Milhaud composed his Quartet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Piano immediately after finishing his Fourth String Quartet while working in Rio de Janeiro. It was completed in 1918. Although he would write many pieces inspired by Brazilian music when he returned to Paris, this work has little or nothing Brazilian about it. He called it Sonata, but it is really a true quartet for winds and piano. The opening movement, Tranquille, is akin to a pastorale, with the main theme presented over a droning accompaniment. Eventually, each instrument is given different characteristic passages. There are vague echoes of Ravel. The second movement, titled Joyeux, is more lively and dominated by the use of trills. Next is a movement by Milhaud titled Emporte, which can be variously translated as hot-tempered or blown away. This is a heavily discordant movement, very polytonal. The final movement, also with a title, Douloureux, is as the title suggests, rather dolorous, sad, and a bit funereal.
Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) was born in the French city of Marseille. He studied composition at the Paris Conservatory with Charles-Marie Widor and became a member of the so-called "Les Six", a group of modernist French composers who were active during the first part of the 20th century. During the course of his long career, he frequently traveled abroad, sometimes for pleasure, sometimes from necessity. During the First World War, Milhaud served as secretary to the French ambassador to Brazil. During the Second World War, he moved to America during the Nazi occupation of France. The sights and sounds of the cultures he saw always interested him. In his music, one often hears the sounds of Brazilian dances and American music, but also the “modern” trends of French music during the 1910s and 1920s.
Though he was not a member of the so-called Les Six, French pioneering composers who during the first decades of the 20th century, were on the cutting edge of what was then new, this work nonetheless resembles what they were about.
