts.
The call for a Tambourin is potentially the most confusing of the percussion
assignments. Tambourin is the French term for the tabor, a drum with a medieval
history. It is important, for one, that the performer and conductor not confuse the
tambourine part (Tambour de basque) with the tabor part (Tambourin). Secondly, the
actual nature of the French Tabor, or tambourine, is open to interpretation. The New
Grove Dictionary of Music outlines these varying definitions of the tabor.
The tabor (Fr. tambourin) is usually a small side drum with a gut snare.
The snare crosses the head that is struck, or snares may be provided on
both heads. The tabor varies in shape; it may be shallow or about as deep
as it is wide (e.g. the Basque atabal), or very deep, with the shell twice as
long as the heads are widethe Provenal model...The tabor is slung
from the wrist or shoulder of the players left arm and is beaten by a stick
held in the right hand. In Provence it is regarded as important to strike
________________________________________________________________________
37
Michael Rosen in "Terms Used in Percussion: The Milhaud Concerto pour batterie et
petite orchestre." Percussive Notes 26/1 (Fall 1987), 31.

41
the snare itself, to produce a continuous droning sound underlying the

beaten rhythm.38
It is readily apparent that some deliberation is necessary when choosing the
appropriate instrument. The clearest and most appropriate model of the various forms
of the tabor is the Tambourin Provenale mentioned in the New Grove article. Milhaud
hailed from Provene, where he spent a happy childhood. In addition, Milhaud
specifically called for the Tambourin Provenale in other works such as the Concerto
pour batterie et petit orchestra (1930) and Suite Franaise (1944). Thus it is appropriate
to utilize this instrument, specific to the composers native geography, as the model for
modern instrumentation. If the ensemble already possesses such an instrument, then its
use in performance of La cration du monde would be entirely appropriate. Yet it is not
necessary to acquire this relatively rare instrument. The dimensions and sonic
properties of the Tambourin Provenal closely match a cocktail drum, or a large tom
utilized in most modern wind and percussion ensembles. Listening to a recording of the
Orchestre du Thtre des Champs Elyses (the composer himself conducting), the
instrument utilized for the Tambourin part is clearly an instrument with sonic properties
similar to a large tom.39 It is important to note that Warren Howe, in his 1979 article
"The Percussionist's Guide to Darius Milhaud's La Cration du Monde," suggested that a
cocktail drum should be utilized in place of the tabor. A cocktail drum is visible in film of
________________________________________________________________________
38
Anthony C. Baines and Hlne La Rue. Tabor and Pipe in New Grove Dictionary of
Music.
/21805 (Accessed February 27, 2011)
39
La cration du monde, Orchestre du Thtre des Champs Elyses. Darius Milhaud.
2005.

42
a live performance of the Orchestre Nationale du France, Leonard Bernstein
conducting.40 While a cocktail drum is of the proper pitch and dimensions, its relative
rarity in the modern percussion equipment cabinet make it an optional choice in this
authors estimation. If such an instrument is already in the ensembles inventory, or if it
can be acquired easily, then it should be played with a mallet or stick like a tom, not
with a pedal. If a cocktail drum is not available, then a low floor tom will function
admirably in its stead, as long as a softer mallet is used to strike it.
The Caisse Roulante, literally a rolling drum, should be interpreted as a tenor
drum without snares; a field drum will serve admirably in this capacity. Milhaud clearly
intended the various unpitched drums in La cration du monde to create a spectrum of
voicings similar to the voices in a choir or consort. In the scores initial instrumentation
listing, the three unpitched drums are listed in the order of Caisse Claire, Caisse
Roulante, and Tambourin. Throughout the score, the individual staves for these
instruments are always placed next to each other and in that order from top to bottom.
In his use of melodic motives stated on these drums, Milhaud clearly intended these
unpitched drums to have a pitched melodic element in his scoring of the ballet. Thus,
the drum used for the caisse roulante should be pitched between the snare drum and
tom or cocktail drum used for the tambourin; the instrument should be a two-headed
device to match the other drums. Care should be taken to differentiate the pitch
amongst all of the drums, from highest (caisse claire, or snare drum) to lowest (grosse
caisse, or bass drum).
________________________________________________________________________
40
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeXgEURsf-E, accessed 2 March, 2011.

43
The Grosse Caisse Pied avec cymbals provides the final challenge within the
percussion instrumentation. The kick bass drum indicated by the score is common
enough, but the notation avec cymbals is confusing and anachronistic to the modern
percussion performer and conductor. Warren Howe provided the answers in his 1979
article "The Percussionist's Guide to Darius Milhaud's La Cration du Monde."
During the 1920s a small cymbal was often attached to the bass drum
adjacent to the foot beater. A small metal beater was attached to the
bass drum beater in a vertical angle which is extended to the cymbal. As
the foot pedal was pressed down, the bass drum beater would strike the
drum and simultaneously cause the small vertical metal beater attached
to its shaft to strike the cymbal. At the players discretion the metal
beater could be moved so it would not strike the cymbal.41
Howe goes on to provide a diagram of his suggested placement of the myriad
percussion instruments required by *La cration du monde*. Curiously, his diagram
features a horizontal (not vertical) metal beater striking the cymbal, but this
configuration makes sense and could be readily recreated, by any modern percussionist
without specialized equipment. However, reaching down, in the heat of the moment, to
engage or reengage the cymbal can be fraught with peril in a performance setting. A far
more simple and practical method is to use a small, slightly open, pedaled hi-hat
cymbal. When the bass drum part calls for simultaneous striking of the cymbal, two feet
can be employed. As for the bass drum, one should select a larger bass drum to mimic a
concert sound, as opposed to the smaller and less resonant drums on a jazz drum set.
This not only provides the sound desired by the composer (as determined by listening to
the same recording mentioned in the section regarding the tambourin), but it provides
________________________________________________________________________
41
Warren Howe in "The Percussionist's Guide to Darius Milhaud's La Cration du
Monde." Percussionist 17/1 (1979), 37-50.

44
the necessary contrast in color and pitch to the large tambourin drum. Warren Howe
suggested a 28-inch bass drum to closely match the timbre of a mounted, concert bass
drum, a decision with which this study agrees.42
Of course, careful planning is necessary to ensure that one percussionist is able
to play all of these instruments simultaneously. Some percussion instruments must be
played in a rapid succession, leaving little time to move to a new station or to switch to
a different mallet or beater. Fortunately, Mr. Howe diagrammed a carefully planned and
considered placement of the percussion instruments. These instructions include the
recommendation to utilize two identical wood blocks in separate locations for
performing rapid passages on that instrument. Howe also recommended attaching the
specified baguette de bois (wooden mallet) to the bass drum via a cord or thong.
These instructions and diagrams are included in an adapted format in Appendix D with
the modern percussion edition.
The timpani, although familiar instruments, are scored in a way that would be
unfamiliar to the modern performer. The two smallest timpani are scored in a separate
staff, in treble clef, and referred to as Petites Timbales in the score; the parts also
note that these two smallest timpani are aigues (high-pitched).43 These two timpani
are pitched in D and F#, both above middle C. Therefore, two piccolo timpani (20-inch
drums) are required, as this pitch cannot be attained on the smallest 23-inch drum
utilized in most modern wind ensembles. Stretching the timpani part for one performer
________________________________________________________________________
42
Monde." Percussionist 17/1 (1979), 39.
43
Russ Girsberger in Darius Milhauds La Cration du Monde: The Problems with the
Parts Percussive Notes (June, 2000), 55.

45
across multiple staves only serves to confuse, albeit mildly, the modern percussionist.
Thus, one may combine the parts into a one-staff part in bass clef, a task accomplished
by this author in Appendix D of this study.
Performance Indications
As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the majority of the
performance indications in *La cration du monde* can be translated in a simple,
verbatim manner. However, some interpretation is necessary for idiomatic or
specialized expressions. All of the score markings have been translated in Appendix C.
Only those items that have been interpreted idiomatically are discussed in this portion
of the text.
The first of these indications requiring discussion is Rideau, found at the end of
the overture and at the end of the work. Literally translated as curtain, these were
instructions for the raising and lowering of the curtain during the ballet. While this does
not affect musical performance interpretation in the form of dynamics, articulation, or
balance, it is important for the conductor to remember that the pause between the
overture and the first movement should be very brief. It is also necessary for the
ensemble to know when the overture ends and the action on stage begins so that a link
to the textual and narrative structure is maintained. More discussion of the ballet
narrative, and its relation to the score, is provided later in this chapter.
In the opening of the first movement, the pianist is instructed to perform the
grace notes trs sec et larpge trs rapide et nerveux. This is literally very dry and
the arpeggio very fast and nervous. Nervous, however, does not have the same

46
connotation in French as it does in English. A better rendering is jumpy, fidgety, or
edgy. Thus, the arpeggiated figures should be performed quickly, with great impulse
of volume in the grace notes and a quick release on the downbeat of the ultimate pitch.
Six bars after Rehearsaling 42, the trumpet is instructed to perform with son
ordinaire. This marking, literally reading ordinary sound, is confusing because the
trumpet has rested for dozens of measures since its last entrance. This provides the clue
to the meaning of this indication however, as the trumpet was muted in its part at
Rehearsal 33. Thus ordinary sound simply means open, as in no mute. The rest of
the markings can be translated verbatim, some of them through their English or Italian
cognates. Yet much time and work are saved for the conductor and ensemble by
utilizing the appendix of translations.
One marking that is open to interpretation and unrelated to foreign language
concerns is the three opening passing lines in the trombones first entrance four bars
before Rehearsal 4. Each one of the runs is a series of quick, chromatically sequential
pitches underneath a slur marking. However, the first two gestures are marked
glissando while the third is not. Judging from the multiple recordings available of La
cration du monde this provides considerable confusion for the trombonist and
conductor alike, as every other album features a glissando on the third chromatic line.
The most definitive answer to this question of to smear or not to smear can be found
by listening to the Orchestre du Thtre des Champs Elyses recording under Milhauds
baton; the trombonist performs a glissando into Rehearsal 4, from B to G#. Thus, the
absence of a glissando marking was at worst erratum, at best implied simile.

47
Movements
The final score indications of import to the conductor are not markings at all; it is
what is missing from the score. *La cration du monde* is divided into six sections:
Overture
I. The Chaos Before Creation
II. The slowly lifting darkness, the creation of trees, plants, insects, birds
and beasts
III. Dance of Created Beings - Man and woman created
IV. The desire of man and woman
V. The Man and Woman Kiss Coda
Without looking at the rental parts or, as this author did, a description of the
work found in sources such as Paul Collaers biography Darius Milhaud44 or Warren
Howes "The Percussionist's Guide to Darius Milhaud's *La cration du monde*,45 the
conductor pursuing score study would not know these movement titles. This is because
the titles do not appear, French or otherwise, in the Eschig score. Such information is
vital to the conductors interpretation of the music, as the work accompanies on scene
stage narrative through dance. While the source material, Anthologie ngre, is available
as a published book, the ballets original staging must be reconstructed from the notes
of Lger and Cendrars. Fortunately, this task was undertaken admirably by Pascales de
Groote in Ballets Sudois, and from this description one may link individual narrative
moments to the ballet score.
The Overture was performed with the curtain down, the focus entirely on the
musical ensembles performance. It was at the opening of the first movement,The

________________________________________________________________________
44
Paul Collaer in Darius Milhaud, translated by J.H. Galante. San Fransisco Press (1988),
69-74.
45
Monde." Percussionist 17/1 (1979), 43-48.

48
Chaos Before Creation, that the curtain rose to reveal Lgers striking backdrop rising
from the floor, a cubist rendering of the three African deities who look upon the void
before creating the world. These three gods Nzame, Mbere, and Nkwa overlook this
chaos of pre-creation while the nerveux piano figures highlight the jumpy jazz fugue
accent the lack of order.46
The mysterious harmonies and new theme that open Movement II represent
the slowly lifting darkness, with a return of the saxophone solo from the overture
evoking the dark before the creation of plants and animals. The oboe solo three bars
after Rehearsal 20, with its new theme in a blues mode, is an important musical
moment; the blues theme signifies the gods creation of the plants, insects, and animals.
The creation of even more beings is suggested as more voices and themes are layered
into the orchestration, such as the trumpet at three bars before Rehearsal 24 and the
saxophones Theme 4a in the second bar of 24. At rehearsal 25, the plants and animals
created are called to dance by the call of a horn.
Movement III is a lively, syncopated dance of creatures, building to greater and
greater accented excitement culminated by the trombone and its glissando four bars
before 32. Pascale de Groote gives a vivid description:
The stage was full of creatures, witches, objects, insects, monkeys, birds

The creatures were enlivened by dancers who were completely covered
by their costumes that were made in the same colours as the
decorations. Sometimes, the performers had to carry heavy objects so
that they would look less human and could become mobile
________________________________________________________________________
46
NOTE: While some harmonic and formal concerns are discussed in this chapter for the
sake of connection to the ballets narrative structure, the bulk and detail of analysis is
explored in Chapter 5.

49
sculpturesthere was action on stage constantly. It was not only caused

by the moving figures, but also by the play of light and dark so that the
stage was never lighted all at once.

the dancers moves were dictated by their costumes. The insects could
only move on their hands and feet, the birds walked on stilts and the
monkeys had extended arms.47
The dance of these beings is interrupted by yet another new blues theme from
the oboe at Rehearsal 32. Just as the oboe solo near Rehearsal 20 sings the plants and
animals into existence, this new solo invokes the creation of The First Man and Woman.
Thus, the oboe is established in La cration du monde as the generative voice of the
gods, and the blues are their language.
It is not long before the man and woman notice one other, and begin to dance to
the coy and extended theme of desire expounded by the clarinet. The dance climaxes in
the couples kiss and consummation of desire at Rehearsal 40. Once again, it is the oboe
that reveals a new theme. It is now man and woman involved in the act of creation,
though their language is more earthly and sultry, not the blues language used by the
gods in their creative endeavors. The impression of coupling is enhanced, as the theme
is played as a duet by the piccolo and trumpet in the sixth bar of Rehearsal 42. The
moment of consummation is preceded by a quiet moment of repose, reminiscent of the
Overture, before The Spring of life48 begins the shout section at Rehearsal 46.
The joyous outpouring, the ejaculation of sound at Rehearsal 46 finally subsides
in Movement V, as The First Man and Woman kiss at the completion of the act of love,
and the creatures on stage begin to exit. As the man and woman walk into the distance,
________________________________________________________________________
47
Pascale de Groote, Ballets Sudois, 58-59.
48
Ibid., 58.

50
the Creation of Man and Dance of Desire themes interweaving before the
saxophone returns with the opening overture theme. In the distance and now alone, the
couple embrace, three bars before Rehearsal 54. The scene fades in the final nine bars,
a coda of jazz flutter tonguing punctuated by the saxophone lingering on the seventh of
a D major seventh chord.
None of the above assertions are meant to push the conductor or performers
primary interpretative considerations towards the programmatic. Nancy Perloff noted in
Art and the Everyday: Popular Entertainment and the Circle of Erik Satie that the
correspondence between action and music is by no means exact in La cration du
monde.49 However, while programmatic concerns are certainly not the primary concern
of a works interpretation, a ballet is certainly an artistic work driven by narrative.
Understanding these connections chronologically within the score provides the
conductor and the ensemble with information necessary to discern the meaning of the
sectional nature of *La cration du monde*. This in turn allows for the best decisions
regarding prominence of line, style, and inflection at the discretion of the performers.
________________________________________________________________________
49
Nancy Perloff in Art and the Everyday: Popular Entertainment and the Circle of Erik
Satie, 202.

