Rarely can I tell a personal story regarding a composer as wonderful as Milhaud.  This story was told to me by a close friend of Milhaud, Charles Jones, who was also my counterpoint teacher and close friend for many years.  I never met Milhaud but knew his wife Madeline through Charles when she would visit his home on 58th street between 1st and 2nd Avenues in New York.

Charles Jones had made gifts of identical metronomes one year in the early 1940’s to both Igor Stravinsky and Darius Milhaud. Their beautiful silver art nouveau cases were gracefully inlaid with silver and ebony. Each swinging pendulum was ornately designed and had a wonderful "click' as it swung back and forth to the various rhythms it was asked to keep. Charles had also purchased one for himself.

Knowing Stravinsky’s personality, Charles told me, he was sure the composer would go home and check the accuracy of the metronome against his very good Swiss watch. And sure enough, when Stravinsky got home he checked it against the watch and found that, although the case was extraordinary, the metronome was slow and inaccurate. In his usual kindly manner, Stravinsky wrote a note thanking Charles for the gift, saying that, although it did not keep time well, the case was a wonderful decorative piece, and he would display it proudly.

Milhaud on the other hand was far less worried about the accuracy of such details and, instead of checking the metronome, began to use it for his own compositions. These included his Quatre Visages for viola and piano, composed in 1945-46. I was performing these works as the pianist when I took them to Charles to ask why the metronome markings were so quick and whether Milhaud had really intended them to be performed at the designated tempi.  Charles laughed and then began to relate the story. For years, he told me, performers of Milhaud’s music after the mid 1940’s had difficulty understanding why the metronome markings were so fast. They are nearly impossible to play. It wasn’t until many years later that Milhaud realized that the metronome was inaccurate.  All of the compositions written from the mid 1940’s through the late 1950’s were published with incorrect metronome markings, and Milhaud never attempted to correct them.  

 The story is one of those rare anecdotes that never make it into the history books.  I’m only too grateful to be able to share it now as part of history.

Regarding the story behind the Quatre Visages, I quote from "The Viola Music of Darius Milhaud' by Kenneth Martinson who interviewed Madeline in Paris about Milhaud’s viola music.

"On January 8, 1998, I met with Madeline Milhaud at her apartment in Paris to discuss the history of the viola works of her late husband, Darius Milhaud. We began by talking about the three works for viola and piano that were dedicated to Germain Prévost in 1944. Prévost was the founding violist of the Pro Arte Quartet, the world's longest standing quartet (founded in 1919) which has been in residence at the UW-Madison for over 50 years. These works were all premiered at the UW-Madison in 1944 and are of particular interest to me since Madison is where I grew up and first studied the viola. Excerpts from the conversations I had with Mrs. Milhaud in regards to these works appear below:

 Martinson: How did Darius and Germain Prévost meet?

Mrs. Milhaud: In 1919 or 1920, Darius was invited for some concerts in Brussels by a very good musician and musicologist, Paul Collaer, who was also a professor in chemistry. Later on he became the director of the Belgian radio. Over the years, Darius became extremely friendly with him. He happened to go to Brussels from that moment on very often. Darius met several other players, and amongst them, the members of what will become the Pro Arte Quartet. Of course at that time, they were moneyless, and they made money as they could, playing in cafes or movie theaters, or that type of thing. But very soon, they were really known as a quartet. They were marvelous musicians, and they had that exceptional quartet quality that they played classical music as well as they did contemporary music. So that is absolutely sure. Darius was very fond of them, and he organized their first concert in Paris. And I think they were very thankful for that. Later they went to America, and it is thanks to Mrs. Coolidge who sponsored their first year in the states. They became really more or less the quartet of Mrs. Coolidge as long as they were all four alive.

'So when Onnou, the 1st violin died, Germain Prévost, the viola player, who was extremely sentimental, commissioned works in order to celebrate the memory of Onnou. For a certain time, they were able to play with someone else in the space. Germain then played for the movies, and as a gentleman, was extremely fond of women. That's one of the reasons why Milhaud gave to the piece the "Four Faces" or the "Four Characters", one from Brussels, one from Paris, one from Wisconsin' and one from California!

 "Martinson: So are these definitely women that Darius knew?

'Mrs. Milhaud: Oh, they are pure imagination, not like Mr. Clinton [laughter]- musicians are more discreet.

'Martinson: In the 3 works for viola and piano (Sonata No. 1, Sonata No. 2, Quatre Visages), did Germain Prévost make any requests of Darius as far as the style of the pieces was concerned, or were the styles completely Darius's idea?

'Mrs. Milhaud: They were completely Darius's ideas. Milhaud was a studied violinist and violist since he was a child. I think he knew far more than anybody did. He would ask for assistance if he needed as he did in the concerto for harmonica. Then, of course, if he wasn't sure' and in this case he liked to know how far he could go with it. But I think for violin, cello, and viola, he was quite all right. And I think also his teacher, when he was 11 or 12 years old, took him in a quartet as a 2nd violin. He studied and sight-read all classical quartets, and discovered the Debussy quartet. For him it was absolutely a revelation. So I have the impression that work was a grand influence. It did have a great influence on Milhaud and was one of the reasons why he wrote so much chamber music.

 "Martinson: About the 1st sonate, the tunes which are used sound very "Milhaud-like", I'm not sure if it is the tunes, or if it is in the accompaniment, but I was wondering if you think he used often these kinds of borrowed tunes in his other music?

'Mrs. Milhaud: Milhaud was not against the fact of using a folk tune, or old tunes, as long as one kept one's freedom and one's personality. Of course, that's what Stravinsky did, and how many other composers did it in the past? So he considered that he was absolutely free to do whatever he liked with those tunes, and sometimes he made a sort of 'salad' with 18 tunes or 20 tunes--he loved to do that! In the Bruxelloise movement of the Quatre Visages, there are a few notes of the national anthem of Belgium. He quotes that in the Quatre Visages. It is a sort of [she winks] when you do this. . . but nobody knows that.