Le boeuf sur le toit

Some 15 minutes of infectious, rough-and-tumble joy, The Ox on the Roof (as it translates) was planned by Milhaud to accompany a silent film but got diverted into music for a short, surrealist ballet—staged in 1920 by Jean Cocteau with designs by Raoul Dufy. An all-star Parisian collaboration. Summed up at the time as “pleasantly devoid of meaning,” the scenario was a riotous celebration of disorder. But the music, though robustly upbeat with the syncopated rhythms of Brazil (where Milhaud had been living), holds together with more discipline—based on the French-Baroque form of a “rondeau.” A repeating motif, sounding South American but actually Milhaud’s own invention, alternates with genuinely Latin dances: tango, samba, and the like. Originally scored for chamber orchestra, the piece lives on in varied instrumental adaptations. And its name lives on too—borrowed by a famous cabaret in Paris that repaid the debt by giving Milhaud free life-membership.