The Audience Returns at Mills College

Last year, due to pandemic conditions, the annual Darius Milhaud Concert was live-streamed from the Jeannik Méquet Littlefield Concert Hall on the campus of Mills College. Last night this year’s Milhaud Concert again took place in Littlefield. Again the entire program was live-streamed; but this time there was a difference: there was also an audience in the Hall. Indeed, this was the first time an audience was allowed to attend a performance since lockdown restrictions were imposed.

All eight of the selections were solo performances, thus obviating any concerns about distancing on stage. (The live-stream gave no sign of where members of the audience were sitting.) The music alternated between compositions by Milhaud and those of other former Mills faculty composers. Each of the Milhaud selections was written for a different instrument. In “order of appearance,” the selections were as follows:

1. Ségoviana, Opus 366, performed by guitarist David Tanenbaum
2. Sonatina pastorale, Opus 383, performed by violinist Kate Stenberg
3. The four Romances sans paroles, Opus 129, performed by pianist Belle Bulwinkle
4. The Opus 437 sonata performed by harpist Jennifer Ellis

The concluding harp sonata was one of Milhaud’s last compositions, and his opus count ended at 443.

All of the works by other faculty composers were written for percussion and performed by William Winant. As might be guessed, one of those composers was Lou Harrison. “Solo to Anthony Cirone” was composed in 1972 and involved one of the first of the “American Gamelan” instruments invented and constructed by Harrison, working with his partner William Colvig. Winant also observed that he played on one of the last of the instruments developed by Harrison and Colvig, the Ptolemy Duple:

William Winant playing the Ptolemy Duple (screen shot from video of last night’s performance)

Chris Brown recently completed “Epimorphic Quiverings” for this instrument, encouraged to do so by Winant.

The other single-instrument percussion composition was Roscoe Mitchell’s “Bells for New Orleans.” This was written in 2005 for a book of music entitled SUMMIT: Compositions for Unaccompanied Orchestra Bells, compiled by Sylvia Smith. Mitchell’s contribution was written for the people who suffered (and continue to suffer) the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina. “Bells for New Orleans” was first performed at a San Francisco Contemporary Music Players concert in February of 2009.

The first of Winant’s offerings was the only one to involve multiple instruments. This was Alvin Curran’s “Theme Park – Part IV,” composed in 1995. The composition was dominated by a single pitch class played at different octave levels. While this could have been imaginatively playful, the extent of the composer’s imagination was more limited than one might have wished, making this the only work in the program likely to leave the listener restless and wondering when it would conclude.

This was a particularly sharp contrast, since Milhaud was a master of brevity. Only Opus 437 approached the more extended durations of a three-movement sonata. However, that length seems to have emerged from Milhaud’s desire to explore the many ways in which harp sonorities and phrases differ so distinctively from those of other instruments. There was very much a sense that Opus 437 was conceived as a journey of discovery in which Milhaud intended to share each of his discoveries with the attentive listener.