{"id":310,"date":"2020-03-03T01:15:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T07:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/?p=310"},"modified":"2020-03-03T01:18:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T07:18:49","slug":"310","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/2020\/03\/03\/310\/","title":{"rendered":"A Glimpse of Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A strong supporter of modern music, Paul Collaer, musicologist and musician, spent a considerable span of his professional life giving lecture-recitals on the works of his contemporaries. He created the Pro Arte concerts in Brussels to further promote the music he dedicated so much to, was a director of Belgian Radio, and was acquainted with many of the subjects of his works, including Darius Milhaud. This personal relationship shows plainly through his biography on Milhaud,<a class=\"sdfootnoteanc\" href=\"#sdfootnote1sym\" name=\"sdfootnote1anc\"><sup>1<\/sup><\/a> which speaks of the composer in venerating terms. To Collaer, Milhaud&#8217;s music spoke &#8220;eternal truths&#8221;<a class=\"sdfootnoteanc\" href=\"#sdfootnote2sym\" name=\"sdfootnote2anc\"><sup>2<\/sup><\/a> with a solidified and unwavering style. Certainly he sought to preserve his friend&#8217;s legacy in the best light, but the breadth of his examination is useful as a catalogue of Milhaud&#8217;s work and glimpse into his life. After some introduction to the composer&#8217;s background and some general ideas of compositional techniques and trends, Collaer investigates his works in remarkable breadth. Though few pieces are given extensive treatment, their musicological examination in the context provided here yields fertile grounds for later researchers.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Darius Milhaud - Saudades do Brasil (1920)\" width=\"580\" height=\"326\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zZanU1ZaN6k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Besides deep appreciation for Milhaud, there are clear elements of French nationalism running through Collaer&#8217;s account, despite his Belgian nationality. From his descriptions of the Greece-like countryside of Milhaud&#8217;s home, Proven\u00e7e, to his denigration of German composition, Collaer&#8217;s personal biases as a researcher are apparent. That aside, there is useful scholarly discussion going on in the book. For one, Collaer claims that Milhaud is underappreciated in France, as much a political statement as a musicological one and one that makes the otherwise obfuscating nationalism elsewhere in the book useful as a primary source to refine understanding how Milhaud fits with other composers of the period. He also develops some of the same arguments Milhaud uses in his writing,<a class=\"sdfootnoteanc\" href=\"#sdfootnote3sym\" name=\"sdfootnote3anc\"><sup>3<\/sup><\/a> referring to a global Mediterranean as a desirable source of inspiration.<\/p>\n<p>Collaer argues that Milhaud&#8217;s work was deeply meaningful and deeply French, and heavily inspired by both his homeland and the tradition of Greek simplicity throughout the world. Like many other nationalistic arguments of the time, his is not supported empirically, but rather through reasoning and by standing upon the arguments of his peers. But especially for the purposes of discerning the details of the daily lives of Milhaud and others and getting some sense of the man&#8217;s ideas and personality, and how they might come out in his work, the biography is useful.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"sdfootnote1\">\n<p class=\"sdfootnote\"><a class=\"sdfootnotesym\" href=\"#sdfootnote1anc\" name=\"sdfootnote1sym\">1<\/a> Collaer, Paul. <em>Darius Milhaud, <\/em>trans. Jane Galante. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1988.<\/p>\n<div id=\"sdfootnote2\">\n<p class=\"sdfootnote\"><a class=\"sdfootnotesym\" href=\"#sdfootnote2anc\" name=\"sdfootnote2sym\">2<\/a> Ibid., pg. 9.<\/p>\n<div id=\"sdfootnote3\">\n<p class=\"sdfootnote\"><a class=\"sdfootnotesym\" href=\"#sdfootnote3anc\" name=\"sdfootnote3sym\">3<\/a> Milhaud, Darius. 1923. \u201cThe Evolution of Modern Music in Paris and in Vienna.\u201d <em>The North American Review 217, no. 809, 544-554.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A strong supporter of modern music, Paul Collaer, musicologist and musician, spent a considerable span of his professional life giving lecture-recitals on the works of his contemporaries. He created the Pro Arte concerts in Brussels to further promote the music he dedicated so much to, was a director of Belgian Radio, and was acquainted with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,4,40],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-darius-milhaud","tag-nationalism","tag-paul-collaer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2031"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/performinghistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}