La création du monde

The Jazz Age came to Paris in the early 1920s, as did an infatuation with what was considered the “primitive” energy of African culture: these two things fed into Milhaud’s small but seminal ballet La création du monde which established a prototype for “classical jazz” when it premiered in 1923—the year before Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. With a scenario drawn from African folk myths about the origins of life on Earth, the 16-minute score has a transparently lean orchestration that reflects the makeup of cabaret ensembles Milhaud had heard in New York’s Harlem. Alto sax and drum-kit feature prominently. But the writing fuses old and new styles, starting with a Baroque-style Prelude and Fugue that depict the beginnings of time in strangely funereal terms. It then moves on to Provençal shepherd songs—though always transformed by the syncopated rhythms, blue-note riffs and improvisatory feel of jazz: Milhaud’s obsession at the time, and an enduring influence on his creative output.