51
CHAPTER 5 - FORMAL AND THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
As mentioned briefly in the Harmony section of Chapter 3, Milhaud utilized
polytonality, specifically bitonality, throughout La cration du monde. The composers
bitonal applications have been a fertile bed of analysis, discussion, and debate.50 In *La
cration* this technique was sometimes applied in the blending of parallel major and
minor modes to generate the blues, while in other instances two non-parallel keys
were juxtaposed. However, in the case of the latter application, Milhaud never left any
doubt as to the tonal center in a given segment of music. The form of the work is
carefully organized and executed, with a classically balanced profile and an impressively
displayed command of counterpoint, harmonic transformation, and thematic
application.
Blues Harmony
Before discussing the specifics of polytonality within the work, as well as key
structure, it is important to clearly define the polytonal harmonies that result from the
use of the blues in La cration du monde. As discussed in Chapter 3, the blues in its most
modern and rigid definition, is an artificial scale of a tonic, minor third, perfect fourth,
augmented fourth, perfect fifth, minor (dominant) seventh, and returning to tonic.
However, that is simply the academic method of quantifying the scale for performers to
practice. The blue notes of the minor third, diminished fifth (augmented fourth), and
________________________________________________________________________
50
See Daniel Harrisons Bitonality, Pentatonicism, and Diatonicism in a Work by
Milhaud in Music Theory in Concept and Practice. Rochester, NY: University of
Rochester Press, 1997; Deborah Mawer in Darius Milhaud: modality & structure in music
of the 1920s. Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997; Michael Russ in "Accounting and Mediating:
Modes, Genera, Voice-Leading and Form in Milhaud." Music Analysis 19, no. 2 (2000).

52
flat seventh are truly borrowed notes of the parallel minor mode. Thus, playing the
blues meant freely mixing these modes not just regionally within a work, but in parallel
and locally. Repeated major and minor third mixing, as well as the use of a dominant
seventh, are hallmarks of jazz and blues harmony utilized in La cration du monde. For
example, the Overture features a D minor melody and countermelody in the saxophone
and upper voices, while D major is clearly utilized in the left hand piano, string bass, and
timpani. Movement Is jazz fugue features prominent use of major and minor thirds, and
major and minor sevenths, in both the subject and countermelody. Themes 7, 8, 11, and
12 all are heavy with these same blue notes. Theme 13 stretches this boundary with its
alternating major and minor sevenths reaching upward to tonic in the fourth measure of
Rehearsal 40 and one bar before Rehearsal 43. These melodic and harmonic
constructions color the majority of the work with the heavy jazz influence of the blues.
Tonal Structure
Milhauds compositional procedure took thematic and harmonic materials of La
cration du monde through a variety of related keys51, creating a complex harmonic
topography. Yet these departures and detours are secured to a relatively simple tonal
structure. The entire ballet is anchored, at both its opening and conclusion, to the D
pitch class. The overture begins and ends in D minor. The tonal center remains on the D
pitch class at the opening of the first movement, with the jazz fugues subject stated in a
mixture of D minor and D major, creating D blues. While the end of this movement
________________________________________________________________________
51
These keys are often closely related (V-I, dominant-tonic, and other simple harmonic
relationships), or through more complex means (tritone, parallel mode, chromatic
mediant).

53
retains a secondary key of D blues, the closing primary melodic material, after traveling
through multiple key centers, is centered in Ab. The Ab key center is exploited as a
transition into C major at the opening of Movement II, though Ab remains as a
secondary key. Through a transitional key of Eb at rehearsal measure 25, the key center
evolves into F# blues to begin Movement III. This F# blues tonality will hold until a final
series of modulations, first in the dominant motion from F# to B minor at Rehearsal 41.
This is followed by two chromatic mediant transitions, from B minor to G blues five bars
before rehearsal 43, and then from G blues to Eb three measures before rehearsal 44.
The transition through Eb returns the key center to D blues in the fifth and final
movement. This tonal structure, with its beginning and end in a D center and middle in
the brighter and higher tessitura F# center, mirrors the works form a symmetrical arc.
Form
In broad outlines, La cration du monde is constructed in an arc, with the
opening Theme 1 returning to close the work in its final movement at five before
Rehearsal 53. The arc displays remarkable symmetry and depth, supported by theme
and key structure; the chaos of the jazz fugue in the first movement corresponds to the
cacophony of the shout section at rehearsal 46. The tonal structure also reflects this
shape, as the temporary, modulatory key center of Eb is utilized to transition into the
center of the work (Rehearsal 25) and back into its closing section (three bars before
Rehearsal 44). Countless examples of this arc-like construction appear as the work is
more deeply examined. The coda does add an asymmetrical tag to this arc structure,

54
but it does utilize themes from throughout the work, and it remains in the D key center
established in the opening.
The interior of the work features a punctuated, episodic form that advances the
narrative of the ballet. As discussed in the previous chapter, Milhaud established the
oboe, performing in a blues mode, as the voice of creation, and it is this voice that
provides the punctuation for each dance episode on stage. This occurs for the first time
at the fourth bar of Rehearsal 20, at the creation of trees, plants, insects, birds and
beasts. The process is repeated at rehearsal 32, as Man and Woman are created. At
Rehearsal 40 the oboe finally presents a new, languid melody, less blues-influenced, and
signifying the worldly creation initiated by the accouplment of the man and woman.
The most rigid formal element within the work is the jazz fugue presented in the
first movement. It is a four-voice fugue, in the blues mode, with a clearly defined subject
(Theme 4) and countersubject (Theme 5). At the opening of the first movement, the
subject is stated in the string bass in the key center of D. The most singular and curious
element in this fugue is the subject-answer structure. The trombone answers six bars
later, now centered in E (the supertonic rather than the dominant), and with the string
bass continuing with the countersubject in E. By stating the answer in the supertonic,
the fugue tonicizes the dominant key of A, with the saxophone providing this second
subject entry at Rehearsal 12; the trombone inherits the countersubject, also in A. The
first trumpet intones the final answer, now returning to the key center of D, while the
saxophone predictably plays the countersubject in D. Thus, the expositions tonal
structure is D-E-A-D, creating a I-II-V-I form in which E serves as secondary dominant to

55
A. Except for the first answers departure into the secondary dominant of E, and the
second subject entrys placement in the dominant key of A, the fugues exposition is
structured in the manner consistent with a common practice era fugue. The deviation in
tonal structure could be evocative of the jazz turnaround, which uses ii-V-I motion,
sometimes with tritone or borrowed tones in place of the ii chord.52
The four voices having stated the subject, answer, and countersubject in the
expected order (if not in the expected tonal manner), an episode begins at Rehearsal 13.
Fragments of the subject and countersubject are stated in the oboe and cello in D blues.
A bitonal hemiola ostinato is created in D in the right hand piano, horn, and saxophone
while the trombone, left hand piano, and string bass create a similar ostinato in C. The
six-measure episode gives way to an F blues middle entry in the clarinet four bars before
Rehearsal 14, while the cello plays a lightly altered countersubject in the same mode
and key center. Other instruments provide punctuated colorations derived from
fragments of the subject. The middle entry continues at Rehearsal 14, still in the
clarinet, and now in a C blues mode. The same process, now returning to the D blues
center, remains in the same voices until a final episode in the third bar of Rehearsal 15.
In an abrupt display of stretto, the episode begins before the final subject statement can
be completed. This episode, like the earlier one, is bitonal, with a hemiola ostinato in Ab
(bassoon, horn, right hand piano) and a five-beat ostinato in parallel triads (left hand
piano, cello, string bass) in D minor; augmented fragments of the subject in the flutes
________________________________________________________________________
52
Steven Strunk. "Harmony (i)." In The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2nd ed., edited by
Barry Kernfeld. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
/J990085 (accessed June 5, 2011).

