SCARAMOUCHE, SUITE FOR TWO PIANOS, OP. 165B

Darius Milhaud
(b. Marseilles, September 4, 1892; d. Geneva, June 22, 1974)

Composed 1937; 10 minutes

As a young French composer, Darius Milhaud first came across jazz in a Hammersmith dance hall in London. Then, in New York, he heard the Leo Reisman band and the Paul Whiteman orchestra and was struck by their timbre and subtlety. In Harlem, he loved the strident New Orleans-type jazz. In Brazil, he explored the country’s folklore and the rhythmic energy of Rio at Carnival time. Milhaud drew on these experiences 20 years later, in 1937, when he put together the Suite Scaramouche for a performance at the Paris Exposition of that year. The outer movements are a reworking of instrumental music he had recently written for a children’s play adapted from Molière, while the middle movement is drawn from incidental music to another play, by Jules Supervielle. The music exudes the rhythmic energy he found in the streets of Rio and has become one of the most popular pieces of music for two pianos. Although Scaramouche is the stock clown character of the 16th century commedia dell’arte, Milhaud’s title comes from the Théâtre Scaramouche, where his incidental music was first performed.