Zadel Skolovsky, a Forgotten Virtuoso, Plays Milhaud

Today, two fascinating pieces by the French composer Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) - his popular and influential suite "Saudades do Brasil," in its original form for solo piano, and the Piano Concerto No. 4, in its first recording.

The pianist is Zadel Skolovsky, who commissioned the concerto and premiered it in 1949 with Charles Munch and the Boston Symphony. Milhaud himself conducts this recording, made with the French National Radio Orchestra in 1950.

Zadel Skolovsky

Skolovsky made very few recordings, but deserves to be remembered. In his autobiography, Milhaud termed him "an astonishing virtuoso," and so he shows himself to be in the performance of the concerto. The composer also was enthusiastic about Skolovsky's playing in the solo suite, telling the New York Times in 1952 that "This is the first time I've heard them played exactly as I want them to be done. I had to wait 40 years" [actually 30 - the suite dates from 1920-21].

Some background on the pianist. Born in Vancouver in 1916, he moved to LA at a young age. He studied at the Curtis Institute with Isabella Vengerova, later working as her assistant, and also took lessons from Leopold Godowsky. Skolovsky won the Naumburg Competition in 1939, which launched an active concert career; the download includes New York Times reviews dating from 1939 to 1968. He became a professor at Indiana University in 1975, and was professor emeritus from 1987. He died in Bethesda, Maryland in 2009.

Judging from the information on the Classical Discography site, the two Columbia LPs are the extent of Skolovsky's commercial recordings, with the exception of a 1955 Philips recording of Gershwin's Three Preludes, which I've been unable to locate. Those interested in the artist may want to check into a live performance of the Prokofiev Second Concerto with Munch and the NYPO that is available on the Laureate Conductor blog.

Darius Milhaud

Milhaud was an immensely prolific composer. The opposite of the tortured artist, music just poured out of him. He was a discipline of Erik Satie, and like that composer, he was influential in his time. "Saudades do Brasil," with its use of tango rhythms to portray the different districts of Rio de Janeiro (where Milhaud had a diplomatic post in 1917-18), has pre-echoes of both Copland and Gershwin in its songfulness and use of popular idioms.

In a 1948 article in the Saturday Review, Copland confessed that, "I became a Milhaud fan back in the early Twenties, when the composer was considered the enfant terrible of French music." Although Copland was writing about Milhaud's First Symphony in that article, his comments relate to the Piano Concerto as well: "Milhaud has a particular aptitude for suggesting the complexities of modern life, even at times embroiling himself in musical complexities." The concerto is at once dissonant and melodic, unruly and serene. Skolovsky's remarkable performance provides the thread that ties all these strands together.

Milhaud in action

For this post, I've combined the cleanest sections from my LP and a transfer found on Internet Archive. The sound is excellent in the "Saudades do Brasil," and the piano tone is good in the concerto, which favors Skolovsky's instrument over the orchestral backing. (Just as well; the band is raucous or wooly, depending on the section.) The Saudades recording comes from 1951.

The download includes reviews of the record from the New York Times, American Record Guide, the New Records, the Saturday Review and High Fidelity. Previous posts of Milhaud's music can be found here.