56
accent the din of sound as the trumpet plays fragments of both the subject and
countersubject, most notably Theme 4a. The most complete thematic materials, as well
as the bass voices, remain centered in a combination of D major and minor, creating a
blues tonality. However, this key center begins to modulate in the fourth bar before
Rehearsal 16. The bass line ostinato steps down to a C major triad as its lowest sonority,
while the melodic materials remain in D blues. This sets up the C key center of the
theme at the opening of Movement II. The modulation to this new key center, at the
close of the fugue, is discussed in the following section.
Key Topography and Modulatory Technique
As stated in the discussion regarding tonal structure, La cration du monde
remains firmly anchored in a D key center. The composition journeys through a variety
of key centers and polytonal combinations. However, these detours into new key
centers are carried out through carefully planned key relationships that feature local
tonalities that orbit established tonal centers. For example, the overture is firmly
anchored at both ends in D minor. The local tonality shifts from D minor, to A minor,
back to D minor, to F minor, to a bitonal area utilizing F blues as the primary key and D
major as the secondary key, and finally returning to D minor via C minor (this sort of
secondary key foreshadowing" is discussed below). D minor and A minor are a natural
relationship of a fifth, while F minor is related to the original key by a chromatic mediant
relationship and multiple common tones. This travel into F minor allows the shift into F
blues, mixing parallel modes and exploiting the tonicizing motion of Eb to D. Milhaud
manipulated this motion, through a simple chain of sevenths one bar after Rehearsal 8,

57
into the key of Eb major. This lasts a mere three bars and creates strong Neapolitan
motion down to D blues, with its mixture of parallel major and minor tonalities.
To shift from the fugue into the second movement, Milhaud created
foreshadowing of upcoming new key centers by shifting a secondary key center in a
polytonality to the imminently arriving primary key center. For example, the chaotic
ending of the jazz fugue in Movement II features the D blues tonality until four bars
before Rehearsal 16. This foreshadows the more obvious transition eight bars later, as
the upper voices state a closing section of parallel eighth notes in the key of C major
over a G# minor sonority; this voicing is exchanged one bar later, as the eighth notes
shift into G# minor and the bass voices play a C major sonority. Through this exchange,
the ominous C major and Ab minor opening of the second movement are familiarized in
the ear, not just two bars before the movement, but also a full ten bars early through
the introduction of C in the secondary tonality. Laura Amos undertook a thorough and
music theory-centric study of the polytonal aspects of La cration du monde in her Ph.D.
dissertation. She notes that
[The work] uses of (sic) polychords as structural harmonies that link one
movement to the next. While there is a vertical stake that connects one
section to the next in the [Overture], there is not a stake connecting the
[Overture] and the Fugue (Mvt I)However, the remainder of the
movements are each linked with a vertical stake. Links are found
between Movements I and II, II and III, III and IV, and IV and V. The
complexity of these polychords works in a symmetrical manner. In other
words, simpler polychords that are created out of two triads are found
near the beginning and end of the ballet. Stakes in the middle of the work

58
are comprised of polychords that use either the chromatic mediant or

double chromatic mediant relationship.53
Amos excellent syntheses support the foreshadowing concept, as well the
symmetrical arc form postulated earlier in this chapter.
In other modulations that serve to facilitate connection and succession of
movements, Milhaud not only used this foreshadowing technique, but he also exploited
temporary key center ambiguity to shift in whole step motion and create dominant-
tonic motion to a new key. This direct modulation of opportunity can be seen in the
measures leading into the fourth movement. At Rehearsal 33, the Theme 7 melody is
played in the foreground by the strings in E blues, while the secondary key of F# is
inhabited by the winds, most notably the flutes performing Theme 10. The primary key
center is solidly E blues until three bars before Rehearsal 34, when the strings shift
upward to join the winds in a C# dominant ninth sonority. This creates strong dominant
and plagal motion to the F# (Gb) blues key center exhibited in the opening of the fourth
movement. Thus, key foreshadowing is paired with direct modulation in whole step
fashion.
Milhaud exploited these direct modulations multiple times in La cration du
monde. The first answer in the jazz fugue of Movement I shifts directly from D blues to E
blues. The oboe serenading Theme 10 six bars before Rehearsal 24 rises from F blues to
G blues without any pivot chord or bitonal ambiguity. Movement III features local key
areas orbiting closely around F# blues. An opening in F# blues with a C# secondary key
________________________________________________________________________
53
Laura Christine Amos, An examination of 1920's Parisian Polytonality: Milhaud's
Ballet La Cration du Monde, 115.

59
gives way to primary key of G blues still accompanied by C#. The primary key area moves
upward to G#, returns to F#, then shifts downward to F with a secondary A minor
tonality, returning to F#(Gb), shifting downward to E blues with an F# secondary key,
before returning to F# blues. All of these keys are within a whole step of the central F#
blues tonality. This relative long-term key stasis orbit is consistent with the arc structure
of the composition, creating a sustained high point in the center of the work. Once again
the secondary tonalities facilitate this freedom of movement, with the C# secondary
tonalities provides tritone and dominant-tonic relationships to G and F# respectively, as
well as the perfect fifth relationship to G# and (misspelled) chromatic mediant to F
blues.
This relative key stasis pushes into the opening of the fourth movement, where
F# and Ab (G#) key centers located within a whole step of one another finally shift to a B
minor local key center at Rehearsal 41. This modulation, powered by the dominant-tonic
relationship of F# to B minor, sets up a series of chromatic mediant relationships in local
key that step the work back down to D minor and D blues. From B minor, G blues is
reached through the descending chromatic line of the alto saxophone in the third bar of
Rehearsal 42, giving way to parallel major mode mixing to creating G blues. Finally, the
same descending saxophone line is used to shift to the chromatic mediant of Eb in the
eighth bar of Rehearsal 43. Just as in the Overtures transition from Eb to D minor, this
penultimate key center serves to create Neapolitan or Phrygian cadential pressure to
return to D major.

60
Thematic Persistence and Juxtaposition
As noted in Chapter 3, the ballet is a cyclically composed work, with thematic
materials appearing and reappearing throughout multiple movements. This is
thoroughly demonstrated by the works thematic catalogue in Appendix A. Yet it should
be noted just how thoroughly these motives are fragmented, transformed, and
comprehensively combined. Theme 1 and 2 are constantly juxtaposed in the Overture,
while a mildly transformed Theme 2 returns as the hemiola ostinato in the fugues
aforementioned episodes in Movement II. Theme 2 is transformed into an elongated
chromatic line, Theme 8, which appears in both the second and final movements. The
lively dance of created beings in Theme 10 is juxtaposed as secondary key area against
the creative voice of Theme 7 at Rehearsal 33. Most impressively, the shout section at
Rehearsal 46 features the complete Dance of Desire. Theme 12 is played in the
saxophone while the sporadic rhythms that originally accompanied it leap in the upper
strings, percussion, piano, horn, and trombone; the shouted clusters of the flutes and
clarinets echo the effects in the fugue of Movement I; The trumpets play fragments of
the fugues countersubject and subject, most notably the Theme 4a riff derived from the
triplet in the fugues subject. This riff makes its way into the trombone and clarinet as
the shout section builds to its conclusion. All of these juxtapositions serve the function
of the carefully organized chaos found in an improvised jazz shout chorus. Theme 14
unites the works beginning and conclusion, as it is a playable counterpoint to Theme 1
and accompanied by the same spinning thirds in quarter notes as that opening motive.

