Tradition and Style in the Works of Darius Milhaud 1912-1939

Barbara Kelly is Senior Lecturer in Music at Keele University. She researches on late nineteenth and early twentieth-century French music and on issues of French national identity from 1870-1939. She is author of several articles on Milhaud, Debussy and Ravel, including the Ravel article in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and chapters in the Cambridge Companion to Ravel and the Cambridge Companion to Debussy. She is preparing a study of Ravel’s late works.

• Contents: Preface; Milhaud, Les Six and musical politics in Paris; Milhaud's writings on tradition and identity; Works for music theatre 1: collaboration with Paul Claudel; Works for music theatre 2: the chamber operas; Vocal music: texts and voices; Polytonality, counterpoint and instrumentation; Milhaud and the past; Conclusions: Milhaud's musical achievements to 1939; Bibliography; Index.

'Kelly has done her work thoroughly, and she writes with clarity and acuity... useful to all students of 20th-century music.' Choice 'Barbara Kelly's [...] volume is not only a welcome addition to new Milhaud scholarship but an impressiverly detailed study which directly sets out to challenge the conventional preconceptions associated with the composer, including his involvement with Les Six... Kelly's study represents an impressive reassessment of Milhaud's contribution to French music and should be deemed essential reading for all scholars of the period.' Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft