'Le Boeuf sur le Toit' for Piano, Four Hands, Op. 58 (The Nothing Doing Bar).

by Darius Milhaud. Dover Publications (31 E. 2nd St., Mineola, NY 11501), 2002. 56pp., $10.95. Advanced.

A most welcome addition to Dover's publications is Darius Milhaud's duet version of Le Boeuf sur le Toit. This score, which has been difficult to obtain in the past, is reproduced beautifully in this Dover version. The reproduction is that of the 1920 score. The publication is especially significant because Milhaud's music, somewhat underrated and underrepresented in the latter part of the twentieth century, is experiencing a renaissance.

Milhaud, who calls this twenty-minute work a Cinema-Symphony on South American Tunes, says, "Still haunted by my memories of Brazil, I assembled a few popular melodies, tangos, maxixes, sambas and even a Portuguese fado and transcribed them with a rondo-like theme recurring between each successive pair. I called this fantasia Le Boeuf sur le Toit, which was the title of a Brazilian popular song. I thought that the character of this music might make it suitable for an accompaniment to one of Charlie Chaplin's films."

The composer collaborated with his friend Jean Cocteau to produce a symphonic ballet. Cocteau wrote a farcical script to it and entitled it "The Nothing Doing Bar." Milhaud originally scored it for a small orchestra, then, due to its great success, transcribed it for duet.

This Dover edition is particularly remarkable due to the extra information on Le Boeuf sur le Toit. There is an excellent introduction by Brazilian musicologist Manoel Aranha Correa do Lago, who gives a historical account of the work's genesis. Furthermore, it is an account focusing on the effect of Brazilian music on Milhaud. The Brazilian composers and the title of the pieces quoted in the score are listed by do Lago. A table also indicates where and how the themes occur in Le Boeuf sur le Toit.

Cocteau's farcical script ...