61
Clearly, these themes were written and planned carefully to facilitate these
juxtapositions.
Because of this continual return and echo of established themes, those melodic
materials that appear only once in the work are strongly spotlighted. Sometimes
ominous, sometimes joyful, the effect is that of an important and impending narrative
moment, the proverbial breath before the plunge. Whether it is the anticipation of he
upcoming performance behind a closed curtain in the Overture or the darkness of chaos
just before creation begins in Movement II, these singularities deserve close attention
from the musical interpreter so that the listener is similarly engaged. The first such
singularity is the brass fanfare in the Overture two bars before Rehearsal 7. The
portentous clarinet duet in contrary motion in the opening of Movement II is not
repeated or echoed in any way throughout the work. The horn call of Theme 9 in the
Rehearsal 25 section before Movement III invites the created beings to dance, a call that
needs to repetition in the rest of the work. The oboes bluesy Theme 11 signals the
creation and awakening of the First Man and Woman; as all future men and women will
be created by earthly means, without the intervention of the divine, this theme never
reappears.
Finally, it is important to discuss materials that, while not specifically motivic, do
feature a unified presence of gesture. These materials are the connective segments that
end a movement and begin the next, and all of them feature a connective gesture of
paired voices. For example, the bassoon and horn, along with the cello and saxophone,
play contrary scalar lines in the final bars of the Overture, signaling that sections

62
completion. The same gesture appears in the closing bars of Movement III, as the
trumpet-trombone pair and saxophone-cello pair state contrary motion scales. This
same contrary scalar gesture occurs just before the shout chorus at Rehearsal 46, this
time in the clarinet, bassoon, horn, and cello. In a harmonic modulation discussed
below, the transition from Movement I to Movement II is accomplished by the flutes in
descending, parallel, scalar thirds that are passed to an ascending, parallel third scalar
passage in the clarinets. The works symmetrical arc form is reinforced by a change in
transitional technique at the center of the work; there is no parallel or contrary voice
pairing between the second and third movements.
While more in-depth and theory-centric studies of La cration du monde
certainly exist (see footnotes and bibliography), this study does not seek to replicate,
support, refute, or advance the academic debate and analysis of this work. Instead, it
provides a detailed catalogue of its important thematic materials and their
relationships, along with clarification of the important transitional areas, narrative
moments, and foreground melodic resources necessary to the conductor preparing this
work. Finally, it outlines the important blues elements within the work, as they are
quintessential to the works identity as a seminal articulation between jazz and western
art music. This information, taken altogether, provides the foundation required for
enlightened and informed interpretation of this masterpiece.

63
CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION
Despite the objective perspective one must adopt in order to effectively study
and analyze any specific subject, the subjective elements of aesthetic judgment and
personal appeal must arise when studying any piece of art. In the case of La cration du
monde, the analytical dissection and scrutiny of musical elements only serves to
reinforce this authors view that this work is a masterpiece. When quantifying those
musical offerings that have had a lasting artistic and musical place in the canon of wind
literature, a variety of surveys, studies, and other listings have been employed.
However, when this author looks to include a work in his own canon of such lasting and
worthy compositions, he seeks a rare combination: economy of form, originality, and
integral thematic relationships within the work, all while evoking a genuine emotional
response in the listener. As this study demonstrates objectively, La cration du monde
meets the first three criteria. Subjectively, as an author who owns all of the recordings
available of this work, and has listened to the work weekly for eight long years, this
composition certainly meets the fourth criteria of emotional invocation; every hearing
produces the aural and emotional satisfaction that he seeks in worthy wind literature.
It is this authors fervent desire that the information contained in this document
will provide the conductor considering a performance of La cration du monde the
confidence to not only attempt the work, but to also be sure of their own musical and
performance decisions. The works intrinsic value as a piece of art music make it a most
worthy addition to any concert. Its extrinsic value as a frontrunner in the
crosspollination of jazz and western art music make it infinitely more rewarding as a

64
most laudable addition to the oeuvre of a great composer, and as a snapshot of
exoticism and arts collaboration in Paris during one of the citys most colorful eras.
While performances of the work are by no means rare, neither are they commonplace.
The challenging percussion parts, foreign language concerns, and string instrumentation
requirements all provide roadblocks to programming La cration du monde in a
chamber wind concert. It is never too late, not even a near century later, to promote a
worthy composition into the canon of music explored by the modern students and
performers of wind history and literature.
Each September 4th and June 22nd provides an anniversary of Milhauds birth and
death, respectively. Every October 23rd brings another anniversary of the compositions
premiere in Paris. The arts collaboration in La cration du monde amongst Milhauds
score, Cendrars text, Lgers dcor, and Brlins choreography provides an excellent
model for contemporary practitioners of those same arts. In short, each year there are
multiple and fitting opportunities for another revival of this most commendable musical
offering. With increased performance and awareness of La cration du monde, perhaps
this authors subjective appraisal of the works aesthetic could, in time, be determined
an objective one.
Recommendations for Further Study
Two subjects relating to La cration du monde stand out as requiring further
study. First, the provenance of the original manuscript remains unsettled. Though
Lunels account of a Nazi-accomplished manuscript burning is by no means unreliable,
its singularity and sensationalist character leave the serious researcher seeking

65
confirmation. There is no mention of the particular manuscripts that were burned, and
surely some sketch or other secondary copy work must have existed somewhere in the
archives of Editions Max Eschig. A researcher with the will, time, and resources to pick
up the trail of such a missing document or documents would provide a worthy
contribution to Milhaud scholarship.
Secondly, the original choreography of La cration du monde, as well as its
revival, would provide a remarkable study for the dedicated dance researcher. The
production notes of Brlin and Cendrars, along with contemporary reviews and
descriptions of the works premiere, could support this effort. The limited history of the
ballets revival would create additional research opportunities in this subject area.
Agnes de Milles American revival of the ballet in 1940 as Black Ritual (Obeah) is most
intriguing because of the choreographers close collaboration with the composer. These
revivals and reinterpretations, as well the creation of modern recreation or
reinterpretation, would be fascinating studies.

66
APPENDIX A THEMATIC CATALOGUE
Measure numbers are indicated by an enclosed bold Rehearsal (i.e. 13 +/- number of
measures)

67

68

69

70

71

72
APPENDIX B TONAL STRUCTURE ANALYSIS
Measure numbers are indicated by an enclosed bold Rehearsal Mark (i.e. 13 +/-
number of measures). Because polytonality is employed in the work, areas affected by
this compositional technique are indicated with predominant melodic key followed by
the secondary key center divided by a slash mark (i.e. C/D = Melody in C,
accompaniment also displays traits of D).

73

74

75
APPENDIX C TRANSLATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF SCORE INDICATIONS
Measure numbers are indicated by an enclosed bold Rehearsal Mark
(i.e. 13) +/- number of measures)

76

77
APPENDIX D CORRECTED AND MODERN PERCUSSION EDITION
As discussed in Chapter 4, the percussion notation in La cration du monde can
be daunting to the aspiring performer. In addition, the percussion parts (not the Eschig
score) are rife with errata. Russ Girsbergers article in the June 2000 issue of Percussive
Notes gave an extensive listing of these errata and the appropriate corrections.54 All of
those corrections have been included in this modern edition, which was undertaken
with permission from the copyright holder, Universal Music Group. Included are the
percussion score and separate parts for the timpanist and percussionist.
While the percussion parts in the work were inspired by a jazz drum set players
performance, the writing is still firmly in the orchestral world, with distinct colors and
rhythms that lack the lengthy and constant patterns of the jazz genre (with the
exception of isolated ostinati). In addition, the traditional division between
membranophones (drums) and idiophones (cymbals, woodblocks, etc.) is maintained
through placing the latter in a separate staff, the only exception being the cymbals for
the sake of their continual simultaneous pairing with drums in the work. The percussion
part has been reduced to two staves, to be read as such:

________________________________________________________________________
54
Russ Girsberger in Darius Milhauds La Cration du monde: The Problems with the
Parts in Percussive Notes 38 (June 2000): 56-57, 59.

78
All of the instrument choices recommended in this study are included as
markings in the parts. Though specific technical instructions are translated into English,
stylistic and tempo markings are left in their original French. Though the original timpani
part was divided into two staves, bass and treble, these have been combined into one
staff. As the piccolo timpani never deviate from the high D and F#, those pitches should
always be played on those drums. Any pitch change pedaling instructions are for the
full-size timpani.

