A short analysis of Segoviana by D. Milhaud

3.“SEGOVIANA’’ by Darius Milhaud, (as part of the Master recital of Ioannis Efstathopoulos) 3.1 Intro Darius Milhaud, one of the 20th century’s most prolific composers, belongs historically to the “elite” of French intellectuals and composers who, loosely bonded by their initial embrace of Jean Cocteau’s antisentimental aesthetic ideas, as well as by their allegiance to composer Erik Satie’s spiritual-musical tutelage, were known as “Les Six”. Milhaud belongs as well to the significant number of European Jewish émigré composers who took refuge in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s due to the rise of Nazism. He studied in the Paris Conservatory with Leroux and Paul Dukas. Then he spent two years in Brazil (1917-1919)in the secretarial post of the French Consular Mission, where he was inspired by the native folk rhythms and ethnic music traditions. Later he turned his interest to jazz that he encountered in London in early 1920s and after during a tour in USA in 1922-1923 where he was visiting the Harlem dance halls. During the second war and the French occupation he immigrated to USA and after the war he split his time between Paris and California. 3.2 Segoviana He composed “Segoviana” op. 366 in 1957, hommage to Andres Segovia. Milhaud didn’t see any respond from the guitarist and for that reason was not encouraged to compose more for guitar. However one of the most famous students of Segovia did the premiere in discography in 1996, Eliot Fisk. 3.3 Preparatory work 3.3.1 Memorization One of the major problems that I had to face with this piece was the memorization. Although it is a quite short piece with duration only 4-5 minutes it has complicated form and is impossible to understand it without making a deep analysis of the themes. Thema: we can say that thema is the first seven bars, as we have a complete phrase, which finishes with the primary chord. Milhaud was famous for his polytonality and

in this piece this harmonic technic is very clear. For that reason in the theme we have two separate lines, which are separated clearly by the different scale and the different character. The first one is really solid theme and it could be a theme for the begging of a symphony. After putting the first melodic line to one octave we conclude that it is in the bars: 1,2,4,half 6 and 7 1st line:

In order to show the beginning chord as principal and separate it I chose to play it in arpeggiated form in a specific way whenever was appearing through the piece. The second line is more recitativo, moves down and it has always a fast passage, which goes around a main note and gives Spanish character to the piece. Precisly we have bars:3,5 half 6 2nd line:

The fast notes can be played in a lot of ways. This that I chose was as more legatos (guitaristic) as possible and in order to make Spanish phrasing and have a natural rubato. Form: after finding the themes and depending on how many times we find them I concluded that there are three parts in these two pages:

A: 1-25 A’: 26-48 Coda: 49-end

In the second exposition (A’) we have the same chords(line 1st) but the second line is built in a G major scale now.

In the end(Coda) we have the theme with first line in contra rhythm and minor key, while the second line starts with extended turn around the main note and is variated in the end. Continuing in the end we see the first line of the diminution of the theme.

After a long time of practicing what I did more to fix it in my mind, except the analysis, was to rewrite the piece in the paper without touching the instrument. This technic shows where your memory has gaps and helps you to realize which parts are learned only by your fingers and not moving consciously.

3.3.2 Colors and character Another difficulty of this work was the character and the phrasing of the motifs. The piece is consisted mainly by slow poetic lines interrupted by very fast figures, creating a big contrast and needs a lot of art and to try to use all the colors of the guitar. Although I focused a lot, practicing separately the themes it was easy to make finally a piece with many abstracts and not a piece with good flue.

- In order to make the correct phrasing we could put all the fast notes to the same octave. For example: Bar.23:

-One other tip to help to find the right character would be if we were doing orchestration and we were separating the motifs to other instruments. For example this theme could by given to a brass instrument and probably to trumpets.

-Or

we

can

see

the

harmonic

role

of

the

(V-I)

in

this

motif:

3.3.3 Tempo The title of the piece doesn’t give us a view about how to perform but the notice on the left “avec fantasie” can make us understood that is quite free. For me the one of the most important keys to the work became to really let every note sound .There is so much information within the two pages the piece fits into that there is really no need to rush anything. The written suggested tempo:84 as the quarter is rather fast and it can make you fall in the difficulties to play perfect all the different rhythmical notations and not to present the music and the plenty characters. I tried to be strict in the tempo when the theme was presented in order to keep the form. Also when it was written rubato by itself and in the end that there is the diminution of the theme in double (the written rubato)

On the other hand the fast passages needed a bit more freedom, more legato and light playing so to define the palette of colors 3.4 Additional approach Furthermore, I would like to mention that except for playing this piece, I worked more with the compositions of Milhaud transcribing for my “applied harmony” task, some pieces from the piano piece “Saudades do Brazil”. This was written much earlier and after his return from Brazil. Although these are quite impressionistic and rhythmically influenced by Brazilian folk music, they show completely the bitonal technic which is the step before polytonality. After transcribing and focusing more in his way of composing it was easier for me to locate here the different tonalities. To sum up I would like to add that Milhaud participated in a short film of Hans Richter in 1928 called “Vormittagspuk” which means Ghosts before breakfast. The Naszis as “degenerate” art destroyed this film partly, in the sound part but it stills exist the video and is shows completely the atmosphere of this period and also appears the figure in some moments the figure of Milhaud.