Darius Milhaud - Protée (Suite Symphonique No. 2) - Maurice Abravel

Protée - Darius Milhaud
Conducted by Maurice Abravanel

0:03 1.Ouverture

4:44 2. Prelude & Fugue

8:33 3. Pastorale

15:01 4. Nocturne

17:29 5. Final

Darius Milhaud's meeting, early in his career,
with the poet-dramatist-diplomat Paul Claudel
was destined over the years to have a
momentous impact upon him both personally
and artistically. Through Claudel, the young man
from Aix-en-Provence was to discover his
horizons broadened, his art enriched; and in
Claudel he found a valuable collaborator, with
whom he wrote a large number of important and
popular scores. Claude was one of Milhaud's
three favorite contemporary authors, along with
Francis Jammes and André Gide. Despite this
highly influencial fact, the older man, a mystical
writer imbued with Catholic symbolism
and in many ways artistically more Teutonic than Gallic - and Milhaud, the Provençal Jew, the
very embodiment of Mediterranean luminosity,
made a strange pair, but like many such
seemingly forbidding friendships, theirs was
instantaneous and enduring. "Between Claudel
and me," Milhaud confided in his autobiography,
Notes without Music, "understanding was
immediate, mutual confidence absolute." Milhaud's experience was enormously enriched when Claudel, appointed French Minister to Brazil, asked the young composer to accompany him, as secretary; the two set sail for Rio de Janeiro early in 1917. There Milhaud became infatuated with Brazilian folk and popular
music. whose infectious art, which scarcely
could have been revealed to him in depth with-out Claudel's invitation, was to influence his
music to one degree or other for the remainder
of his career. Despite a stay of less than two
years, Milhaud was never to forget Brazil's
rhythms and sprightly turns of melodic phrase.
Among the major Claudel-Milhaud collaborations are Christophe Colomb, L'Homme et son
désir, L'Orestie (Aeschylus' trilogy translated into
French by Claudel), La Sagesse, and, of course,
Protée, from whose elaborate incidental music
Deuxième Suite Symphonique was derived.
Milhaud composed three separate versions of
the Protée incidental music. The first, rather
spare in conception, dates from 1913 and comprises a little music for chorus and orchestra;
the second, achieved in 1916, was done for
chorus and small orchestra, written for a circus
performance of the play, which, however, failed
to materialize; and the third, written in 1919, was
an expanded version for chorus and full orchestra. Plans for this production, too, were short- lived; the project was scrapped just as rehearsals were impending.

Although Milhaud was disappointed at the
failure to have Protée produced on these occa-
sions, the challenge provided by Claudel's play
had been stimulating to the young musician.
The poet had begun his translation of Aeschylus'
great trilogy, The Oresteia, while in the diplo-
matic service in China. A satyr-play entitled
Proieus is known to have been written by
Aeschylus, as pendant, it appears, to the
extant trilogy. The less fortunate end-piece
however, has survived only by its title. Claudel
pondered this loss from antiquity and decided
to provide a satirical drama of his own composi-
tion on the same subject. Milhaud, in turn, was
excited by the prospect of writing music for a
work that combined poetry, thoughtful reference
to a large number of serious themes revealed in
Claudel's other dramas, and .
last but scarcely
least - considerable tomfoolery, often of a
savage nature. As Milhaud himself stated. "this
mixture of buffoonery and real emotion raised
probiers that I found enthrallingly interesting.
Proteous (or Protée), the Homeric "Old Man
of the Sea." was reported to have been able to
change shape at will, hence our adjective
protean. In Claudel's drama, he holds forth on an
islet, reigning from his bathtub and surrounded
by his court of barking seals. He is tortured by
unrequited love. Ménélas and la belle Hélène,
those Gallic transmogrifications of familiar
Hellenic characters, add their quota of truculence
to the affairs at hand. One interesting aspect of
the play is its use of cinema to depict the suc-
cessive metamorphoses of Proteus. Everyone is
treated cavalierly in this modern satyr-drama
not only the heroes, but the gods as well.
Ménélas is pictured as stupid, and Hélène as
relentlessly conceited. The entire play resounds
with majestic laughter.
Milhaud, exasperated by production delays
for Protée, in 1919 extracted his Deuxième Suite
Symphonique from the music he had written for
it. (The similarly entitled Première Suite Sympho-
nique of 1913-14 has no connection with
Claudel's play.) The score in its new five-
movement concert guise was dedicated "to the
memory of Albéric Magnard," the talented
French composer who was killed by the Germans
near the outset of the
… description too long to fit, I’ll see if there’s a way to include the full version

Published by Capital Records under the Angel label in 1979.

Played on a Lloyd’s R-925 record player