79

80
Percussion La Cration du Monde Darius Milhaud

Score Modern Percussion Edition edited by Ward Miller
Modr h = 54
Drums 22
Bass Drum Only, with cymbal disengaged
?2 #
Timpani 2
F
~~~~~~~~~~
1
w
6 Field Drum

(snares off)
Dr

? # # #
6
Timp
~~~~~~~~~~~~
w
11
Dr
? # #
11
Timp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2
w w
16
Dr
p
? # # # #
16
Timp
COPYRIGHT UNIVERSAL MUSIC

This edition created with permission from the publisher, Universal Music.
Suitable for performance only when the parts and score are rented from Universal Music.
81
La Cration du Monde - Percussion Score
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
w w
21
Dr
P
? # # #
21
Timp
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
3 Cdez
w w w
26
Dr
p
? # # #
26
Timp
Mouvt

31
Dr

36
Dr
3 2
41
Dr 2 2
82

Cymbal, with stick 5
22
46
Dr
~~~~~~~~~
?2 w
46
Timp 2 J J J

Cdez

51
Dr
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
?w w
51
Timp
p
j j
6
Mouvt Low Tom

56

p
Dr
j

61
Dr

Snare Drum

66

(snares on)
f
Dr
83
> > ~~~

j

71
Dr
~~~~~~~
8

w

76
Dr

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Mouv t
w w
81
Cdez
Dr

9

86
Dr
~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
?w # w
86
Timp

91
Dr
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
? w w
91
Timp
J J
84
10

96
Rall.
Dr
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
?w # #
96
Timp

101
Trs rall.
Dr
? # # #
101
Timp
I. (h=62)
U j j j j j
11
Snare Drum
LowTom
106
(snares on)

Dr
U p
~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
?w w w
106
Timp
j j j j j j j

111
Dr

j
j j j
j 12
j

116

Dr
85
j j j j j j

121
Dr
>
Woodblock
13
@
126
j j j j j
Perc

Dr
? #
126
Timp &

> > > ~~

@ @ @ @ @ >
131 Quickly get Tambourine
Tambourine
Perc
f

Dr
& # j # j # j #
131
Timp

~~~ ~~~
~~~~
14
> > >

>
136
Perc J
Dr
86
~~~~ ~~~ ~~~

> > > >
141
Perc
Dr
~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ >

15
> >
146
Perc
Dr
@ @ @ @ @ @ @
Snare
(snaresDrum
151 Cymbal
on)

Dr
# # j # j # j
151
Timp &
j j
@ @ . @ . @ .
16

156

Dr
# #
& # ?
156
Timp
J J
87
O j

@ .O w@ 6 5 2
161
Dr J 4 4 2
# # #
? 6 5 2
161
Timp
J J J 4 4 2
2
II. (h=54) 17
22
166

p
Dr

172

Dr
Cdez Mouvt 18
?
177
Timp
p
?
182
Timp
19
?
187
Timp
88
?
192
Timp
2 8
Cdez 20 Mouvt h=62
?
197
Timp
10 10 3
21 22 23
j #
# # #
Dr
cue: Trumpet (muted)
j j
Field Drum
(snares off)
b b # n
235
b

Dr
play Low Tom
Animez
5 3 8
24 Animez un peuCdez 25 beaucoup h=96

J
Dr

With Wooden Mallet
III. 26
Vif h=104

258
Dr

With Foot Pedal
O

263 Cymbal
Dr
f> p
89
27

268
Dr
j j . j
.
put one stick on the drumhead
Snare Drum and hit it with the other*

273

(snares on)
J
Dr
j
28

With Two Sticks

278
Dr
Engage the cymbal to the footpedal
>
(or prepare to play hi-hat in unison
? # # #
278 with bass drum
Timp
F
? # # # > # # # > # # # > # # # > # # # >

283
Timp

29

288
Dr
f Bass
? # # # > # # > # >
Drum

288 with Hi-Hat
>
Timp
* - stick shot
90

293

Dr

? >
# # # # # #
293
>
Timp
j

30

298

Dr
Disengage the cymbal
from the footpedal (stop playing hi-hat)

303
Cowbell
Perc Woodblock

J J J
Dr
~~ ~~
31
~~ ~~ O

308
Dr
Field Drum

Snare Drum
(snares off) (snares on)
O O O O O

313
Dr
? > > >

# # # #
313
Timp
91
O O " 3 5 U
32
Cdez

318
Dr
3 5
? # # > # > # > " U
MUFFLE

318
Timp
MUFFLE
33
?
329 Moins vif h=92
Timp & # # # #
p
334
Timp & # # # # #
34

339
Dr

344 Cdez
Dr
#
344
Timp & #

92
j
Mouvt h=108j j j

IV.

35

349

Dr

& #
349
Timp
j j j j

354

Dr
j 36 j j j

359

Dr
F
j j j

364

Dr
P
j j j

37

369

Dr

374
Perc

Woodblock

Dr
F f
93
38

379
j j j j
Perc

Dr
F
j j
? # # #
# #
379
Timp &
p
j j j

384
Dr
? # j
# #
384
Timp
~~ ~~ Cdez
~~
39

389
Dr

? # # # # #
389
Timp
? # # # # #
394
Timp
3 5
40
? #
Mouvt h=96 Mouvt h=88

399
Cdez
Timp
ABDE
94
2
41
h=80

. .
Dr
f

42

416
Dr
.
Mouvt h=88
? J J
421
Animez
Timp
J J J J
p
3
43
Mouvt h=80

426 Cdez
Dr

j

433
Dr

j j 2
Animez 44

Cdez Mouvt h=80

438

Dr

444
Dr
45
fRall. p

449
Dr
95
32 22
454
Dr
>
Mouvt h=108
j j j
46
22
3 3 3 3 3

459

Cowbell
~
.
Perc
. .
Woodblock
22 .

F
Dr
2 j # j # j
& 2 # # #
459
Timp

F
j j > 3 j j

3 3 3 3 3
464
~
Perc
. . . .

Dr
j # j # j
& # # #
464
Timp

j > 3 j j j
47

3 3 3 3 3
469
~ ~
Perc
. . . .

f
Dr
& # # j # j # j #
469
Timp

f
96
j > j j

3 3 3 3 3
474
~~ ~
Perc
. . .
.

Dr
F
& # # j # j # j
474
Timp

F
j > j j
48

3 3 3 3 3
478
~ ~~
Perc
. . .

Dr
& # # # j # j
478
Timp

j j j
3 3 3

482
~ ~ 3 3 3 3 ~
Perc
. . .

Dr

& # j # # # j
482
Timp

97
> > > >j
j j

3 3

486
~~~ ~
Perc
. ~~
. .

Dr
& # j # j j ?
486
Timp
# #
j j j j
49

3 3 3 3
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Perc
. . . .

Dr
# # #
? j j j j
490
Timp
j j
3 3

494
> > > > > > ~ ~

~
Perc
j . . .

Dr
? j j
494
Timp
J
f
98
3 2
50 Cdez Trs rall.

