Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)
Salade Op. 83 (1924)
Le pauvre matelot Op. 92 (1926)
Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra/Łukasz Borowicz
rec. live, 22 March 2024, National Philharmonic Concert Hall, Warsaw, Poland
No texts or translations
DUX 2142 [75]

Milhaud was enormously prolific with his opus numbers running almost to four hundred and fifty. I know only a fraction of his vast output, and I expect that is true of most music-lovers. Of the works I have come across, the earliest ones seem to me the best, and I don’t know that he ever wrote anything better than La Création du Monde. However, here we have two works from the 1920s, a good period for him, one of which is a first recording.

This is Salade, which is a ballet with songs, based on the Commedia dell’arte. That immediately suggests Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, which does the same thing and which had appeared a couple of years before Salade. In Salade there are many more numbers than in Pulcinella, but they are nearly all very short, mostly lasting less than a minute each, while the longest is just over three minutes. The score is delightfully varied and cheerful, but I can’t tell you the plot, as no information about it was supplied and I couldn’t find anything about it elsewhere. However, I should add that Milhaud subsequently adapted some of the numbers into a purely orchestral suite, with a solo piano, called Le Carnaval d’Aix, and that has been recorded several times, which is why some of Salade seemed strangely familiar.

Le pauvre matelot is presented as an opera in three acts, but these are really just scenes and the whole work lasts only about thirty-five minutes. The libretto is by Cocteau, and is a rather nasty story. A woman who runs a bar on the seaside is the wife of a sailor who has been away for fifteen years. She has remained faithful to him. The sailor returns, much changed and in disguise. His wife does not recognize him and kills him to rob him. This is obviously a much more serious work than Salade; the music is correspondingly graver in tone and also, to me, rather less interesting.

The two performances, with a Polish team, some of whom appear in both works, are lively and committed. This was a live recording and applause is included. The recording quality is good but the booklet is the most minimal I have ever seen: you get a cast list, a track schedule and details of the members of the orchestra. But there is nothing about the works, no biographies of the performers and no texts or translations. I noted that this was the first recording of Salade; there was a previous recording of Le pauvre matelot, which was conducted by Milhaud himself and recorded in 1956 but reissued on CD some years ago (review). Had this issue included at least the texts it might have been rather a find; as it is, only diehard Milhaud fans will want it.

Stephen Barber

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Cast
Salade
Mateusz Zajdel, tenor, Polichinelle
Magdalena Lucjan, soprano, Isabelle
Natalia Rubiś, soprano, Rosetta
Wojtek Gierlach, bass, Tartaglia
Krzysztof Lachman, tenor, Coviella
Krystian Krzeszowiak, tenor, Cinzio
Robert Gierlach, baritone, Le Docteur
Adrian Janus, baritone, Le Capitaine Cartuccia
Le pauvre matelot
Krystian Krzeszowiak, tenor, Le Matelot
Natalia Rubiś, soprano, His wife
Wojtek Gierlach, bass, His father-in-law
Robert Gierlach, baritone, His friend