Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) was one of the most prolific and varied musical stylists among the modernists, and he established his reputation through being a member of the cosmopolitan group of French composers, Les Six. Having served during WWI as an attaché in Rio de Janeiro and visited the United States in the 1920s, Milhaud adopted an open attitude to using folk music and jazz in his compositions. Notable for their piquant jazz sonorities and biting polytonality, La création du monde and Le boeuf sur la toit were two of Milhaud's most scandalous ballets, but later became his most popular works.