~ ~ ~
Perc
3 2
Dr

F p
3 2
?
500
Timp
F
10 2 3 5
V. 51 52 Rall. Mouvt h=54

Mouvt h=62
509
Perc
4 3
Mouvt h=62

53 Cdez Mouvt Rall.
? & @J @ @ j
play
Timp

cue: Flute
2
54 Trs lent
Rall.
Timp & j j j j j
99
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND DISCOGRAPHY
Bibliography
Amos, Laura Christine. "An Examination of 1920s Parisian Polytonality: Milhaud's La

cration du monde." PhD Thesis, University of Texas, Austin, 2007.
Baer, N.V.N., J.T. Ahlstrand, J. Hugo, T.A. Steinlen, and N. Dardel. Paris Modern: The
Swedish Ballet, 1920-1925. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1996.
Banes, S. "An Introduction to the Ballets Sudois." Ballet Review 7 (1978): 2-3.
Bauer, M. "Darius Milhaud." Musical Quarterly (G. Schirmer), 1942: 139-159.
Beck, Georges. Darius Milhaud: tude suivie du catalogue chronologique complet de son
oeuvre. Paris: Heugel, 1949.
Brender, R. "Reinventing Africa in Their Own Image: The Ballets Sudois' "Ballet ngre,""
La cration du monde"." Dance Chronicle (Marcel Dekker, Inc.) 9 (1986): 119-147.
Brown, Jonathon. "An Artist at the Opera: Fernand Lger: Milhaud's "La cration du
monde"." BBC Music Magazine 11:9 (May 2003): 22-23.
Cendrars, Blaise. Anthologie ngre. La Sirne, 1921.
Cendrars, Blaise, and translated by Margery. The African saga. Greenwood Pub Group,
1969.
Chimnes, Myriam, and Catherine Massip. Portraits of Darius Milhaud. Darius Milhaud
Society in cooperation with the Bibliothque nationale de France, 2002.
Claudel, P., D. Milhaud, J. Petit, and H. Hoppenot. Correspondance Paul Claudel-Darius

Milhaud, 1912-1953. Gallimard, 1961.
Collaer, P., and R. Wangerme. Correspondance avec des amis musiciens. Mardaga,
1996.
Collaer, P., J.H. Galante, and M. Milhaud. Darius Milhaud. San Fransisco Press, 1988.
Collet, G.P. Correspondance Jacques-Emile Blance-Maurice Denis.
Copland, Aaron. "The lyricism of Milhaud [Opinion of Boris de Schloezer in "La Revue
musicale" (1925). Milhaud, "La cration du monde" and "Le Pauvre Matelot"]."
Modern Music VI, no. 2 (1929): 14-19.

100
Crichton, R. "Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)." The Musical Times (Novello & Company, Ltd.)
115 (1974): 684-685.
De Groote, Pascale. Les Ballets Sudois. Ghent, Belgium: Academia Press, 2002.
Drake, Jeremy. "Darius Milhaud." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, 2010.
Duchesneau, M., F. de Mdicis, and S. Caron. Musique et modernit en France (1900-

1945). Les Presses de l'Universit de Montral, 2006.
La cration du monde. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeXgEURsf-E. Directed by

Leonard Bernstein. Performed by Orchestre Nationale du France. 1976.
Francois, Yves, and Luis Contijoch. The Red Hot Jazz Archive. Edited by Scott Alexander.
January 31, 2011. http://www.redhotjazz.com/banb.html (accessed January 31,
2011).
Geldenhuys, Daniel G. Cross-cultural representation and influences in ballets by Darius

Milhaud and Paul Hindemith. Report, University of South Africa, Unisa Press,
2002.
Girsberger, Russ. "Darius Milhauds La cration du monde: The Problems with the
Parts." Percussive Notes 38 (2000): 55-59.
Gonzalez-Appling, Julio Moreno. "The Ox in the Concert Hall: Jazz Identity and La
Creation du Monde." Bowling Green State University, 2007.
Harding, James. The Ox on the Roof: Scenes from Musical Life in Paris in the Twenties.
New York: St. Martin's, 1972.
Harrison, Daniel. "Bitonality, Pentatonicism, and Diatonicism in a Work by Milhaud." In

Music Theory in Concept and Practice. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester
Press, 1997.
Howe, Warren. "The Percussionist's Guide to Darius Milhaud's La Cration du Monde."

Percussionist 17, no. 1 (1979): 37-50.
Jackson, Jeffrey H. Making jazz French: Music and modern life in interwar Paris. Duke
University Press, 2003.
Jacobi, Frederick, and Frederick Jacobi. "[Brussels, Le Palais des Beaux-Arts: Chamber
music concert by the Pro Arte Quartet. Boruslav Martinu, String Quintet (2
violins, 2 violas and cello). Bela Bartok, String Quartet no. 4. Darius Milhaud, "La
cration du monde", arranged by the composer for the Pro Arte Quartet. Eric
Satie, "Relche" (excerpts of the opera); Paul Collaer (pianist)]." Modern Music
VIII, no. 1 (1930): 18-19.

101
Kelly, B.L. Tradition and style in the works of Darius Milhaud 1912-1939. Ashgate Pub
Ltd, 2003.
Koenig, K. Jazz in Print (1856-1929): An Anthology of Selected Early Readings in Jazz

History. Pendragon Pr, 2002.
La Rue, Hlne, and Anthony C. Baines. "Pipe and tabor." Grove Music Online. Oxford
Music Online.
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/subscriber/article/grov
e/music/21805 (accessed 2011).
Lamothe, Daphne. "Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance." 2004: 151.
Lavoie, M.N. "La rception de La Cration du monde: un mlange des genres." Musique
et modernit en France (1900-1945) (Les Presses de l'Universit de Montral),
2006: 171.
Lunel, A., and G. Jessula. Mon ami Darius Milhaud: indits. disud, 1992.
MacCormack, Gilson. Dancing Times, 1924: 12.
Mason, Colin. "The Chamber Music of Milhaud." The Musical Quarterly, 1953: 326-341.
Mawer, Deborah. Darius Milhaud: modality & structure in music of the 1920s.
Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997.
Menz, Csar. "La cration du monde: Fernand Lger et l'art africain des collections
Barbier-Mueller: au Muse d'Art et d'Histoire de Genve." Arts d'Afrique noire
(Villiers-le-Bel) (Arts d'Afrique noire), no. 116 (2000): 28-30.
Mersmann, Hans, Hans Schultze-Ritter, and Heinrich Strobel. "Meloskritik. Bhnenwerke

von Darius Milhaud [Ballette "L'Homme et son dsir", "Salade", "La cration du
monde". Milhaud, Opern "Les Malheurs d'Orfe", "Le Pauvre Matelot"]." Melos
8, no. 12 (1929): 549-551.
Milhaud, Darius. Darius Milhaud: interviews with Claude Rostand. Center for the Book,
Mills College, 2002.
. Etudes. Paris: C. Aveline, 1927.
. "La cration du monde opus 81a." Editions Max Eschig, 1929.
Milhaud, Darius. "Les Ballets sudois." 180-182. 1931.
Milhaud, Darius. "L'volution du jazz-band et la musique des ngres d'Amrique du

nord." Le Courrier Musical 25 (1923): 163-164.

102
. Notes sur la Musique. Edited by Jeremy Drake. Flammarion, 1982.
. Notes without music: an autobiography. New York, Knopf, 1953.
Milhaud, Darius, George Hall, and Christopher Palmer. My happy life. Boyars, 1995.
Milhaud, Madeleine, and Roger Nichols. Conversations with Madeleine Milhaud.

London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
Miller, Mark. Some Hustling This! Taking Jazz to the World, 1914-1929. Toronto:
Mercury Press, 2006.
Norman, Liesa Karen. "The respective influence of jazz and classical music on each other,
the evolution of third stream and fusion and the effects thereof into the 21st
century." University of British Columbia, 2002.
Percussive Arts Society. "Standardization of Percussion Notation." Pamphlet, 1973.
Perloff, Nancy. Art and the Everyday: Popular Entertainment and the Circle of Erik Satie.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
Perret, Carrines. "L'adoption du jazz par Darius Milhaud et Maurice Ravel: L'esprit plus
que la lettre." Revue de musicologie (Societe Francaise de Musicologie) 89, no. 2
(2003): 311-347.
Peterson, Bernard L. "A century of musicals in black and white: an encyclopedia of

musical stage works by, about, or involving african americans." Chap. Liza, 217-
218. 1993.
Roland-Manuel, Alexis. "La cration du monde de Darius Milhaud." Revue Pleyel, no. 3:
23.
Rosen, Michael. "Terms Used in Percussion: The Milhaud Concerto pour batterie et
petite orchestre." Percussive Notes 25 (1987): 27.
Roy, Jean. Darius Milhaud (Musiciens de tous les temps). Paris: ditions d'Aujourd'hui,
1968.
Russ, Michael. "Accounting and Mediating: Modes, Genera, Voice-Leading and Form in
Milhaud." Music Analysis 19, no. 2 (2000).
Schlozer, Boris de. "Au Thtre des Champs-lyses : La cration du monde de Darius
Milhaud [Analogie avec la lgende de Blaise Cendrars]." Revue Pleyel 1, no. 3
(1923): 21.

103
Schouvaloff, A., and W. Atheneum. The art of Ballets Russes: the Serge Lifar Collection of
theater designs, costumes, and paintings at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford,
Connecticut. Yale University Press, 1998.
Singh, A., W. S. Shiver, S. Brodwin, and H. C. Center. The Harlem renaissance:

revaluations. Scholarly Title, 1989.
Slonimsky, Nicolas. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Eighth Edition. Edited

by Theodore Baker. New York, New York: Schirmer Books, 1992.
Smith, Alyssa Gretchen. "An Examination of Notation in Selected Repertoire for Multiple
Percussion." The Ohio State University, 2005.
Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. W.W. Norton & Co.
Strunk, Steven. "Harmony (ii)." The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz. Edited by Barry
Kernfeld. June 5, 2011.
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/subscriber/article/grov
e/music/J990085.
Winer, Jean. Allegro Appassionato. Paris: Pierre Belfond, 1978.
Wika, Norman A. "Jazz attributes in twentieth-century Western art music: A study of

four selected compositions." DMA Thesis, University of Connecticut, 2007.
Yang, Sandra Sedman. "The composer and dance collaboration in the twentieth century:
Darius Milhaud's ballets, 1918-1958." University of California, Los Angeles, 1997.
Discography
The Art of Saxophone. Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano G. Verdi, Hansjrg Schellenberger.

Arts Productions Limited B002A4ZLBC (2009).
Classical Masters: Ravel: Concerto in G Major/ Stravinsky: Histoire du Soldat/ Milhaud:

La Creation du Monde. Victor Chamber Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein
conducting. Carinco AG B000S58JF0 (2005).
Creation. Branford Marsalis; Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Sony Classical B001J9L0PU

(2001).
Darius Milhaud/ Le boeuf sur le toit/ La cration du monde. Orchestre du Thtre des
Champs Elyses, Darius Milhaud conducting. Editions Andr Charlin SLC 17 (2005
[originally released 1956]).

104
Dukas, P.: Sorcerer's Apprentice (The)/ Milhaud, D.: La Creation Du Monde/ Saint-Saens,
C.: Danse Macabre. Berlin Radio Symphony, Heinz Rogner conducting. Berlin
Classics 94652 (1978).
Ebony Concerto/ L'Hisoire Du Soldat/ Creation. London Symphony Orchestra Chamber

Group, John Carewe conducting. Everest Records SDBR-3009 (1997).
French Dressing: 20th Century Entertainments. Philharmonia Virtuosi, Essay Recordings

CD1086 (2005).
The Jazz Album A Tribute to the Jazz Age. London Sinfonietta, Sir Simon Rattle
conducting. EMI Classics 94634580953 (2007).
Kurt Weill: Kleine Dreigroschenmusik/ Milhaud, Darius: La cration du monde.

Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, Arthur Weisberg conducting. Nonesuch H
71281 (2005).
LSU Wind Ensemble 2004-2005 Concert Excerpts. LSU Wind Ensemble, Frank Wickes
conducting. Louisiana State University (2005).
Milhaud: Creation Du Monde (La)/ Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit/ Suite Provencale. Lille National
Orchestra, Jean-Claude Casadesus conducting. Naxos (2005).
Milhaud: La cration du monde Op. 81a/ Le Boeuf sur le toit/ Saudades do Brasil.
Orchestre Nationale du France, Leonard Bernstein conducting. EMI Classics
94634580953 (2006).
Milhaud: La Creation du monde Op. 81; Suite Provencale: Honegger: Symphonies No. 2 &
5. Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch conducting. RCA Victor Gold Seal
60685 (1992).
New World Jazz. New World Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. RCA 68798
(1998).
Poulenc: Les Biches/ Ibert: Divertisseent/ Milhaud: Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit. Ulster Orchestra,
Yan Pascal Tortelier conducting. Chandos 9023 (1992).
Prokofiev: Classical Symphony/ Sinfonietta; Milhaud: La Crqation du monde/ Debussy

Sarabande, Danse. Orchestre De Chambre De Lausanne, Alberto Zedda
conducting. Virgin Classics B000024ZKM (1995).

DariusMilhauds LaCreationduMonde

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

DariusMilhauds LaCreationduMonde

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

University of Iowa

Iowa Research Online

Darius Milhaud's La Cration du Monde: the

Copyright 2011 Robert Ward Miller

This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2746

Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd

Part of the Music Commons

DARIUS MILHAUDS LA CRATION DU MONDE:

blending of jazz harmony and compositional technique, Harlem musical

instrumentation, and the discipline of cutting-edge European art music remains a

challenging to prepare and perform.

work either theoretically (specifically in terms of polytonality), or historically (in terms of

the necessary information to enable a conductor to undertake this work, while

simultaneously encouraging more modern conductors and performers

Abstract Approved: _______________________________________________________

ROBERT WARD MILLER, JR.

All Rights Reserved

patience and support through many years of study.

In 2004, I was studying at Arizona State University in pursuit of a Masters of

Music in trombone performance. It was a continually eye-opening experience for me, as

Creation of the World). My interest was immediately piqued.

a magic stamp of importance on La cration du monde. However, all of my intellectual

curiosity was as nothing compared to my emotional reaction upon hearing the

particularly sparse but varied instrumentation of playing soloistically, especially the

immediately grabbing a copy of the recording for myself.

dance, painting, and theatre.

a new generation of conductors to discover the work, became a quest in earnest in

du monde would not have such a tumultuous premiere.

artifacts became apparent.1 A compilation of African legends translated and edited by

Schloezer wrote in the 1923 Revue Pleyel:

riffs pasted into a ballet.

rather than literal realism.

and to praise and recognition within a decade.

La cration du monde would become increasingly important as its place became

counterpoint and motivic development unmatched by Gershwins worthy work. While

places it in some much-needed perspective.

Approaching performance of La cration du monde can be challenging at best,

instruments or contemporary jazz devices no longer manufactured, but they are to be

one performer, and this barrier to performance becomes even stronger.

Performance is rewarding in the extreme. A great chamber work, one pairing

caliber, innovative percussion writing, and a historical backdrop of Parisian exoticism

Review of Selected Literature

bibliography as a useful reference. However, it is a score reduced to four-hand piano

No complete formal analysis, thematic catalogue, or total examination of the

the literature. There is a small handful of academic studies focused on La cration du

entitled An Examination of 1920s Parisian Polytonality: Milhaud's Ballet La cration du

monde. While both of these papers focused exclusively on La cration du monde,

interpretation. La cration du monde was discussed in some lesser depth in Alyssa

Notation in Selected Repertoire for Multiple Percussion, as well as in Norman Wikas

Jazz Attributes in Twentieth-Century Western Art Music: A Study of Four Selected

Compositions, written at the University of Connecticut in 2007. Milhauds work

garnered a two-page mention in Liesa Karen Normans 2002 University of British

Century. La cration du monde is mentioned in many more published books and

examination that a conductor would require to effectively study, interpret, prepare,

rehearse, and perform La cration du monde.

The composers autobiography and correspondence provide some useful

information in a study of La cration du monde, though it rarely bears directly on this

specific composition. There are several compendiums of Milhauds correspondence with

insight into the composition, interpretation, or premiere of La cration du monde.

composers association with jazz.

Purpose of the Study and Methodology

As stated, the present literature on La cration du monde examines the work

either theoretically (specifically in terms of polytonality), or historically (in terms of its